how old is the track

[southern fox]

I have a question to ask !! I have hunted all my life with dogs and I hear a lot of people on here say this about the track there dogs are moving, Question , How do you tell how old the track is weather its 1 hour old or 24 hrs old , with what I have seen in my many trips to the woods is if you have seen it the night before you know its at least 24 hrs old , and if you have been down that road that night and it is on top of your tracks you know its been put there sence you was there but you still don't know weather its 15 mins old or was put there 15 mins after you drove buy, I see this a lot on here abt 4 hr or 15 hr tracks ! am I blind , or have been missing something or what , cause I know the dog aint turning around and telling , boss its to cold to mess with ! I know dogs, had way to many, and trained bunches and bunches and this has eluded me , somebody please shed some light on this subject!!!!

[Old dog]

in my opinion, if you didn't see it in the tracks or on a timed trail cam then its pure speculation which often leads to wild fantasy like dreams.

[Old dog]

while I am stepping in chit, I may as well add that when it comes to bob cats most of the time if the dog can smell it in the road, the cat is within three hundred yards from the road. a quiet cat dog will drift out and find the cat while some dogs will grub the track with a open mouth which makes the cat run and creates what varminator described in another post as a dog that turns a warm track into a cold one. so if you hunt open track grubbers and you read a post that claims ten minute races all the time its only natural to doubt the claim. I have had most styles of track dogs and I like the tight mouth type. however I would say that the old school type I had did teach me more about the habits of the bob cats. after running dogs most of my life, I still learn something new often and its a wonderfull thing! so go ahead and call b.s. I don't mind as its only my opinion

[Unreal_tk]

You can't know for sure. But with snow you can narrow it down by when the last time a fresh snow came thru and some folks will say its so and so old because that's when it snowed last.

[twist]

Its all speculation for the most part. My dogs are so cold nosed they ran a 3 day old bobcat in hot windy conditions oh that just my speculation lol. Andy

[scrubrunner]

Back when I had a pack of hounds that could trail something I'd judge how old the track was by how good the dogs moved the track and which dogs were doing what, based on how they have generally done on tracks that I knew how old they were. Like Rowdy is the only dog opening, could be 12 hrs old, (its all relative to scenting conditions, may be less then half that old ) Dixie starts to whine every once in a while out in front of Rowdy, track's getting better may be 6 to 8 hrs old now, Dixie and Myrtle opening track is 3 or 4 hrs old, Popcorn or Lolypop start opening, it won't be long till the whole chorus starts and that critter was in trouble, that track is only minutes old.
Now those hounds just did a heck of a trailing job on that critter! Y'all see how easy it is to run something with a pack of dead dogs!

[cat hntr]

The only way I know is to keep track of the weather conditions and when you were there last and good old fashioned common sense.if a person pays close attention to details environmental conditions and uses some common sense you can usually get a decent idea of when an animal made the tracks. What I do most of the time is let the dogs figure out if they can run it and not worry to much how old it is

[dwalton]

Good Question. First off sometimes it does not matter how old a track is, I seen dogs work bobcat tracks that I knew that were over 24 hours old and I have seen the same dogs that could not trail a track 1 hour old. Conditions is everything, what the weather, moisture, how quick it leaves in the morning. If the conditions stay the same good dogs that can cold trail will take a older track than most will believe. More than once I have seen dogs trail a bob that was caught the day before. How do I know because I killed it the day before, cut the track the next day on the other side of the mountain and trailed to where I turned loose the day before. Snow is fairly easy if you keep track of the conditions, when it it snow last, when did it get warm enough for the snow to melt, was the track made plain the night before in wet snow or made on the frost in late morning on frozen snow. The track that is fresh in the frost will be harder to trail them the frozen in one made the evening before the wet snow froze. Bare ground takes a lot closer look, was the track made before or after the dew, was dust or leaves blown into the track, does the track have shine or did it dry around the edges. Conditions, knowing what a track looks like for the time of day and condition and what it looks like with the conditions that have happen in the last 24 hours. The hunter makes the difference, the dogs hunt with you not you with them. You can put the dogs down and let them tell you or you can tell the dogs if they should be able to trail it. I have caught many bobs behind hunters that depended on their dogs, when they left when all it took was to walk the dogs out aways. Sometimes you just have to look around see where the cat should be held up knowing with the conditions the dogs can not smell it but the cat is not far off. Having good dogs that cold trail a track fast helps to. Everybody has their own idea as to how cold a track a dogs trailing or if they even want to cold trail a track. As stated on here the other day until you have hunted with a pack of strait bobcat dogs with the right breeding trained by a top hunter you may not know what is possible. Any body can catch a few bobcats some of us just expect a little more from ourselves and our dogs. Dewey

[southern fox]

Dwalton good answer, conditions there are a lot different there than here, we have no snow, now frost we have that, but it don't get nearly as cold here as there, I can see where snow would surley tell you the time of about when it was made and frost also , very few times it even gets cold enuf to frost on the roads here, now dew is a different story, we have that and one can for sure tell if its been sence or before the dew, but as you say conditions are everything, some nights one can strike everything and the next night cant smell a hot bisquit, for instance last wed night I went , found a few tracks and on one hounds took it right on, but acked like they couldn't smell right , they cold trtailed this cat 3 hrs and it was no better when they finished from when they started , actually it was a lot worse, they finally lost it in a clear cut and I called them out after an hour of saying nothing, went on down the road with them, there had been 2 grey fox fresh or seemed looking at it looked fresh, was ontop of every truck track, and I knew the logers had been here about dark leaving the woods, I said yea im fixing to have it here, dogs couldn't even smell it, wouldn't even wag on them , I found where they left the road walked them in , couldn't do anything with them, those 2 fox walked the road 2 miles , to the camp house in everythings tracks and dogs couldn't smell them ! you talking aggravated haha, but it is so dry here its like powder ! I have never gave it much thought on how long one can smell a track, I don't like to cold trail much , for hrs on it , or be bogged down on a track I like them to move, and move it fast, never had a hound that could smell one 24 hrs old and really don't want one like that , but I do know this, it takes a hound with a nose to run a bobcat , when he starts twisting and turning and stinking up a little area it not only take nose but brains also, I have seen a many of hound think he is running a covered track as for the cat going back and to down the same path over and over, and some will not want to go on it cause they thinking its covered, but the old girls let them young ones know which way he went !

[dwalton]

Southern Fox: Bobcat hunting is different then any other hunting that I have done. It takes brains,breeding and a hunter that gets the best out of his dogs. There are hunters that take their dogs hunting make up a story as to whats happing sitting in their truck listing and them there are others that figure it out. The best time to train a dog to cold trail{ in my opinion and [yes you can teach a dog to cold trail] is during the dry season when conditions are tough. The dogs get excited on a fresh track but it will have spots that there is no scent for 50 to several 100 feet. The dogs learn to get past those spots. In good condition where there is a lot of good scent a hound will pound a track for track and never get anywhere. That said depending on what you hunt [Lion] where you hunt, you may need that. I have seen a few dogs that do both when it is needed for the conditions. What part of Georgia, I spent a little time in Georgia but did not get to hunt there? Dewey

[scrubrunner]

Southern Fox, I got the same conditions here. Been waiting all year to hunt a honey hole full of game. It opened there to run in daylight last week, started trotting dogs a hour before daylight, fox tracks everywhere and saw several cat tracks all carrying the dew, dogs couldn't smell them. Specs turned one out of the road Sat. and one Sun. young dogs got to opening some too but never ran either one. VERY frustrating !

[southern fox]

D Walton I live about 30 mins from the coast between savannah ga and Brunswick ga , in a town called ludowici , we have 1 red light a small place , with flat ground, if theres a hill here a dump truck made it , running dog world, lots of coyote pens think theres about 5 with 30 mins of me,with 4 being in this county and some big ones 1800 acres or more few counties over where the have big field trials at, I don't mess with pen running or with coyotes, a lot likes them but I remember when we didn't have them, and remember when they came, someday I would like to come out there and watch , see another side of the country, meet some good people and see beautiful country

[dwalton]

Southern Fox: You are welcome to come out. Give me a call if you want to. 541-942-4376 Dewey