BigGameHoundsmen.com

NC,

That is really interesting. Just shows how things differ between areas. Like Mondo said, we can only use six. Looking back, most times I wish there were only 3 in there during a ground battle. And if I had a wish, it'd be that I could pluck out the best start dog at that point and replace it with just a tough dog. Doesn't seem to work that way though. Whenever guys get antsy and want to pile in a bunch of dogs I usually say "We don't need more dogs in there, just better ones.". Now that just applies to our area, I have no clue what it takes anywhere else.

I don't know how it is by you, but we have areas that are off limits. So we have to do our best to keep the dogs out of there or get a visit from the local law. Sometimes you roll the dice and other times you pass. It is common for some of our bigger bear to be wandering suckers. We trailed a pretty good bear for 8 miles this year and still didn't have it jumped before the dew burned off and the wind took the track away. The next good one was only 500 yards away, even though we had cut his track down a mile or so. Do you guys ever have that problem and if so, is it a snag the dogs wait til tomorrow kind of deal.

We had a tornado about a dozen years ago and a big wind storm two yeas ago. We had areas that were a tipped over jungle. Dogs would catch and it was a mess. It'd take you 2 hours to go 150 yards, crawling, climbing, doubling back, repeat. Sometimes you felt like a monkey and others a badger trying to dig through. We killed one bear that didn't leave 80 acres and it took us all day to do it. I had my fill of that and I'll let you boys do the crawling to get to a bear. And the getting was the easy part, the extraction was a nightmare. I get queasy just thinking about it.

With the number of dogs we have in a race its a very touchy situation when you get to the dogs. I literally put the gun barrel inches from the bears head. You cant take a chance on killing a dog so you have to place your shot very well. Its a tremendous difference all across the country bear hunting. Any typical morning on the NC coast you are trying to determine which 400 pounder you want to run out of the 5 tracks you have for the morning...whereas if you were in the NC western mountains you would be trying to decide which ridge to walk next and how far you are going to walk....after you just walked 10 miles and didn't strike a thing. You have a 5,000 acre area and cant even find a bear to run. Just a 300 mile difference within one state is a whole different ball game.

we killed 2 good ones this year a 475# and a 615#

We killed a few over five this yr. The biggest two being 640 and 595lbs if I remember right.

nc is right I hunt here in the mountains of nc . Like I said we usually kill 2 that go 500 a year the rest are 250 -380 generally. Western nc has a lot of bears but if you don't kill your bear the first part of season then most likely your out of luck cause the second part we have gone years at a time without one single race. This year we was fortunate enough to not kill anything under 315 I think maybe 325. As far as the coast goes I hunted it twice a few years back in hyde county and its not a matter of if you will kill one 550+ its a matter of when you will. Also believe it or not the far western tip of sc has some dandy bears you luck up and probably will kill one 350 or above from what ive seen shot. They eat acorns down in sc and come back across the nc line to lay down in theses cliffs so its a matter of time the first half of the season when one crosses the road .Never hunted wv but folks in my hunting club went the past 2 years and say they are some good ones! As far as leases go we hunt on what wma land we have because everything is private . Like nc said ive seen 2 dogs on a bear at times and at others ive seen 37, way to many dogs but when everyone brings 4 dogs it adds up plus the fact if you find one bear track everyone and there cousins leave work and becomes your friends lol. As nc said above 300-450 miles down the road could be the difference between 250 pounds or 700...