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what do you prefer a hot noses dog or a medium/warm nosed dog or a cold nosed dog for bear hunting?? thanks

I prefer a medium nosed dog for bear. We don't have the time or area (or the patience) to fool around with a lot of cold trailing. A dog that can run a track 8-12 hrs old is enough for me. I have a couple colder nosed dogs, and some days they just drive me nuts. I have one a little warmer nosed than the others that I use to gage my strikes.

thank u for information Redwood Coonhounds. have a good one.

I enjoy a cold nosed dog for all my hunting, I like to listen to the dogs take a bad track and gradualy work it up to where they jump then the race begins. In the early season around here where the bear are sometimes hard to find and the weather is hot and dry, if you don't have a good nose on the dogs you go home without a race pretty often. JMO

I like a medium nose for bear. I dont like to take all day to get a bear jumped , I want to get it done quick so I have time to run one or two more before it gets to hot. But I do feel pretty cocky when my dog strikes before my buddies best dog that he is so proud of.lol

thank u for the information lepcur and glen. have a good one.

I want the coldest nosed dog I can find than can still move a track quick enough to get it jumped. If it's the right bear in the fall, I can wait all day to get it jumped if it can do it. It wouldn't bother me one bit.

In our neck of the woods, more tracks are not connected on by guys NOT having enough nose vs other things. You can probably get by with hotter nosed dogs in the summer, but come fall you better have one that wants to grind a track. Unless you want to have to try a half dozen tracks before you get one jumped.

I think the bear population where you hunt the majority of the time makes a lot of difference on what dog you can get by with. If you can pass by older tracks and have a good chance at finding a hotter track you can get by with a warmer nosed dog. However, I have seen a lot of days when we would put down one, maybe two dogs, that were cold nosed trail dogs and they would have to grind for hours to get a bear going. On those days the cold nosed dogs were the only thing that saved the day.One way of looking at it is a cold nosed dog can sure run a hotter track but a warm nosed dog can't run a cold track.

Cold Nose

I would rather have the nose and not need it, then need the nose and not have it. Around here we don't have the opportunity to pick our tracks. If we find a bear we try to trail it and run it. I need a good rig dog that can help find more tracks and a good trail dogs for the tracks we find.

thanks for the information Nolte, bearsnva and Outlaw 3.

Outlaw 3.
Good reply. Our bear population has picked up a little here, but not enough to be able to pick and choose our tracks. When a track is rigged or found a dog or two is going to hit the ground to try and trail it up.
A few years back we treed a small bear one evening about 5:00 and let it go. Got up the next morning and rigged every road around with no luck, so about 9:00 am we lead the dogs back in to the tree where we treed the bear the evening before and made a circle around the tree. A couple of the trail dogs opened a little so we let 'em go. They went to trailing and at 2:00 that afternoon jumped the bear, 10 minutes later they were bushed. Good day after all!!

lepcur wrote:I enjoy a cold nosed dog for all my hunting, I like to listen to the dogs take a bad track and gradualy work it up to where they jump then the race begins. In the early season around here where the bear are sometimes hard to find and the weather is hot and dry, if you don't have a good nose on the dogs you go home without a race pretty often. JMO

cold nosed lepard curs????? not tryin to rag on you, but cold nosed isn't exactly what comes to mind when I think of that dog. what are you breedin to get the nose power out of them dogs???? I don't know much about the breed, but I ran with a guy down on the lesals that had them and he couldn't catch a cold. maybe it is my own ignorance or lack of knowlege of the breed. tell us more, jared.

Mike runs Registered Leopard Curs. Catches a lot of game in some of the tougher places out here in CA. His are actual hunting Leopards, not some crossed up terrier, pitbull catahoula mixed type dogs used for hogs. You'd be suprised what we have out here in CA. I think some of the best dogs of every breed can be found out this way.

Jared, Ok I will. I don't know what strain of leopards you hunted around but the dogs I breed and hunt are out of the old McDuffie lines and mine are bred for big game hunting. I've hunted these dogs here for around 20 years now and the trailing ability of these dogs is the main reason why I switched over from the hounds. I don't get a chance to hunt with alot of different Leps., there are very few in my neck of the woods, but I do hunt around a few hounds of all different breeds and when It's hot and dry these dogs are usually the ones that will get a bad track lined out and up and running. I really like the track style of them also, they'll cold trail when they have to but when the track warms up they'll throw their head up and flat out run with it, pretty fast track speed too. And the listen to you, alot like a yard dog, very smart. As a general rule these dogs are not belly rubbing slober mouthed tree dogs, they move around the tree a little so they can keep a eye on the game and bark about 50-60 per minute but that's plenty for me, they will stay with the game for as long as it takes you to get there, I've had them stay on a bear for 3-4 days once, the damn thing kept coming down and it was a all day hike into that canyon for 3 diff. days and we never got a look at it, on the 4th day the dogs started coming out and most all of them had holes punched in them. I'm not bragging on these dogs at all, I'm just telling you a little about them. There's a couple people on here that have hunted around my dogs and Casandra is one of them. Have a good day. Mike

Yep, I've owned a Leopard from Mike, and hunted with him a time or two. I'd own one again if I had the time, space, and money. I've wanted another Leopard for a while, cause I like them, and the style. But it's hard to be serious about a breeding program when your limited on space. I can't speak for all Leopards, but I like Mikes, his dogs act, hunt and behave a lot like my own.

I am pretty hard headed at times, but you can't make decisions on a breed of dog from hunting with one once. LOL.