Montana dry grounding (bobcat)

[Ringo]

Is there anything you bobcat hunters do to sharpen the skills of your rig dogs? Do they get better at striking less scent with experience? Do you guys get alot of strikes that arent runable and are some of your strike dogs better at striking a runable track then others? Are you more confident when a certain dog strike you are gonna get something started.

[dwalton]

Ringo: I think the best thing I can do to sharpen my dogs both striking and catching is to hunt them in the dry hard trailing conditions. They do get better with age. mostly being able to find the scent when they get off the rig. They may have to go a ways to find the track that they smelled out of the wind. Young dogs have trouble with this. Some of my dogs will strike every piss bush or scratch that is days old. Some dogs will only hit good tracks that are runnable. In good set condition days it saves a lot of time if I leave the ones at home that hit everything. Hope this answered your questions. Dewey