Trailng Fox

[CouesHunter]

For those of you that primarily dry ground hunt for lion I would like to hear how you;
1. Know if your hounds are trailing a fox instead of a lion.
2, How do you break them of it.
I have always been told that a fox is one of the harder ones to break a hound from so I would very much like to hear from all of you that have experience with this. Especially question #1. Hopefully this makes for a good conversation.

Thx

[Cowboyvon]

lol welcome to the club... I have found that the hounds are a little scattered and not as tight.. mostly going from rock to rock up little arroyos... when I'm on a lion they are alot tighter and the intensity is alot greater.. less smelling every rock and more sticking to the track.. but sometimes its real hard to tell... If I'm in doubt I'll just use a rough tone of voice "hey what are you guys doing" if its a fox I can tell by their reaction .. if its a lion they ignore me,, I was told by one of the best dry ground lion hunters when I asked this same question " you just need to learn how to read those dogs" and that's true.. Also you have to keep working yourself trying to get them on a good lion track.. keep them moving through the country until your sure what your on... you find a track or a scratch or what ever and you know that they are on lion... after you have done that a few times you will be able to tell the difference with most hounds.. I'm not sure I would be as concerned about breaking them off of fox or at least hard breaking them.. and then only when you are sure.. I like to say I discourage them... most of my older hounds now I can discourage from running fox pretty easy..

Here is video of 9 hounds on a lion track [url]lol welcome to the club... I have found that the hounds are a little scattered and not as tight.. mostly going from rock to rock up little arroyos... when I'm on a lion they are alot tighter and the intensity is alot greater.. less smelling every rock and more sticking to the track.. but sometimes its real hard to tell... If I'm in doubt I'll just use a rough tone of voice "hey what are you guys doing" if its a fox I can tell by their reaction .. if its a lion they ignore me,, I was told by one of the best dry ground lion hunters when I asked this same question " you just need to learn how to read those dogs" and that's true.. Also you have to keep working yourself trying to get them on a good lion track.. keep them moving through the country until your sure what your on... you find a track or a scratch or what ever and you know that they are on lion... after you have done that a few times you will be able to tell the difference with most hounds.. I'm not sure I would be as concerned about breaking them off of fox or at hard breaking them.. and then only when you are sure.. I like to say I discourage them... most of my older hounds now I can discourage from running fox pretty easy..

Here is video of 9 hounds on a lion track we didn't get her caught but we got alot of good trailing in

[TomJr]

I hunt fox, bobcat and lions with the same dogs, bears once in a while as well. I can usually tell by the way they are running whether its a lion or fox/bobcat... its hard for me to tell the difference between fox and bobcat. The start for both fox and bobcat is generally the same: the dogs start sniffing all over the place excitedly but take a while to decide on a direction. "Scattered" is a good term to borrow from Cowboyvon once they get it lined out the trail is usually in a circle and normally I don't have to move much to keep them in hearing. On a lion they tend to line out much faster and trail in a strait line and I better get moving or be left behind.

After saying all this the other day they treed a lion and I thought for sure it was a fox until I saw it up the tree. The lion took them up and down the creek 3 times before treeing... they were all spread out and all over the place like they are for fox. This was a very hot trail and the area covered was not more than 1/2 mile so that might have been why it sounded like a fox race.