Before GPS collars, motor vehicles....

[JonBailey64]

....flashlights, and CB/Motorola radios how was hunting with hounds formerly done, be it bear, fox, bunny, deer (down South), kie-yote, lion or coon?


I imagine men on horses, burros or mules with tin horns. They may have had burning torches at night on a coon hunt. How they kept track of dogs sans GPS collars remains a history's mystery to me.

[kickemall]

They went on foot, listened to their hounds and followed where they went, just like some people still do today. Most hounds have always had good homing instincts and come back when they're done if no one goes to them.

[david]

The light was a carbide lantern like miners used. Before that a kerosine lantern. I have never heard of anyone using a torch. But I have used moonlight a lot and prefer it when the country is open and I don’t have to worry about a poke in the eye. And when there was that worry, I prefered a very dim and diffuse light that did not blind me and allowed me to see beyond the circle of light, yet illuminated twigs near my face.

I have watched dogs losing their homing instinct since telemetry. You could make a case that it once was the most important genetic trait because a dog was self-culled without it.

It wasn’t very long ago when electronics were not available. And when they came available, it was a long time before many houndmen like me had any of it.

A loud, far reaching voice on a hound was like gold. Now the voice doesn’t even matter. It is asthetics.

I kept bells on my dogs to help me find them. On a quiet night, it was amazing how far down in a canyon you could hear a bell. And there were times when it was the most beautiful sound on earth.

There also were times when every noise in the forest sounded like a hounds voice or a bell because every cell in your entire being wanted to hear one of those two sounds.

And a hound could hear me further than I could hear them. The problem was you had to be careful about not calling in a certain place, and then leaving there before they have time to get into your hearing, (if wearing bells,) or in your sight.

Many a time my throat ached and was sore for days. I learned to use my voice in ways that were loud but did not injure it. A hunters horn was louder, but I always lost them and they were not easily replaced, so I gave up on them. We used the car horn a lot if on the road.

They usually would return to the place they were let out or the place the track started. If I didn’t know where they were and went looking and listening, I would leave a coat or other article of clothing in that place. It was always a beautiful wonderful sight to drive back up to that spot and find my hound curled up on my coat.

Tree dogs then were bred to STAY treed. They had to because it could take many hours to find them. And with mine, and many others, if they were treed somewhere and you never found them, you would not see them out again till the next day.

And dogs knew the sound of YOUR truck engine also. A line of dogs I knew of were bred to fear all strangers and would leave the road and go out of sight at the sound of a vehicle that was not their own. This type of temperament was prefered by some government hunters back then.

[mudflap]

I was told about the clothing trick quite a few years ago from an old coonhunter in Missouri that I had bought a dog from and have had to use it a couple times.It is pretty neat to pull up and see them laying down right on top of it.

[macedonia mule man]

Typical deer hunt for me in southeast mississippi was leave out about 4:00 am, drive 11/2 hr to hunting grounds. We never had over 6 dogs and turned out 2-3 at a time in small blocks. Every body had leashes and knew how to catch dogs, if you couldn't catch you didn't get invited back. All the dogs we had were deer dogs that could trail jump and run alone or with company. I drove a lot of one dog packs that got the job done. A three dog deer pack can put on a show , no need for a large pack. We had to leave a few occasionally but we would hang around about an hour after dark and the ones that got through the standers would be back. Dogs that couldn't find where they were put out, we couldn't use. Lost very few dogs but did have some picked up hauled to another territory and hunted till end of season. Get a call 2 days after season end telling I had a dog show up with my collar at their place. I had just as much fun then as now but now with the electronics I can controll when I'm ready to go.

[LarryBeggs]

A few years back I was two hours from the house and realized I had forgotten the tracking equipment at the house. Decided to go on hunting rather than go back and get it. Almost right away we started a cold track. I drove around to the bottom and couldn't hear a thing. In a panick I made several circles around the drainage and nothing. About daylight the next day I finally started thinking what I would have done when I was younger and didn't have all the equipment. I started checking the roads for tracks and in no time I had found tracks. Several miles and intersections later I had them all rounded up. If I had only stopped and thinked a little sooner I might have gotten a good hunt in. How quickly we get spoiled by technology.

[LarryBeggs]

A few years back I was two hours from the house and realized I had forgotten the tracking equipment at the house. Decided to go on hunting rather than go back and get it. Almost right away we started a cold track. I drove around to the bottom and couldn't hear a thing. In a panick I made several circles around the drainage and nothing. About daylight the next day I finally started thinking what I would have done when I was younger and didn't have all the equipment. I started checking the roads for tracks and in no time I had found tracks. Several miles and intersections later I had them all rounded up. If I had only stopped and thinked a little sooner I might have gotten a good hunt in. How quickly we get spoiled by technology.

[driftwood blue]

first we were not sitting around in front of a TV or a computer!-- we got electrictity in 1953---
TV at our house did not come until 1963,, by then I was coon hunting!

Started hunting in 1959-- most hounds then did not burn thru the country looking for a hot track or a pop up tree.hunted with a Coleman lantern to walk with.. had a "tinfoil" halfway around it to give some light direction.. but still very easy to get turned around with it. pretty darn hard to see a coon in a tree-- the old timers would just wait till Dawn.. -- Going school did not permit that! next was a Carbide light.. better until something knocked the flame out or it run out of water or carbide.. very good to spot coon then came a 2 cell next was a Ray-o-vac 3 cell.. Dang that was good...
later a Bill Boatman Dynalite 6 cell -- it would light up the timber but carried a 2 cell to save batteries. in the 60's I could get Burgess d cell batteries for 9 cents each...

that worked until the 70's when I discovered the WHEAT LIGHT !!! Big step up in the world.. the 1st battery lasted 8 years.. the replacement was not near as good and it leaked acid on my britches..
welcome to the world of Lithium batteries and LED's!!!
when we heard the dogs treed we got to them one way or other... usually with shanks mare...
Locating them was usually not a problem as those old hounds them had real strong voices.. My old Blue dog had a big booming bawl and Don Williams' hounds tended to have more of a loud chop. Don's hounds were totally straight.. my old Doc would tree a possum if they had not hit anything after 2-3 hours.. surely did locate them many times that way.

Deer races were not a problem as the first one we seen where I grew up was in 1966....
in the early 70's Don's old Hawk dog would stay all night and meet you where you turned out about 8 in the morning.. But that was very seldom .

--When Jim Gatton started selling the Sunburst Saturn lighted collar I got a pair of them-- I still use them even though I do gave a Garmin now. I do not know how long those LEd lights on them will last now that he has retired.