BigGameHoundsmen.com

Excellent job folks yes it was the golden pond in the middle of the road. Never drive by one in lion country without slowing down and checking I have picked up dozens of lions on these. I don't know why but a few days after a rian and the water is settled out and only the deeper mud puddles remain they seem to know where they are . Especially on roads or near travelways. Yes you will find passing deer and elk stopping for a drink as well and bears wander to them but lions for some reason know where they are and will check them.

In our sand rock country where the rain runs off quickly many lions get a lot of the water they drink from natural basins. These are pockets formed in the rock over eons of wind and erosion. These catch and hold rainwater but evaporation dries them quickly as the rocks heat up. Many of these are aso located beneath ledges and bluffs and hold longer in the shade. Lion normally don't require a lot of water but they do enjoy a cool drink and nature also beckons due to the natural attraction water holes and sources have to prey animals.

Excellent thoughts all the way thru on this and we all learn thru this sharing.

I never have packed any water, but i know a guy that does take an extra mule packed with water. I try to plan my circles in areas where I know there is a spring or water catchment, pain in the ass to lead another mule on a lion hunt.

I think the dogs give out before the track does a lot of times in the hot conditions. As you know when then tongues get hangin way out and hard panting them sniffers quit. I have times when the dogs played out on a track from being too hot. When i could rest them and get them water they been able to start the tracks and move them again. But i can only remember once where I actully caught the lion after resting and watering the dogs.

The better shape your dogs are in the better your chances. That why its hard for someone who isnt a full time hunter to have a great pack of dry ground dogs. You have got to hunt them and keep them in shape if you expect to have much success in in dirt conditions.

Ok Mike im crying Uncle!! Lets here it!!

Big Mike,

Twist nailed it and that water you spoke of Sir you are right on!


I am not going to pack a mule if I don't have to with water but do not depend on springs and natural water sources if you get on a serious lion track.

Yes the dogs scenting ability shuts down as they warm up. You may set there in the saddle and say gosh it is just a mild day not hot they shouldn't over heat. Get down next to them rocks and run on all fours for a bit and pull that hot air up thru your nose coming off the sun baked roks and you will be panting like a lizard in no time.

So many times when you think the track has baked away and the scent is gone it really hasn't changed that much but your dogs are melted. By that I mean once they start panting hard and thirsty their old smeller shuts down on them. Get them in the shade, carry a Camel Back hydration system and a few literes of water. You don't have to fill them up on water just enough to cool them down. Also carry a small spray bottle with water in it, and throw a few ice cubes in it before you slap it in the saddle backs. Spray the dog's pads and underbelly, and then let them shade up for 15-20 minutes and it will surprize you that old burned out track will come back to life.


Be very careful however hunting those dogs in 85 deg plus weather. I know guys in Arizona catch lion in 100 deg heat but they don't cold trail them far on this stuff or you will kill the dogs or ruin them. Usually if a lion is caught on these deals it is off a kill or jumped out of a lay up bed.


If somebody tells you he hunts his dogs hard in 90 plus weather all day trailing hard on lions ask him if you can go along and watch.


It may get to 90-plus before you head home but if you start hunting when it is 90 and you don't have a good starting point you may be a bit addled to start with.

Really great stuff here. Thanks to all who added to the information.

One thing I've done with most of my hounds is to teach them to get a drink outta the palm of my hand. I got started doing this with border collies will trailing cattle. They can get hot enough to die on you on some of the long gathers on hot spring days. A couple bottles of water in my saddlebags have saved more than one overheated dog for me.

I'd throw a couple cowdogs in while exersizing the hounds and they picked up on the comand " git a drink" real quick watching the cowdogs drink outta my palm while I drible water into it.

Git them hot & thirsty first and the first one that figures it out teaches the rest.
I watched a guy send his cowdog 2 miles to the creek to get a drink, never tried to teach a hound to do it.

Thanks for sharing on the water deal! I don't have any experience (or little) of hunting off a horse or mule in the dry season but have plenty out of my truck or afoot. I always try an keep several gallon jugs in my truck full of water and a dog bowl--problem is those dogs need cooled down and watered down on the track not at the truck.

I'm glad to hear some of you say those hounds are still smelling when they heat up and not that the track has burned off, cause that's been my thoughts as well. From October until early April I don't worry about the water deal because the temperature just isn't usually that high around here. But late spring through summer it gets hot enough to kill a good hound and I just had rather quit a track than hurt or kill a hound.

Just home for lunch, us guys that aren't full time hunters have to work ha!

ike

I gotta to work too. Thats just my excuse for my sorry turd hounds I feed. LOL

Sense we've been talking about old lion scent and how it lays I'd like to throw another topic in here that kinda fits: What do you guys consider a cold-nosed hound?

I spoke with a cat hunter the other night who told me he had a couple of his cold nosed dogs killed and that he needs to replace them. He claims that he has other dogs, but that they are too hot nosed to move the tracks he needs moved on dry ground. Is that the difference between a hot and cold nosed hound?

I've watched my older hounds move a crappy lion track all afternoon at a walking speed. And throughout my observations, I watch them make a lose and one dog start to move it again. This happens over and over again and a different hound will strike and lead from the time before. They all honor and roll with the dog who finds it again and none of them will continually lead off a lose. Therefore, it's hard for me to say this dog has a colder nose than that one. So what is every bodies thoughts on what a cold nose dog is?

ike

I will jump in on this one Ike. Now when I talk cold nosed hounds I am talking with snow not dry ground as I have no experiance on that. I have seen alot of cold nose hound I'm talking the kind that will babble around on an old bobcat track thats 12 - 15 hrs old in ice cold temp that has frozen the scent down to about nothing. The owner is just so proud of his old cold nosed dog and 2 hours later the old pride and joy is still in the same spot babbling around like he is really doing something and the owner will say I cant believe old Buck is that cold nosed he is awsome. Not going to cut it for me a true cold nosed hound should be able to move the track by its self maybe not at blistering speeds but should show consistant movement, a true cold nosed hound needs to learn how to drift on a track and once they start to get hung up in a spot drift out and not stay in that one area were the scent is strongest. I personaly don't enjoy standing on a point in sub zero temps listening to a hound babble in on spott for hours. So what I believe is there are alot of cold nosed hounds but the ones that can't move the track at a consistant pace are'nt TRUE cold nosed hounds. later Andy

I just want to thank all of you, this is one of the best post I have ever seen on here. I love this forum for this right here. I have learn more in the last few min of reading this post then in my few years of running hound. This is such a great tool for all of us newer guys look at the combine years of Houndsmenship on this one post alone.

Thanks livetohunt, and that's what these boards should be for to share knowledge and make note of the positive aspects of our sport........

Yeah twist, I'll agree if those hounds aren't moving the track it either isn't movable or that track is past those hounds ability to move it, or like was said earlier the hounds have gotten too heated up and their noses have just about quit working. I've seen tracks in the dirt from one end of the spectrum to the other, still moving and all but quit. And it would be something to find a dog that could go on down that track as they begin to pile up. And that's my point, I haven't ever seen a dog take a track past mine or move out and stay put on that track. I have seen a few trail out from under mine but they were bout always on deer or elk......

If I put my hounds on a semi-opened ground lion track in February or March, a place that has some open ground, ice and dirt, I better not plan on getting them back that night unless they get treed and I am able to pull them. Too many times it'll be the next day before I catch up with them. But those southern guys are correct about running gets tough in warmer weather on open ground in the afternoon--those are the type of situations my dogs will start piling up, not in the cooler weather, cause in those conditions a guy is gonna have to cut them off to get them back.

I've caught up with my hounds in the afternoon on dry ground, in a dry region, and found them all standing under a cedar tree panting and trying to cool down, then come out of the shade and start that track again and run down it for fifty or a hundred yards at a time and then repeat that process. And that's when I generally say that's enough.

ike

To me a truely cold nosed hound is one that can start and trail tracks that are uncatachable, meaning the tracks are to old be able to close the time and distance to catch a cat. Or the conditions are bad that scent hasnt held for whatever reason. Im not talking about finding scent in one place and barking in a 10 yard circle for hours. Where i hunt lions tracks arnt plentyful enough to leave a bad track and hopes you'll find another. To me a dog that can keep pounding and moving a bad track are worth there weight in gold. Sometimes you do end up wasting a day on a track you'll never catch(dont know until you try) but sometimes those will turn into trees.

A meduim nosed hound to me is a dog that can trail good and be able to catch a night old track. In snow for example a night old good track.

Hot nosed is right here right now kinda dog only smell the track when its really good like a bear that crossed the road ahour ago.

By my diffinition there are very few truely cold nosed hounds around, most are meduim nosed and I would have to say that just about all but 1 dog I have right now I consider to be meduim nosed.

Thanks for the input Big Mike, and I like and agree with your answer. I've just never really gotten down and tried to hammer out "what a cold nosed hound is" and was just wondered what you guys thought.

A couple springs back, three of us were out looking for a tom and we walked up a canyon and found him in a sandy bottom on a south facing slope. I had five or six hounds out casting and they blew up on a scratch but could only move that track at a walking speed or less. It was around 8:00 AM in April or May, and those hounds pushed that track until dark or about twelve hours later without a catch. I knew another hunter had been in there the day before only a canyon or two away from that track trailing a female lion. I figured he probably put that lion up a moving the morning before, and guess that track was between twenty-two and twenty-four hours old. There was no way my dogs could close the show but they did move that track from daylight until dark on a dry, south facing, sunny hillside. I'll agree that is probably what I consider a cold nosed hound.

In my opinion, that old tom had heard the other guy's hound the day before and got up and left the country...........

ike

Is the difference in the cold nose dog, and the not so cold nose dog, to be found in the nose, or in the difference in prey drive an want to? Can one really smell that much older track than the other? Just wonderin!

I think that may be a question that can never really be answered. The number of olfactory receptors in a canine's scent system I would guess are a bit hard to really count. I would say due to function, selection and evolution certain breeds of canines have been selected for a high intensity of these and therefore probably do have a keener sense of smell but between hound I am sure that would be hard to quantify. However the desire to put these senses to the ultimate test and the drive to work with it is more highly developed in some dogs, and by selecting and breeding these types of dogs this trait can be retained or even intensified.

Much like two guys out on the job hard manual labor. One guy is naturally lazy he would just as soon let the other guy do the hard work. He is fully capable and just as strong but he has no desire to accomplish he just gets by. Well the other guy make even be a bit more physically challenged but he is energetic, adaptable and wanting to please. He will go over and above the job description at hand. Well you know which one is going to be more productive. But just say you were a mad scientist and you decided you wanted to breed up a super race of hard working achievers. Well lets see should I go out and find a lazy old gal and match her up with old speedy there heck we might get some hard working kids and we might not. Or should I go out and find that high energy hard working star chasing gal and match make her abd old Speedy and with their genes and their example I might have a better chance. Now I know we are not mad scientists but some of the dog breeding I have seen would make you wondr. LOL!

The coldest nosed dog I have had, also happenened to be the most driven dog...real tough to pull him off of a track...never left the tree...which was it? the nose, or the drive? Undoubtedly, combination of both...has anyone had a cold nose dog that was'nt full of want to? Good analogy Mike...somewhere down the trail of my gene pool, there must of been a less than highly motivated feller...explains why I have a tendency to want to sit in the sun and meditate about all this stuff instead of doin all the honey do's!