Baar Hunter's :riggers, roaders, walker or riders: Tell Me

[Nolte]

I'll use whatever method I can to get one going, but my preference would be like this.

track in sand/mud whatever, you know the line of travel possibly time of last check
baits, track is known and critter trail is there but direction has to figured out. Every other critter in the woods is there too.
Rig, most are warm/hot and chase should happen quickly. Good to get on runs quick, but isn't real effective come Sept.
Walk, Cast, Road All the same and mainly a last resort when other tactics aren't working.

As far as nose, In September/October I want a dog cold enough to back track to the womb. I've got all day to waste if it's the right bear.

RockRing. I agree with you on the "jump" dog situation. In my opinion very few dogs should ever get the title, but you'll know it when you got one because everyone wants to hunt with you.

[Hounder-]

Bait hunter here and I LOVE dogs working cold tracks (main reason I love hound hunting).


Rigging to me is generally a hot track, basically an hour or less old. I guess I'm wondering is this the usual kind of track most of you rig hunters run? Or are my dogs just not that good/cold of rig dogs?



Sorry if I hijacked your post Mike, can move it if changes the convo too much.
-Hound

[Ankle Express]

Separate it out and there is two ball games here, however alot of room in the middle. Very few folks rig cold. If I'm rigging I'm looking to put right on a bear. No trailing. Boom shot to its ass. Dogs are fresh and bunched up shouldn't take long. Foot race or war. Just don't have any road structure in my area of Western NC to rig much. Done more this year than ever. Its fun.
In Maine we check baits at daylight. Thats it. Next day daylight. 24 hour period. 4 dog limit. I expect to put four down, jump it and believe it or not catch it. One way or the other. Granted they all don’t go that way either and no not everything is 24 hours old but between dark and daylight is expected. We put on the first hit and the expectations don't change. I'll pick them up after its obviously still trailing or jumped but we’re trailing behind and hopefully before the edge is gone from the dogs. I'll pick them up then. Because it reaches a point the dogs are just killing themselves for tomorrow. Some folks don't know the difference in trailing behind and cold trailing. Big difference there though. No good in making the jump and not having the speed or conditioning left to knock the wind out of the bear during a foot race. You'll lose the race. Dogs can't trail a running track, trailing behind. They have to run it to make gains or they actually get slower and slower. So there is a limit but danged if all the factors don't make it to hard to guess! Have to drop them to see.
Then late in the fall here we hunt off foot. On trails, ridges or roads through out these mountains. I've cut a track and turned out dogs only to go a little further and maybe find something bigger or fresher. We've gone back to those tracks the next morning and jumped those bears.
I think if you throw cold trailing out the window your limiting what you can catch and developing your dog only one way. For me its the constant mix. Trying to develop the dogs to their potential. Like said above though its not always catching but lots of learning. I can't stand to take a dog out of the truck and its wild eyed as hell and crazy barking in every direction and we ain't even found anything yet? Been hunted hot, to hot. Harder to find these complete packages of nose, speed, grit, stamina and sense but maybe a lot aren’t tried? I was shown to take your young dogs to tracks and lead them to the jump/bed. Rev them up and find another. Do it a few times progressively getting older and they’ll set in on their first track good or bad, hopefully. JMO

[three rivers catahoulas]

Out here we dont have much of a choice, you need a colder nosed dog, just because of how are season's are. In the early part of the season you might see a track in the road, but it's in 3-4 inch's of super dry dust, so if you rig most of your bear, like most guys do out here, you need a dog that can line a cold track out. I rig my dogs, but I run mostly Plott's so I dont have a super cold nosed dog, so the early part of the season is tough for me, but what I start I mostly catch. But havein the idea that, If you start it from the truck it's only and hour or two old isn't right either, I have had my Plott dog(who are generaly warmer nosed dog's) start a track in the road that wasn't there the day before, so it was at least 12 hours old, and I think thats were a track smart dog comes into play. And I think them really good cold nosed dog that can get alot of bear going, aren't as cold nosed as folks might think, I think they have just become so track smart, that the ability to straighten a track out has made them look colder nosed then they really are. I had a catahoula that was like that, he would start pigs before my hounds and he would be the first one to the bay, and it wasn't because he was colder nosed then the hounds, he just new how to run a track in the shortest route possible.

[BEAR HUNTER]

Out here in Ca we mostly Rig our tracks. A lot of hunters don't like cold tracks because they don't have the dog power to move em. (me included since I went to these trigg/cross dogs). Our bear season starts when the temps are still over 100 and the ground is a foot of powder dry dust.
My first hound I ever owned was a Burton Owney bred Red Tick. He was 10 years old when I got him. That dog could move an old track in these hot california foothills. He had the nose and the brains. He didn't care if the track was screaming hot or cold he would take em as he found them and generaly get them warmed up. He was an all around dog bear,lion,cat, and coon. Best lay up dog I ever saw. Many time I saw him throw his head up and run a couple hundred yards to a coon tree. I sure missed him when he was gone and have never found another like him.

[lionhunterdaves]

I usually rig in the summer and fall seasons, but in the early spring we have a little trouble rigging. Most of the bears are in the low country down around the wheat fields and it is really dry. Don't know why but just don't rig that well in the spring. With that being said, we will drag roads and look for tracks. Mostly cold trailing but it doesn't usually take long to get the bears jumped. We don't tree a lot of bears in the spring either, being in the lower country the trees are a lot smaller and the bears won't hardly go up them, mostly bay them up. We caught 17 bears in the spring and treed only two of them.

[Outlaw 3]

I use a rig dog as much as possible. We also do a lot of walking and dog leading searching for a track. I have a good rig dog, my black and tan Bandit, which is worth a lot when compared to bustin the brush. We don't have a huge amount of bear like some places so we never turn down a track. I am sure some dogs are too cold nosed but I haven't seen one yet. As long as they are moving the track I will let them do there thing. It helps not having babble mouthed dogs that bark as soon as you turn them loose. Most of them will fool you on how hot a track is and overrun it. Bandit will pull and show you an old track without opening. Turn him loose and he will see what he can do with it and if he ever barks he will almost always jump the bear. I also think that if you rig a track that does not mean it is less than an hour old. I struck a bear in the middle of the day 1 p.m. last winter that someone had seen at 7 p.m. the night before. The guy that saw the bear had marked the track and tried to run it at daylight but could not get it started. When I struck it Only one dog barked and he had to trail it and jump it himself but we treed the bear.

Colder the better for me on nose just as long as they can keep up with the pack. From my experience the super trail dog is just flat out a super bear dog so they lead the pack anyway. It is better to have nose and not need it then need nose and not have it.

[Nolte]

I struck a bear in the middle of the day 1 p.m. last winter that someone had seen at 7 p.m. the night before. The guy that saw the bear had marked the track and tried to run it at daylight but could not get it started. When I struck it Only one dog barked and he had to trail it and jump it himself but we treed the bear.

It is better to have nose and not need it then need nose and not have it.

You must have had some ideal conditions, a little bit of luck thrown your way and a rock star dog. I'd really have to see this in person to believe it. That scenario just ain't happening here with any sort of consistency. I've seen quite a few standout start dogs that can't jump some overnight tracks here in kill season. Especially when the conditions suck or you are on the wrong end of it.

I completely agree on the second point.

[Outlaw 3]

1)This is a lot more likely in December when it has been snowing then when it is hotter here so conditions were right.
2) happening once and having one out of my 7 dogs take the track is hardly doing it with consistency.
3) I don't know about rock star but he gets the job done.

[LCK]

If my dogs can smell the track, I let em go with it most times. My days off are a precious thing, and I want these dogs doing something besides sitting in the box. There are times, like mentioned before that I will catch em off if it looks like it's just gonna be a long day with either too many losses or just flat getting outran. I rig em, walk em and free cast em, generally in that order. Very seldom is it ever a day that we don't at least get a cold track going and during the summer season we get a lot of tracks that the dogs can only toy with, but never really make notable progress on.

Part of your question is about cold trailing vs. just a tough track. I will generally let em move along with a cold track, but it needs to be steady. If it is a tough track, which in my opinion is one where they are just flat struggling to pick up scent enough to at least move with any steadiness, I gather em up quick and move on. I suspect a person has to spend a good amount of time with his/her dogs to really know the difference.

[lrfarms27572]

I've seen quite a few standout start dogs that can't jump some overnight tracks here in kill season. Especially when the conditions suck or you are on the wrong end of it.

we hunt sand/mud roads, we drag them the night before. every track we start was from the night before and has to be started after the bear has cross 2 ditchs (about 4 feet deep on average). to boot we're hunting in a swamp, not necessarily dog friendly when it comes to scent trailing.

my point with this however is not to brag on the quality of our dogs, just to state that it is done more than some realize. idk if our dogs will follow a track that is nearly 24hrs old, i'd like to see it done myself.

happy hunting.

[Ike]

I think Nolte touched on it by saying, "I've got all day to waste if it's the right bear." If I'm hunting a client who is after a nice boar, we rig and find the track then move on until the right one is found. And when the right track comes along it doesn't matter how old it is if my dogs will move it, cause I cast my chips and let fate finish the deal. However, if I'm running alone and just for fun, I just take the first decent rig the dogs strike. If the dogs don't move out on the track pretty fast I'll call them back and go look for another............

ike