What's your favorite part of the race?

[beardogger4life]

i have two favorite parts. i love to hear a screaming bear race, the kind where the dogs are running on all gears and then you hear them catch up to the bear and gut down, and you know they are face to face with it. there is nothing like that change over!

my second favorite is when i'm under a tree and leashing the dogs back and getting ready for a shot, when my dogs hear the sound of the slide on my lever action rifle. they just go off even harder!!! thats a great feeling

[snowy river black and tan]

When I first started hounding I loved to here'em track(probably running deer) Then I was trying to make a strike dog, nothing would get my heart going like a good box blower. Now its that chain saw like roar of the whole pack bunched up tight coming right at you. You know that bear is jumped and the first little mistake on his part and it'll be all over.

[R Severe]

It would be plenty good to just say, yeh, what you all said

One thing that don't happen all that often is to get to see the race. I really like to start a track and then get to a spot I can see from. Sometimes you get to see just the dogs, sometimes the cat.
On a couple rare times I got to watch the cat go up in front of the dogs, and then watched the dogs check and locate.
Thats the best for me.

[kdrchuck]

We ussually rig with 4 or 5 dogs and I love when they just blow up out of dead silence, half asleep. You know you've got a hot one and the race is on.

My favorite is probably, moving in on a bay when you are close but you can't see anything yet. You know you are right there with them but you can't fight the laurel fast enough to get in there. Heart pounding ready to puke. Just thinking about when he might bust out and run over you. Huge rush.

Same thing at a tree but it's not nearly the adrenaline jam. I love to here them go up to treeing. "He's up!"

I love how the dogs know their buddy is there and they really start showing off. Or like he said above, when they hear that rifle action and dive in like the thing is already dead.

[Cold Track]

For me there's nothing like riding along on your horse and all of the sudden get a strike, and then the pack all getting a nose full, blowing up and taking off!

[dixiejagds]

When it swaps from cold trailing to jumped. Then trying to get positioned to dump the running dogs in. Hogs is all I have ever hunted with hounds, but that has to be my favorite pard.
Second place when a flat out race blows up in to a bay. Then you know the old porker has stopped to fight.

[liontracker]

My favorite part is a solid strike when free casting. When I've been climbing and walking rims for 3 or 4 hours and starting to doubt my intelligence, Blue brings me back to reality. All of a sudden it wasn't so far or so steep. I just new a lion was in there, now we can trail and tree !!!

[Mt. Dog]

I would have to say the most exciting for me is when you are lucky to be close enough on a cat or lion race to hear your dog go quiet for those few seconds just before that that long raspy bawl that says I know your up there Mr. Kitty!!

[Onza]

my favorite part of the race...

bears---dumping in the last dog left in the box... holding that dog by the collar until it hears exactly where the other dogs go...turning the dog loose and it acutally goes the right direction..good stuff for me. I could care less if I ever make another tree... just let me turn dogs in....gotta love it

lions---after a slow cold uncertain start... climbing the next ridge and coming to the realization that the dogs got this one lined out!

not exactly a part of the race, but getting back to the truck after a catch...and re-living every detail of the race with a good buddy....nice stuff

Cool Post Mike!

[ryan goodwin]

man good post. one of my fav is when the dogs finally stop old blackie on the ground and it sounds like a sworm of bees in ther and i allso like listing to a old cold track go from barking a little to jumped on a cat and last but not least when you have young dogs that are helping the older dogs figure out a track. man agin good post there is just to many to list for me

[mya]

My favorite part of the race is when we have something in a tree and after sneeking up to the tree my favorite little blue girl trots up to me with a look on her face like "Look What I Did!" Love it!!! Just like my kid bringing home a report card full of A+ grades!!!!

[bearcat]

I have to agree with Travis, it depends on the game. With bear it is definitly the bay. With bobcats I would have to go with the jump, or on a hardrunning cat that won't climb, the last part of the race, when they have him down to running fifty foot circles and duck and dodging trying to keep the dogs from catching him on the ground, and then they do despite everything he can do. With a lion it is probably listening to them work out a tough cold track, because there usually just isn't that much of a lion race to listen to, unless he's in some bad rocks that the dogs have problems getting through.

[Gary Roberson]

My favorite part of the race is when they jump. I feel that if I can get a critter jumped and running then my chances of catching him are pretty darn good. I especially like to hear a good bobcat race when they are running...the ducks, dodges and looses. I have always felt that the best dog is the one that consistently picks up the most looses. If you told this to most of the coonhunters today, they would look at you like you as if you were a Space Alien.

[Mike Leonard]

I guess I will wirgh in a little more on this one. I have already told my favorite part in coonhunting, so here iw hy I like lion hunting so much.

As most know i hunt lions mostly on horseback an a good deal on bare ground but some snow or spotty snow at times as well. Covering a lot of country before a strike is made is very common. In fact a person can go days at times and not hit a strikeable track so you have a lot of time to think. You set there in the saddle you watch the hounds you try to figure where a lion might come thru that country. you guide them to what you think are the most likely crossings, and hours may roll by. It is hard to imagine how one's heart leaps in their chest when it has been silent and still for so long with nothing but the breeze in the pines, the plod of steel shod hooves on the ground and the occasional bird or two. YOOOOOWWWWOOooo! Old Blue sounds off and you just about jump out of the saddle. you know his voice, and you know it is going to be a cat, a thousand things race thru your mind in an instant. Where's he at? Where are the rest of em, get to the line see which way. It is really exciting. Once the dogs are on the right end and moving you have a minute to collect your thought and then after them you go. so this is really a high point in the race the start.But as lion tracks go it may grind on for a long time with some loses in the middle and each pick up or recovery is exciting as well and on the pack goes. Many. many times when they track almost seems to disappear and the dogs are at a big slow point and casting around you begin to fret. Dang it, what happened did that track just melt away in the breeze? Liklely as not unless the dogs over heat the lion has pulled one of it's regular layup routines which is very common and for some reason their scent changes to a degree and they become hard for the dogs to trail. Just at what seems to be the lowest point of the whole deal, another siren sound will snap you back to reality. He's jumped! yes he layed up but thru persistance that old smart hound rooted around until he found his hiding place, and then boom the race is really on.That is an exciting moment as well and the jump race can really be noisy with even the young hounds giving lots of tongue as they race after the longtail.Usually these are breif races and soon you will hear the dogs treeing after the cat climbs. This is usually a little anticlimactic to me, but I do prefer it to the roar of bayed on the ground hounds and lions because I know it can get bad in a hurry so I must rush to their aid.
I like seeing the lion in the tree, but that is not a high point for me these days. Some may be bigger and some smaller but they all look good up there above the dogs. but thru a camera lense they just sort of run together over the years unless they are really something out of the ordinary. I have boxes of treed lion photos and I never even look at them anymore they are just another lion picture. The memory is the race.


One old timer told me one time. Son the only thing better than treeing a lion is trailing one.I have to agree.

[cecil j.]

But on a lion or a bear, if they make him roar and its a tom or a bore lordie me its awesome and stand ever hair on the back of your head - an neck streight out !!!hahahahaLike Mike I just thoug I`d add to it.