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I had a crazy situation happen to me and can't figure out where it all went wrong. Maybe someone else can help me out. The day before the situation at hand happened I turned on a track the dogs stuck from the lead. It wasn't a track that I was particularly interested in killing the owner of but, since I had one guy who'd never seen a bear in the wide and one who'd never killed one I figured it would be a good "first" bear for either of them. The bear treed and bailed and then bayed. The bear got away from us and ran about 3-4 miles and treed again. A very nice young man (7 years old) killed it before we could get there. It weighed 170ish I'd say. I was very happy for him. Ok, now the next day I was dropped off alone about 3 miles from where I was to meet some other guys. They were going to hunt towards me and meet in the middle so to speak. About a mile down the trail I found what I thought to be a fairly nice track and the dogs were ready to show me the one that layed it. I turned loose and down the mountain they went screaming. It was a very nice race and I was standing in the saddle of a ridge listening when a cub came running side hill to me. Dang, it was a sow bear and cub. I hurried towards the dogs. On my way I heard two faint shots in the direction of my friends. I turned the radio on and chatter was coming fast and excitedly. The oldest man in the group had had a bear come walking past but, he missed. They asked me to come as fast as I could with my dogs cause theirs were on another track and this was a "goodern". That means close or over 300#er. I found my dogs treed on the sow bear and didn't so much as take a picture. I leashed them and took off in a run. We were only about a mile apart at this point. When I got there most of their dogs had been caught up and they were trying to get them on the track. Some were milling around where the old man had ate his lunch of sardins but, several were treeing on different trees that had been lapped on. I got to them and my dogs were screaming. I turned out my two best and they went straight up the mountain taking his back track. They went alittle bit and turned around and came roaring back down the mountain but, as soon as they hit the road it was as if they hit a wall. They wouldn't move off the trail. I figured it was all the other dogs so I asked them to move theirs around the corner and let me try to get mine lined out. They did and I took my dogs down the mountain where the bear had clearly went. They wouldn't sound off a lick. I took them in a HUGE semi circle but still nothing. I even found where the bear had crossed a creek and the leaves were still wet but, again they acted as if they didn't know what a bear was. Finally I sat down and every dog I own came up and layed beside me. I know that they weren't that tired. I went to the truck dejected and put them up. Everyone had left by this point except for the old man. He told me he was sorry for missing and he didn't know how many hunts he had left and wished he could have ended it on that "big ole boy." I felt kinda sorry for him so I waited about an hour and took them back. The old man following me. Again I turned them loose and again they went screaming up the mountain on the back track but, again turned it around and came back and hit the logging road "brick wall". I we found one bullet had hit a tree and I don't know where the other landed but, I don't believe it touched hide on the bear cause I never saw one speck of blood and I covered ALOT of ground. It was like that bear took flight and left no scent once he went over the edge of that logging road. My dogs have seen many bear. They aren't the greatest but, they aren't the type of dogs to come back and lay beside me cause they are tired either. It was like they were scared to run it. I've never seen them do or act like that. Anyone have a clue what it could have happened?

Oh yeah, the old man shot at that bear about 100 yards from where it hit the road. He said it ran to the logging road but, stopped when it got there. He said it looked back for a split second and then went off the logging road not really in any kind of hurry. Not like he thought a scared or wounded bear should. He said "he just kinda "saunted" off the edge and down in the hollar."

Maybe they got a good whiff of some trash, and thought you were doing some trash training. I had a similar cougar hunting story where the cat had been in an area with elk literally running everywhere, and the dogs were back to the road with their tails tucked. Definitely frustrating, but the dogs know the consequences for running trash and apparently figured all the steaming elk turds and track everywhere was too much of a risk to keep going on the cat track. That's my best guess

ive seen something like that happen before -
too many times

my theory is and its just a wild guess -critter is startled -adrenaline kicks in , scent changes--

sometimes ,so much that dogs dont even recognise it-
or ,,, dogs so wired up,, he is practically brainless

see a lesser version of this , alot , on a rabbit hunt -
shoot at a rabbit and miss-

dogs shut up --they usually will get it going again but have seen times its like it just disapeared -call them rabbits but they are hare and they dont hole up. old timers always told me it was the gunpowder- dont belive it , it happpens sometimes when you didnt shoot , but just spooked them

a guy on one of the rabbit hunting boards described it real well--- its the force field -


was running a big bobcat - they were running it like it was a moose -very close to catching it -


it ran down the skidoo trail --about 20 skidoos went by almost same time---dogs made a loss and went screaming up the backtrack-

took a few minutes to get dogs back on the track - they ran it a couple hours-- barely--- they never ran it good again- -----

had one bayed -- it broke and ran as i got close -they never ran good after that --


ive only seen this one time when they couldnt run at all on bear- they were running it pretty good - made a loss in a cornfield - i watched bear walk across a hay field - wet grass- tracks plain as day , i couldnt get a dog to take that track -
i would say that the bear whipped them off but i was very close to them and never heard a fight - they were wild- wanted to go--- acted like they couldnt smell it - maybe it was the force field.

-- one time i saw a coon cross the road in front of truck-- dog wouldnt show any sign there was a track there -no interest ,


more times , ive had dogs just seem to go nuts, but cant move it-

the only sloution i know , leave for a half hour and come back and they often run with no problem--

seen this work many times. .
its worth a try -=- i dont guarantee anything -

-- adrenaline works on dogs too
mental state that dog is in can make a difference


- he cant or wont cold trail when hes in catch mode -- you just yanked em off that sow and they were probably still wild-- other dogs there and barking -- wild eyed crazy dogs and track isnt red hot now----
wild eyed excited people have an effect on the dogs too,

so ,,its the same deal ,

leave the scene=get everybody calmed down, try to start it likes its a day old track-- start with best dog and feed in one at a time- - if that dont work.,, its the force field

i hear ya westernwahounds


ive had a couple dogs that i couldnt yank out of a box and put on game i saw-

i got after them pretty hard for trashing -- see the trash. throw em on it and shock them- i sorta over did it with those two -

i still used them to start, one, i had to sort of turn him loose and walk near track , freecast him.

-- the other one, i would always have to get two dogs out --- even if the second dog didnt run at all -

Great points Pete. You know we can all talk about it all we want and we are still just guessing.Maybe educated guesses but until we can smell what a dog does,(or get one to tell us what he smells) its all still guessing.

A few years back I traveled down to N. Carolina to try out a bear dog.It was a several thousand dollar dog so I wanted to see it go in person. I was with Jerome Barr from NC.we had stopped on the side of a road to listen to the dog picking at a track.A nice bear crossed the dirt road about 50 yards away from us. He was just taking his time and stopped to look at us as he crossed. A minute later the for sale dog came out of the woods and ran down the road to us.Ran right over where the bear had just been.Came to us and jumped in the truck. We took him on a leash and walked him back to the track.Nothing, and I mean nothing.Walked him in the woods aways,nothing. I had brought my best dog with me so went back to the truck and got him.He was a good cold trailer and had treed many bears solo for me.Nothing.We never could get a dog to even show interest in the track !!!

As a very wise houndsman once told me " I dont explain it, I just report it '.

As a very wise houndsman once told me " I dont explain it, I just report it '.

Amen

I have seen exactly the same thing happen with a bear crossing infront of us on foot.
We all walked along snickering for the inevitable explosion when the dogs crossed the track as they had not seen the bear.Never happened and we never did get a start on it!
Unbelieveable.