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Just wondering how everyone starts a bear off of bait in the mornings. Do you start it with one dog till its jumped then drop em all or is it better to let a couple dogs out to get it started or drop em all right from the start? I was told to let one dog get it started but wanted some other opinions.

I think you should keep it how you normaly hunt. I would turn loose one to four dogs and dump the rest as soon as they had it going and I mean if they were 100 yards off the bait and moving fast I would dump. Some dogs take a little bit to get the track going and have to come back to the bait site to get it going the right way. If you turn out to soon you will have a major cluster f*$(. Just remeber you have multiple tracks coming and going. You know your dogs better than anyone else, so plan accordingly and good luck.

It depends on your style, I let two or three go, if they line a few hundred yards, I turn the others couple, or I might just turn them all at once. Usually they will work together, fan out, and when one hits it good, and lines, the others join, and honor. I dont believe in one dog cold trailing, you dont teach the others but to sniff ass, and when the cold trailer is gone, you have a hard time replacing. The other thing, if you hit a bear with 5 or 6 dogs, if it chooses to fight, they hit it at once and hard, and will get it moving, or shortly tree, LOL. To build a good quality pack, I want to grab any dog out of the box to start a track, not good old hank.The only time I use one dog is on a rig, along the road, to let him get it started the right way to elimate confusion.

Well were just getting started. Have plenty of bear baits to run off every day. Right now my male is all we have with 3 or 4 younger dogs that will go with him. I just wasn't sure if we should let my male go alone till he gets it going or send a few younger dogs with him. Thanks for the help. We will probably let one go with him at a time to start. I'm taking him to WV in a few weeks to run bear the month of june. Should tune him up and have him ready for our training season.