Who catches every time

[Hounder-]

Lets not be immature about it, there are situations when the cat or bear does something and the hound simply cannot get there. We all know that so for those people chirpin, grow up about calling out the "everytime" comment.

I don't feel as if I was being immature about it; the question is "100% catch rate, no excuses" and as you point out there can always be something that screws up a hunt (aka an excuse, although I would not word it as such, I'd more word it as just the way hunting goes).


And I'm not arguing with the quality of your dogs and your claim, sounds like they are great and do it all. You make excellent points on how to make great dogs. The being "honest" with yourself comment made me think; I know I make excuses for my "Fluffy" which makes her seem better in my mind than she actually is.

I just simply wanted to defend myself on the immature comment; wasn't trying to be immature/a jerk, just answering the question the way I read it.


I do have to say; I would never have thought that even a great group of dogs could reach even a 90% or 100% (however you classify it) catch rate and it sounds like yours do. Tells me I have even more to learn than I thought, and I thought I still had to learn a lot !

[dwalton]

Good post guys. I been elk hunting for a while it is nice to be back and able to get my 2cents in. A 100% catch is asking a lot and it depends on the game and where you are hunting. Guys that do that or even close, you have to be a good breeder and willing to cull and more important it is the hunter that hunts 5 to 7 days a week, knows a good dog when he see it and can get the best out of the dog and himself every day. If you ever have the chance to hunt with someone like that you can learn a lot that you don't know that you thought you did. It is usually a professional that has to make a living at it. Dewey

[justicek]

i know several packs of the same line of dogs here in west virginia that tree more bear than number of days hunted. Does that mean 100% catch?

[Warner5]

Even the best, scratch their heads sometimes. john.

[AZDOGMAN]

What kind of conditions are you talking? Good snow and one day old tracks and you could probably catch close to 100%. Dirt or melting snow around here I will guarantee you won't come close. I am sure there are a good amount of guys that have bred dogs for alot of years and have super dogs. Ask them if they catch 100% and they will laugh.

[Bearkiller]

Depends on the species. To my knowledge a skunk or porcupine has never gotten away from my dogs.

[DC DOGGIN]

I know i sure as hell don't. When i first started hunting with a group of guys, the first time i went we treed a bear last weekend of the season. As i kept hunting with these guys i didn't realize how great their dogs were till i started going with other guys and by my self. When hunting with these guys if the dogs struck a track and could move it i would bet a hundred dollar bill every time that they would catch it because 99 percent of the time we were going to a tree. It didnt matter if it was a bobcat, coon, bear, or them trashy suckers treed a lion their dogs get it done consistantly day time, night time, rain, shine, snow, or dust mud it don't matter. I have been out and we would tree a fox that night a cat the next morning and another fox that night and we would be wore out and the dogs are still ready to rock and roll. I can remember once in about 6 or 7 months something got away, i went to a lot of trees with these guys and seen alot of game and had alot of fun and learned quite a bit of good info. i started hunting with alot of other guys and meeting new people and have never met anyone yet to have the quality of hounds they have. And consistantly catch game and make it look easy, makes catchin fox and cat look like anyone can do it. I have learned that is not the case and it takes alot of hard work and time and time in the woods and time in the woods and more time in the woods and more hard work.. Anyways there are guys that catch alot of game consistantly and pretty damn close to a hundred percent but that is not very often you find guys like this.

[marty]

that is a good post DC Doggin.....i know exactly what your talking about. In the 80's and 90's i ran all kinds of different hounds and settled on the majestic redbones and really liked them. I had decent success could catch most cats and ran around 60% on bear and i thought this was "normal" until i hooked up with one heck of hound man....Tim Faiers from Cranbrook. We were both guiding for an outfitter one week he with his hounds and i would take mine. I hadnt hunted with Tim and we starting talking dogs he asked me how mine did and i told him but i could tell he didnt think that was that good. So i asked him well how many bear do you catch? His answer was i catch em all. I thought why would you bs me when we are dropping the tailgate tomorrow but i thought well were going to find out.....i did find out that week and i what i learned is that need to change my pack. I caught a couple then on day 3 my best dog threw a pad, missed one cuz dogs didnt cross river....blah blah my "excuse book" had lots of pages. Tim ran the same 2 walkers for 7 days in rough country and treed or bayed 9 bears. I asked him for a pup and in 2000 i got my first dog.....which is the "grandpa" in my kennel now. When we run early in the morning and have a good track the dogs catch.....no excuses. I know sometimes like a swollen river can hang up dogs where it would be suicide if they tried crossing.......or cliffy crap that only bobcats and birds can thru....there are a few times we miss but not many.

[DOITALL]

I'm not a stats person,had a turkey hunter ask if he could go with me this summer to see what it was all about.We treed the first time he went,of course he liked it.We have been to 11 trees in a row.Then next trip dogs showed treed but before we got there it jumped out ran straight away completely out of the area we hunt crossed a main road.A man saw the bear and dogs cross but we never saw it. Thank goodness for garmin.We catch a high percent but never 100%.

I hunt 4 dogs and add a pup occasionally and noticed others hunting small packs what is the norm for bear?

[Yaak attack]

Is catching "near 100%" any thing like nearly pregnant? Or nearly 200 lbs.? Not quite the same as to me.

[JConroy]

Yaak I take it your responding to what I wrote. Near a 100% means just that... damn close. Not sure what your getting at but if I weighed 198lbs I would say I weigh near 200lbs yes, if I weighed 180lbs.... not quite so near no. Hope that clears up by what I meant by "near".

[Eric Muff]

Great post Marty,very classy.
We all need to practice giving credit where credit is due.
One thing Tim does better than anyone else I know is recognize that there are two ends to that leash.The dog makes the man and the man makes the dog.
Nice post.

[Glen]

I catch about 98 percent of the time , just to bad that only 1 percent it is target game! lol

[catdogs]

We all need to practice giving credit where credit is due.
One thing Tim does better than anyone else I know is recognize that there are two ends to that leash.The dog makes the man and the man makes the dog.
Nice post.

+1

[Yaak attack]

I could fill your whole month of Dec. with lynx hunters if you are willing to do a no kill no pay and exclude traps.