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Yes Tim, the dog has to have the right stuff and so does the handler and trainer! Never short change the man or woman behind the dogs........

ike

Very good point Tim,

I will disagree with snow vs. dirt in regards to lion hunting as far as what kind of hound it takes. Before I get myself in a pissing match with anyone I will explain snow has its advantages by far over dirt for (1) you as a hunter can follow that track whether or not your hounds can smell it. (2) You can age a track and have an idea of when the track was made gauged off the last snow fall. (3) The best snow trailing hounds learn to use their eyes as much as their nose. (4) Though below zero temperature can be grueling on hunter and hound heat it a true killer. (5) Braking dogs off, off game as you can see what they are running. That being said I will say that snow has its own set of challenges. (1) Wind drifted tracks. (2) Froze down tracks (3) melted out south slopes (4) the hunters ability to get around.
Dirt hunting is based on getting a strike and the hounds putting enough distance on it before conditions change and the race is over. If you have the desire to come home empty handed but still feel satisfied with what happened then you have the makings of a good dirt hunter and if your hounds have the desire to do the same, day in and day out with out trashing then they have the makings of a good dirt hound. You and your hounds Got to know that you are going to catch. If that’s not what you’re willing to do, stay with fast track game and have fun with that. I have seen people make a set of snow hounds in one season I haven’t seen the same happen with bare ground lion hounds. That’s the basics and what I feel based on my own experience.

sourdough

here is my thought, i have good hounds.. but they are not great. i know this because i have owned great hounds, seen great hounds and hunted with some great hounds others have owned!!! but, i also catch a fair amount of game with so so dogs because i understand hound hunting and can make good dogs look great. it takes a lot more effort to do this and the question is if u have the ambithion to make good dogs great. that rilly seperates the men from the boys when it comes to hound hunting.

just look at all the great hound hunters in the history of the sport... they are remembered as great hunters because they had a good hunting instinct and they allways cought game.... no matter if there best dog was injured or got killed. they new how to make hounds produce consistently and they just worked a little harder till there dogs started picking up the slack......

so when u compare dry dround hounds to snow hounds just think of this... i take fast hot trailing bear dogs to UT all the time and do catch some lions in dry conditions but i work my but off to do so. i think a well rounded hound is a greater asset then a snow or dirt only dog.

Brianshounds posted

so when u compare dry dround hounds to snow hounds just think of this... i take fast hot trailing bear dogs to UT all the time and do catch some lions in dry conditions but i work my but off to do so. i think a well rounded hound is a greater asset then a snow or dirt only dog.


I couldn't agree more Brian, these type hounds are definatly a greater asset to you , and the game you hunt. I think you probably have a lot better dogs than you think if you can take them from running hot bears in Idaho to Southern, Utah and catch dry ground lions all the time. Most people's dogs mine included can't do that.

I have watched this post for awhile and being I am not a dry ground hunter all I can say is it cant be done in my area with great out comes as when our season is on conditions dont alow for dry ground hunting , (frozen gound) and cold temps make scent conditions crapy. I have tried for years I have even had a hard time in a sciff of snow some days running a bobcat. Is it my dogs NO they have been shipped all over the country and had great success as dry ground hounds. I own one of the most well known dry ground dogs of this era and he can not catch a cold, let alone a bobcat in our area dry ground. Yes there is the exception to that as I have cought on dry ground before but not on a regular basis. I have had top bobcat dogs that have came from the west coast that are top dry ground and strike dogs in that area come here find a smokin hot bobcat track in the snow and that dog does not even know it was there! Now remember we hunt here from Dec. through April and for the most part are hunting frozen conditions. I guess if I was to walk every ridge and canyon with the dogs until they litterally jumped the cat I could catch a few with no snow but to me that is not dry grounding that is jumping them from thier bed. I would sure like someone to offer to bring thier dry ground strike dogs and prove me wrong in my area. So I guess what I am saying is the dog has to have it breed into them but also it needs to be TAUGHT to hunt that kind of conditions and the conditions have to alow the dog to be able smell what they are running. later, Andy

I had a guy from Texas telephone me some years back claiming he runs down and killed sixty to eighty bobcats a year down there, and I'm reasonably sure it was in the dirt. Don't know whether I wrote his name down or not, but I'll look one of these times and see if I did. Personally, I don't believe a person could find eighty different bobcats in the areas I hunt over the course of an entire winter. I believe he talked about roading dogs until they struck fresh and then finishing them, and maybe even at night? don't know for sure. If there is anybody out there catching old bobcat tracks in the dirt on a consistent level they are doing something that I've never witnessed from a hound.........

But I don't hunt bobcats and seldom let my dogs stay on one's tracks, that is unless I'm in the mood....

ike

how old is old, ike?

One thing that I've learned about hunting and catching is very few of us know much about the conditions others deal with pegleg. Example: there are areas I hunt that a good hound will catch a bobcat in, and in those same areas a lion doesn't have a chance if it's not a couple days gone. However, there are rock-piles in my area that no hound or man (living or dead) can claim they consistently catch bobcats in....and even a fresh lion can escape from lots of people from time to time. Therefore, to talk age of a track and what to expect as far as catching goes is a futile effort in my opinion.

I heard a story about a guy from back east that moved here in the early sixties to work on the Flamming Gorge Dam. My buddy told me that guy brought two black and tan hounds with him from Virginia and hunted them on bobcats. That buddy of mine claimed the man didn't even have a truck, but instead placed his hounds in the trunk and threw them down to hunt afoot up Near Manila. He claims that fellow ran down and killed twenty-five or thirty bobcats his first winter. Now that sounds pretty damn impressive to me but was he trapping to? was he hunting the rocks or flats? was he hunting the fresh snow or some open ground? or maybe was he a pretty tough hunter with some pretty good hounds? One thing for sure is I'll never know cause he's no longer with us..........

keep'em treed,
ike

Not to get off subject but I cant resist after reading Ike's last post.

Also hear these storys of guys who catch large #'s of bobs, funny thing is Ive never met one. Next time your at the DWR getting permanent tags on your hides, just look in their log book and see if anyone is turning in cats caught with hounds. Last time I checked hides in the lady flipped through several pages, probably over 200 entrys, and everything I saw was trapped. She even acted surprised when I told her they were caught with hounds.

As far as catching any bobs on dry ground, can a guy do it? sure. But its flat sh$t @ss luck out here.

ike so many people say something can't be done cause they haven't seen it but that doesn't mean anything in my book. there's some pretty unbelievable stuff happening around the world every day. you say your hounds can strike a old lion track from the truck ok by me I won't swear either way. I think thats what makes hounds so valuable to us they adjust to about anything we through at them and go ahead and work with what they have. off subject but it's a wonder the orientals get anything done. I hate eaten till i can't move then by the time you get outa town your hungry again. must be the lack of protein in the Chinese food or something.

Apparently these guys can catch 300+ in a year in the dirt! Do I think it could be done where I live? Probably not...But, read the posts

viewtopic.php?f=72&t=13736

pegleg wrote:ike so many people say something can't be done cause they haven't seen it but that doesn't mean anything in my book. there's some pretty unbelievable stuff happening around the world every day. you say your hounds can strike a old lion track from the truck ok by me I won't swear either way.

I certainly would not say it were not possible for someone in Texas or Kansas to run down a hundred to three hundred bobcats per year cause I have no knowledge of the game number or conditions they face. I will once again say, however, no one in these parts are doing that or there would be data to prove it. I drive lots of roads during the snow months and our bobcat population is very poor, damn poor. And like I said, if a man killed three hundred bobcats around here he'd wipe out the entire population in some areas!

A handful of trappers will thin out the bobers where I live in no time, and anybody with eyes can see that in the snow. Like I said, I don't hunt bobcats very much but seldom if ever drive past a track without making a mental note of it. I've watched the limit go from eight (8) to six (6) to four (4) bobcats a year in my state and we have fewer cats now than we've ever had in my memory. If a man claimed he runs down 300 bobcats a year around here I would have to call him a lair!

As for hounds rigging lion tracks and older scratches, I realize that many of you probably think it's bullshit. But like they say, the proof is in the eating of the puddin and I eat a little puddin from time to time. And like I've said, I hunt off the rig this time of year and my dogs will roar a lion track from the truck just as hard as they do bear. It is possible to drive over a lion track without a rig, but most of those aren't worth putting down on in my opinion.

ike

Ike that was interesting about that guy with the black and tans catching those cats up by the Gorge. I really think that back in the 60's it might have been possible with a good pair of dogs and legs. One reason is the 1080 coyote poisen program was still intact and all the sheepmen on both sided of the Green had really had them working hard on the coyotes. So the bobcats who are seldom bothered by this poisen becasue they hunt fresh kills really boomed. I recall those days in Montana going home from school only a little over 4 miles out to our place from the little town but it was odd if it was near dusk not to see a bobcat and usually several before we got home. Cottontails were abundant and my vermin dog Pinky and I treed several bobcats while out hunting rabbits. Tracks were all over the place.

But back to Flaming Gorge: in 1977-78 I hunted a great deal on both sides of the dam but only on the Wyoming side. I had one good seasoned black and tan coon hound and two started walkers one Finley river bred and the other out of Rolling Hills Dan. I started out slow and this was when snow was on the ground but before the first winter was over I had run a number of cats and actually caught and skinned 8. I thought that was pretty bad becasue in Montana my mentor there routinely caught 30-50 cats a winter but he hunted all the time. The next year I started earlier and before the snows huting from La Barge all the way back down the Green to the Utah line. Most cats were bayed in lava rock piles but by this time the two walkers were really out doing the old black dog on cats and they helped me skin 12 that season. Coyotes were back during those days but there was still a pretty good number of cats especially hanging in the rocky hillsides above the cottonwood bottoms on the Green. I moves to Vernal later that year and never hunted up there again so I don't know how it is today. I sure never saw any other hunters up there but when I moved to Vernal it seemed there was hound pens behind about half the houses in town. LOL!

I certainly would not say it were not possible for someone in Texas or Kansas to run down a hundred to three hundred bobcats per year cause I have no knowledge of the game number or conditions they face. I will once again say, however, no one in these parts are doing that or there would be data to prove it. I drive lots of roads during the snow months and our bobcat population is very poor, damn poor. And like I said, if a man killed three hundred bobcats around here he'd wipe out the entire population in some areas!

i know some guys on the kansas/oklahoma line that easily catch 100+ but they kill very few and they have some top notch dogs. they hunt mostly at night.

thanks and glad to hear that.....thanks for sharing! And it sounds like they are running fresh tracks if they're running at night.