off season bunny runnin?

[scottb]

anyone run wabbits in the offseason? if so what are the plusses and minuses that have come out of it. hoping to hear some 1st hand experience. have run coons in the past but stopped that b/c it seems to make the dogs dumb when going back to cat. i gotta think the way a hare runs would be a lot better training. i know folks do this with pups but curious if anyone does it with adult dogs. thanks in advance!

[david]

Scott, good to see your name on here. Hopefully the river came down enough by now for you to get out there and pretend you are enjoying babysitting old guys like me flailing a fly rod around : ). I don't qualify to make a post here because I never used bunnies except for pups. I am glad you asked though and will be paying close attention. I have a few jacks where I am, and have wondered about trying cat bred dogs on them.

I don't know how I could have coaxed my older dogs to take a wascally wabbit. Even the dogs who grew up tormenting them every day. They showed absolutely no interest in them after cats. If you decide to do it, please keep me posted. If there is anyone who could figure out how to get them going on the hare, I'm sure you could do it. .. Maybe a cat scent soaked burlap flap hangin over the entrance to their favorite culvert:). And then a tray of it on the bottom of the culvert, with a sign that says "free mosquito repellent for bunnies".

You could even put a little mosquito repellent in the cat scent just for truth In advertising.

[scottb]

Always good to have a real oil magnate chime in !!!! hahahaha!!!! The rivers are day to day right now. was just thinking that rabbits are legal and are pretty darn close to a bobcat race just scaled down. great way to train a pack out of season since the handler can be in the middle of it most of the time, correcting for barking out of place, seeing who is doing what, and even working out some track style issues on loses. might be a good way for folks who cannot cat hunt year round to keep their pack tuned. might also be a full scale train wreck come cat season. just wondering is all

[NorWester]

I'm sure this will cause an uproar but the big hounds I tried on snowshoe hare were either too rough or just didn't have enough nose power.
And I tried a few too in an effort to gain the advantage of height in deep powder snow.

Scott, curious how you would manage to work out "track style" losses and correct the barking out of place?

[scottb]

NorWester, thanks for the response. Was thinking that since you could run multiple snowshoes each outing and see the game relatively often while keeping a bead on the hounds, the opportunity to lightly shock/tone dogs accordingly would be available. Example...critter sits, turns hard then rolls out. if a dog hangs up on the corner or over runs and keeps barking the handler can respond with the tritronics. my thought was i can get the dogs on hundreds of snowshoes but only 25-50 bobber tracks a season. have had results training on track with 2 dogs at a time but the dynamic has changed with more dogs. simple math is hundreds of training sessions/experience is better than a few dozen a year.

[NorWester]

Scott, I think...depending on just how rough your pack will run a hare and of course how the hare itself out that way runs, your e-collar unit is gonna get wore out.
In my experience the way you correct issues like the ones you mentioned is to get dogs that run clean (er). In your case that's likely not an option as you're after cat hounds that will run a hare not hare hounds that run cats.
When my interest first peaked with hounds I had illusions of grandeur about being a great cat hunter, then maybe just a good coon hunter..and then perhaps a fair bear hunter. When those options were clearly not gonna work out I came a similar conclusion that you have....all these hare around and I can actually afford to hunt/run them every day virtually all year long.... it wasn't a tough decision.

That all said....if you manage to get it to work somehow I'd be interested in hearing more. The e-collar system in the right hands is a great equalizer.

[scottb]

Good input...thanks. Not attempting to be a great cat hunter by running rabbits...would guess you have to run more cats to do that. Good to hear your experience. If a guys is in a place where he can't run cats all year, commits to make the dogs he has the best they can be, likes to work the dogs year round, does not want to run coon or bear, then why not run the wily hare? Might be a good option for lots of folks. Might also be the dumbest idea in hound doggin history.
Have taken the dogs out 4x in the past week on hares. easy to find em here. had to hiss the dogs into the first few and they would only run them for a bit then stop. they ran 2 pretty hard for a few miles on gps and i was able to get in the middle and observe and make a few corrections. have found a couple new cat crossings and scratches in the process. beats keeping hounds on a chain... hope this gives some good laughs!!

[NorWester]

Good deal! Just curious, what kind of numbers did your pack put up on the Garmin? (miles ran, mph, total time on the ground, etc, etc )

No laughing here....sounds like you're gettin your hounds in the woods and havin fun.

[scottb]

Good question! i will try to remember to keep track of that and report back to ya. don't always reset the garmin each day out and definately not between races, roading, etc. be interesting to know for sure. my prediction.... 1.5mph for 20 min hahaha. i dont get the feeling they would stick with a hare for hours on end that they wont catch like they have on a cat in the rocks or blow downs.

[BIGBLUES]

Hey scotty try up ambrose. There is a ton of rabbits and good running country up there. Might end up with some other chases but it would be fun. Give me a call if you wanna go sometime I have a couple wheelers we can take.