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I read my post and i want to make sure you (ike) dont take this the wrong way. I am honestly wondering about your thoughts on rigging lions mainly because of mikes first post. What are your thoughts on this mike.

Azdogman,

Don't ask me to explain how or what a hound smells when they blow up on lion scent. Like I said earlier in this post, there are several things those hounds could be keying on and what that is I haven't figured out. I have watched them rig a tom scratch, come off the box and run to the scratch, open and go down it.

On one tom lion a couple years back it was early May and a very cold morning. They rigged and ran to that track and left down in on the run. I could see the scratch and walked nearly a hundred yards to it in the canyon floor. There was a skiff of snow under some of the trees, as that track was at the elevation where that skiff of snow had started. The dogs trailed up that canyon, crossed the road and back down close to where I'd started it, then up the canyon again and back down before leaving out toward the top of that mountain. Those dogs were nearly five hours running down that track.

They have rigged on lion tracks, scratches and probably on body scent from the brush or undergrowth--but don't ask me to explain it. Personally I believe that ten year old redbone of mine was doing it for years before I caught on, then Choco, a pup who is now eight, started joining in. Between those two dogs they have rigged dozens upon dozens of lion tracks over the past four or five years, some I have let them go run an others I have not.

Shawn Labrum was with me on a lion hunt a few years back for one of his clients. It was 2:00 PM on valentine's Day and on the last cut we started up a narrow canyon and had the wind in our face. My dog box blew up like they had bear, and there were NO tracks on the road in the snow. WE drove on up the canyon several hundred yards and found a lion killed deer next to the road with a bitch lion track on it. Labrum couldn't believe those dogs had gone off and continued for that distance off that kill. The tracks had had melt in them and was hours old, and his client was after a stand out tom not a bitch, so I did not turn those hounds down her tracks.

Labrum acted like he thought it was a sin that I wouldn't turn down that track after my hounds had rigged so hard on the track. Call him and ask him. My reason was the snow was knee to waste deep, the lion wasn't gonna die and my hounds had caught plenty of lions over their life. Had we turned down that track we might not have made it to the tree by dark, and I had nothing to prove..........

I never claimed to understand why or what those dogs are smelling, but none of the stories I have told have ever been a lie.............

ike

Ike, or Mike, do you think that it is not good for young dogs to not turn them out when they hit off the box? I had it happen last night while heading back to the ranch. My old pup trainer about ripped the rack off and my two young dogs where doing there best aswell. But i didnt turn them out due to not knowing the country i was going through. It has happened twice now and each time i felt bad for the dogs so i just praised them. The young dogs just started hittin well off the box and i dont want them to stop obviously. What do you suggest?

Thanks for all your help guys. I really appreciate it!!!

I'll let Mike speak for himself, but my hounds have learned to live with it and still do what they have been bred and trained to do in my opinion. I've had people tell me that I'd ruin my hounds calling them off tracks and trees, but they tree just as hard or harder today as they ever have, and will stick or stay treed just as long as well.......

Last summer I ran down a bear for the fish and game, had four dogs under it and forgot my cell phone on the way into the tree. After reaching the tree, I notice I'd left my phone so I left those dogs treed and walked out to make a phone call to them. It was 8:00 AM when I left and none of those four dogs offered to follow me out without me calling to them.

It was nearly six hours later by the time I made it to the truck, drove out of the canyon for cell coverage and climbed or crawled back into that tree. That bear had moved a few hundred yards and was low in the tree with four hounds jumping and biting at it's butt when I first saw them. I remembered thinking: how could they do that for over six hours without any water in July? Granted, they were around 9,000 feet elevation but wow!

When that bear saw me crawling in it popped back up the tree higher and the dogs began to not tree as hard--saving energy I guess. If the things that I have done to those hounds have hurt them I have not been able to take note of it........

Ike

I really have to differ to Ike on the rig hunting because I am pretty much a novice in that area.I have hunted with some great riggers and they don't worry about it at all. When a dog has the idea and gets wound to rig they don't sweat it not turning them out. I have even seen some shock them a bit on the box to keep them from blabbing with no ill affect. I frowned when i saw this but later when these dogs remained quiet they all blew when it was right.Most riggers hate dogs that pop pop pop, and blab on the box. They want the honest old dogs to set the standard and then the young ones will be rigging right. I hunted with some novice riggers and their dogs just about drove me nuts barking all the time. They said oh they bark but when they really bark then we know. The pro guys just laughed and shook their heads. So I guess there is a growing curve just like everything else.

Was it: Recent moisture, freshens the track?

Nope but it did have to do with moisture.

Wow, this is some great reading here. I think what Mike is referring to in Ike's post is, in my opinion, that as the moisture evaporates it lifts the scent up and away. It sounds like Ike passed that spot right as the moisture had just really started to evaporate and that lifted the scent off of the ground and up in the air a little. Which made it real strong up high and very weak down low.

I wonder if after you had pulled your dogs off of the track what would of happened if you drove around a while and passed back through that spot again what the dogs would do. Unless they remember the surroundings, my bet is they wouldn't rig it again as the scent would have been completely gone.

I know around here if it's spring it's already very warm, and I have had my dogs screaming down a track around 7:30 am, where the cat went through a small wash that is covered over by brush so there's just a tunnel through it, only to run the track to where the wash opens up to flat land. Then the dogs just stop, as the cover or tunnel of moist, scenty air is gone. They may get a little further on body scent on brush, but as quickly as the mornings heat up, by the time you get to a saddle or a north slope trying to find where that lion went it's pretty much to hot. Might just be my dogs being lazy and I don't blame them because hunting on foot in the heat is not much fun.


Zach

Thats what I think Mike is referring to also. As temperature increases more scent is released from the track, so if you hit a track at the right time it may appear fresher than it is. Hit it at the wrong time maybe only 2 hours different and its a whole different kind of track

I learned this hunting with Cecil Ralston about 10 years ago( thats funny huh Mike me hunting with Cecil!!) Cecil had a lion/bear hunter and we were hunting on the snow in the Jemez in late Nov. We caught a lion for the guy and on the way out we cut a fresh bear track in the snow. It was too late to run it so we came back the next day. On the way back the next morning we cut a fresh lion track. Well I talked Cecil into turning out on it and caught a female real quick. Cecil frowned at me abit and told he didnt want to get to the bear track untiled it warmed up anyway. I asked why, and he said when it warms up more more scent will be coming from the track and would be easier trailing for the dogs. We got to the bear track at noon turned out the same place we had found it the day before and treed the bear in about an hour.

I learned alot about hound hunting from that grumpy old man!!!LOL

Mike,

Nothing wrong with correcting a hound on the box or on the ground. The rule I go by is use a voice command until I'm not getting a response, then move to a voice command and the beeper on my tri-tropics unit, then move on to a low level shock. My point is that dog better be listening to me or he will eventually.........

Zach,
Scent and having dogs strike off the box, from in the box or off the ground is an interesting concept in which we have all had some experience. I have just attempted to share what I see and think is going on, and have or hold no claims to any expertise on scent, how it lays, or what those dogs are smelling. I've also shared a name or two with you guys of reputable people like Hal and Shawn that have ridden along with me ans watched those dogs do the same things. Those two guys have been around and ran hounds for twenty-five to over forty years and have been impressed and left with questions of their own.

But you missed on Mike's comments as the ground was dry or at least the surface moisture had already evaporated. I made a joke awhile back about those dogs probably started rigging on those tracks cause I was driving over too many of them......lol! But those two red dogs have been rigging lion tracks that won't hardly run for years, and just what exactly it is that they are smelling that puzzles me.

ike

We are getting too many good things to stop now but the little tip is still hidden.

Big Mike, Cecil LOL! let me tell you that grumpy old son of a gun taught me a lot too. We hunted together quite a few times years back and had some pretty wild times back then. He is rough as a cobb but he has a heart of gold, and he is just like a lot of them old timers having a hard time adjusting to this new world we live in.Man I coulod tell some funny stories about our hunts but it would take all day. LOL!

Haven't hunted any around him since the Combs/Raton deal but then again I don't hunt too much with anybody these days.

Dont know a hole lot about rigging or striking or about hunting lions on bare ground but that mud hole Ike was talking about is like a coon wading through a creek and I know anytime water and coon are mixed the scent is always hotter for a short time. Never been that fortunate to have a water hole in the road in Montana when lion hunting it always an ice hole

Ike " As we drove upon one of those puddles, that pack of dogs of mine blew up like there was a bear standing off the road, and there on the shoulder of that road was a female lion track in the mud."

I was wondering about that too, but I couldn't figure out why a cat would walk through a puddle, unless the puddle wasn't there when it crossed and somehow that hole filled with water and was slowly letting off scent. Or when you drove through it, it splashed the water and scent up into the air. Or did the extra moisture in the road allow the scent to hold better there. Or, Or, Or....

Zach

Any time water and animal are mixed that beeing in direct contact or just from the humidity that the water creats makes for better scent. Saying this I am talking creeks, rivers, water holes, puddles and so on. I have struck coons along water that the dogs have never been able to finish as it may be from the following night and this is because of water is near now go to a dry stubble field and most tracks a hound opens on are good runnable tracks or should I say a hotter track because of no moisture.

I believe twist stumbled onto what Mike was pointing at on the mud hole deal, as some of you know how limited water is in much of the west or southwest. But I'll let him touch on that and share some of his experiences with the waterholes or mud holes and lions......

Lion scent as you all know does lay heavier in a shaded, recessed or wet area than in an open exposed one. And like was said earlier, an old track may well run (or rig) well through those places and tend to slow or end when it hits open flats, desert or benches where wind and sun can work harder on it--or at least that's the way I've found it on open ground tracks.

But I have another question: do any of you desert dwelling lion chasers carry much water along with you for you hounds? Lots of times I have found my hounds trailing but taking breaks in the shade of a cedar or pinion tree while trying to cool down. This usually happens in the middle of the afternoon in the high heat. They'll come back out and move the track always then shade up again and pant to cool down. Unless there are some mud holes around from a recent rain that track is about done. My question: is the scent gone or is the dog just too heated up to trail or smell?

I've stopped on tracks like this in the late afternoon and gone back the next morning at daylight and the dogs would start that same track and move it again--just curious what you guys see and do...........

ike