Trouble On The Track

[ALEX]

I've been hunting my three hounds about 4-5 days a week the last two months. This is their second season of hunting. I'm primarily out in high desert and alpine mountain country. In the desert, and in the lower elevation areas of the alpine mountain range I hunt, the soil is a sand/fine gravel and the country is very rocky and boulder strewn. Dirt soil is found higher. It is very dry in both ecosystems with no rain or snow in the last two months. I mainly free cast on foot and road the hounds.

The trouble I've been having is that my dogs have been starting tracks fairly consistently and seem to be able to move them some distance most times with gusto and drive. Some faster than others depending on age I assume and some tracks further than others. Seeing good tracks to verify what they're on is a few and far between occurrence. The majority of the time the track fizzles out (anywhere from 30 minutes to hours into their effort on average) and the dogs will make a loss they cant recover from or they throw in the towel and come back to where they started from. They still give enough voice on the track at that point, but not as much or as enthusiastic as they usually do when they leave out from me. I've considered back tracking to be one option since most often it seems like the track gets worse instead of better, at least in terms of how well they can move it and the level of mouth they give. These dogs have gone the right way on tracks times before, but are still only well started, so I wouldn't put it past them to go the wrong way either. They try to start tracks I feel are colder as well. Tracks I don't think they can handle just yet. The constant petering out of tracks nearly every time they attempt to start something has me wondering if it is a back track problem or if they're going the right way and environmental conditions on the trail simply have depleted the scent down the trail to the point where they can no longer move it. I have these dogs well bent off trash but I don't trust them 100% yet. But they know what the good game is. I also do not have a straight, finished dog that could check my younger dogs and help me figure out what is happening with more certainty.

I'd be very interested to hear anyone's take on what the issue could be with their trailing attempts and if it may be environmental and or any number of performance flaws in my hounds. I hope I gave enough background and detail on my situation that perhaps someone can share insight I may not have considered. Needless to say, it's been very tough going.

Thanks everyone.

[Mike Leonard]

What are you trying to trail?

[ALEX]

Felines mainly, Mike. Large and small. Thank you for the reply.

[ALEX]

I should add the desert country is very open with very little tree cover and minimal grasses and vegetation to protect/withhold scent. Up in the high country, there is enough canopy cover and grass/vegetation to makes things easier to work in. Most tracks in the desert end up in very large rock piles and or lead up higher into small mountains of rock piles. It's here where my dogs will get hung up and make a loss they most times can't work out of.

[Mike Leonard]

Sounds pretty typical, and that open desert or high desert country with that type of ground cover and soil holds very little scent. It sounds as if you are starting fairly fresh bobcat and or gray fox tracks , which under those conditions are seldom over an hour old. the dogs work them and if they don't quickly jump them the scent just dissipates when they get up in their hidey hole rocks and that is that.

If it was a lion especially a tom track that they were really wound on for 30 minutes and then it goes away I would say back track, and I would really get down on all fours and find that track.

Bobcat and fox tracks in desert where there is little or no brush and grass and gravel based sandy soils the tracks just don't last any length of time at all.

My suggestion is once they strike make sure what it is and which way it is going. If the tracks are small and you don't want to waste all day chasing those little ghosts I would move up higher to that country with better conditions or tune them back and concentrate on lions only because at least you will have something who's scent just doesn't fizzle out in 30 minutes once you get it started good.

[ALEX]

Thank you for the reply Mike. Your observations on difficulty in trailing in those conditions as well as what is likely a workable track are what I was thinking too. Seems like a combination of less experienced dogs, probably some backtracking, environmental conditions (weather, sun, soil type, lack of vegetation), and terrain that have them coming up short so often. What they have caught in the high desert country were easy runs with hot tracks and a quick jump/pop up in cold weather.

I've posted this in other places and have gotten some input from others that helped. If anyone has any further constructive advice, I would sure be grateful for it.

[Cowboyvon]

I think Mike is dead on.. I hunt the desert and what he says is exactly what I believe happens a lot more then we want to admit. I was down in some lower hills last year where the rancher had seen a lion,, I started hitting some good saddles and started a track.. man we were just trailing along just about right .. slow and steady, We topped out through another saddle and I could see a head to the other side of this ravine and up ran a fox .. I thought no it can't be we started this just like a lion and I thought I seen a track ..well maybe ... so I watched the hounds trail down and through the other side and sure enough old booger was leading right up where that fox ran lol,

I know we mess with bobcats more then we should and this keeps us from getting to some lion tracks. But every year when I move down lower to avoid the deer hunters I get to thinking I might be able to catch them...

And trailing backwards is so common in this country its another thing I hate to admit .. sometimes the only way you would be able to find a track is if the lion walked through wet paint first.. I guess I get lazy sometimes and just don't get down and look hard enough.. An old man I talked to that hunted his hounds all over the country and spent time with the Lee brothers had a theory about the hounds trailing backwards and said it was natural and a throw back from when they were wild and would trail back to a kill .. makes sense to me .. seems like they would rather trail backwards on one sometimes then forward lol

[Nolte]

Just something to add to what Von is saying. Some dogs like to back track cause they really like to trail but don't really want to catch up to what's at the end of that trail. Seen it a lot with bear.

As for tracks fizzling, it sounds like Mike and Von got ya steered in the right direction. It could also be time of day thing. When sun and wind start getting to tracks it doesn't help the trailing.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

[ALEX]

Thank you all for the input. With finding a visible track often difficult when coming up and looking behind where the dogs have just trailed through, it's mighty tough to guess whether they are going right and I should let them be or if I need to turn them around. I'll try flipping them the other direction and see if they may take a track the opposite way when they start something if I can catch up to them, although I won't coax them if I cant verify a track going the opposite direction the'yre trailing. I think I'll just see if they have any interest going the other way. So many tracks have dead ended recently that it must be something environmental/terrain type or back tracking. These dogs have got things going in the right direction enough times, but I've also seen them dink around going one direction for 30 minutes then turn around to go where they started a track and then take it the opposite direction, telling me they are correcting themselves. At least I hope.

[JTG]

Hi, Alex.
If you could find someone with a good broke hound, that would be very helpful. That would tell you everything you need to know. I would also split up your two hounds with and without the broke hound.
The other thing that I would try is to set them up, for easy trails and catches. Set up a bunch of live traps, wet the bobcat, cut it loose and let the hounds find and tree or after a snow or a fresh track. Once they can do that with ease, I would move them to harder conditions.

[ALEX]

Hi John,

Thanks for the response. I'll see what can be done about getting with someone who has something I could check my dogs with. I may have options there. Some fresh snow has yet to show up here, but if it does, that'll be a bonus. It really helped last season in this same area. Especially in the high desert. Good setups for success, like you mentioned, are what I'll keep working toward as much as I can control it. Some easier runs will spike their confidence, though they don't seem to be especially low on enthusiasm even among their struggles.

[JTG]

Alex,
If they do not tree or catch often, they associate in their brain or get trained, that it's okay for them not to tree or catch the desired game.

[ALEX]

That's something I worried may be getting ingrained in their minds. When they are having a hard time, I'll continue to get in there and encourage them to keep trying. That's seems to help and they've been getting better this season about not backing off so fast, but they have a ways to go to get them where I'd like. Lately, the closest thing to easy success was them baying up and treeing some feral barn cats on the property I live on as we were loading up to head out.