Average Length of Race

[STX-Hunter]

How far and how long will a coon in your area run for? I have been having some pretty good races lately here in South Texas.

Last night ran one for twenty minutes and covered a good amount of ground and treed. Then ran another for a much longer time that finally bayed up in some cattails in a tank. My dad shot him in the cattails.

Tonight not much of a race at all, on the first tree, more of a popup but had 3 coons in the tree. Then ran another that ran around in an oak mott then took of for half a mile then treed. Dang good race.

We were hunting with my dad's bluetick, and my black and tan and my running walker. All three good dogs and pretty fast. I wish we had something that would put some teeth on a coon on the ground though. We would have caught and killed the longer running coons on the ground much quicker if any of the three would grab hold.

[david]

I wish we had something that would put some teeth on a coon on the ground though. We would have caught and killed the longer running coons on the ground much quicker if any of the three would grab hold.

That always puzzled me how come coon hounds don’t catch more coon on the ground. I have run coon down myself and caught them. I sure can’t catch a dog that is running as fast as he can away from me. Coon are much slower.
Then I studied and learned that many of the foxhounds in Europe (where our hounds came from) were not allowed to catch. If they did catch, they were culled. This went on for centuries.

I suspect that the strains of Hound that do actually catch have been bred here long and hard with that goal in mind, and that other breeds have been added in to break that barrier bred into the hounds by wealthy nobility at great cost.

My guess is that if you add in a Cur to your pack such as the type Jeff Eberle on here runs, your coon will not last very long. If they don’t climb they will be caught.

And, unless you are collecting hides, it might be a lot more enjoyable to hear a good long race. And that is what those European hounds were bred to give the mounted nobility.

Yours are doing what they were bred to do. And it sounds like they are giving you a ton of fun.

The old timers used to talk about two different types of coon. The one was the chubby creek dweller, the other was the more lanky ridge runner who gave a much better race and might not be anywhere near water.

The best coon races I ever had were fox races or cat races or deer races that broke off on a hot coon and made him climb. A lot of night hunts have been won with coon races like that. But there was one race I remember where I was sure it was a fox circling until I saw the coon several times. He would not climb and eventually he wore out and they ran into him. I Would have liked some more races like that. I wish I had thought to catch the dogs off him.

[lawdawgharris]

Man I totally agree with that David. Trail to chase or trail to catch is what determines the length of a lot of races. Many dogs that are slow on track are happy chasing. MANY hog hunters don't want any mouth on track. They figure it pushes the hogs. At one time I didn't mind it because I knew track speed was the biggest factor. Our hogs have evolved and they get up and move when they know a dog is on the ground, usually in that little all day trot they get in. Coons are know different in the sense that they have enough sense judge how far a dog is when he opens, if he's moving towards them and at what rate of speed. Track speed does one of two things to our coons and our hogs. Either they feel pressured and tree or they are rushed and make a mistake which gets them caught on the ground. I've hunted coons with one guys dogs and everytime it was a long race. Myself and another guy could cast the same place and tree in half the time or distance.

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[david]

Man I totally agree with that David. Trail to chase or trail to catch is what determines the length of a lot of races. Many dogs that are slow on track are happy chasing...

...I've hunted coons with one guys dogs and everytime it was a long race. Myself and another guy could cast the same place and tree in half the time or distance.

It is kind of odd to me how much my dog philosophy seems to have in common with a couple hog hunters I know of. I have never chased hogs, but I have come to a lot of the same conclusions regarding how to get what I need out there in the wide world of dogs. I have never hunted with a pure bred dog breed that did all I needed/wanted it to do. I have hunted with a few crossed up dogs that came very close.

It has become kind of funny to me how many people love to use the phrase “run to catch” when describing their line of dogs. It’s only funny because so many of them never catch; they tree. And track speed means nothing if the animal refuses to climb and the dog’s genetics forbid it to catch.

It didn’t become funny to me until I first experienced a dog that actually runs to catch. Guess what. A dog that runs to catch: catches...

And, it usually doesn’t take very long to do it. In the world of bobcat hunting areas where cats often refuse to climb, in my experience: if I am hunting a dog that runs to catch and we get passed the 20 minute mark since the jump on a decent day, she is either sick, lame, or pissed off about something on Facebook.

I agree with you that many dogs who are slow on track are happy chasing and never catching. But I will add that many dogs who are fast on track are also happy chasing and never catching. They are more likely to bring the animal to the point of complete exhaustion so that it stops and they bump into it. But this is not running to catch in my opinion.

Many people live to hear agood Hound race. That is what the untold wealth and royal fortunes were spent on; to develop these dogs we call hounds who will give beautiful voice and keep trailing as long as they can keep the quarry moving. It quits moving if a dog catches it. So that dog would have been eliminated from the pack and from breeding.

In North America, the quarry also quits moving when it climbs a tree. But the dogs didn’t catch it. They let it get away from them. The trail goes where they can not, and that is where they stay if tree bred.

That is why so many tree bred dogs are a headache for bobcat hunting. The cat often leaves a trail they can not follow. And that is where they stay, (“Hung up”), until they can learn or be taught otherwise. And some cannot learn or be taught to ignore their genetic instincts.

The European foxhounds were bred to go find another fox when the fox stops by going to ground. That trait is still there in many that will leave a tree and go looking for something that will move.

[macedonia mule man]

I’ve coon hunted a good bit in South Louisiana and can’t recall having a ( LONG FAST) coon race. I’ve usually have a long slow coon race or a short fast coon race, long and fast races are usually been something other than a coon. Had a half red tick/ halftreeing walker that had a lot of one hour fast coon races in the hills and when it decided to take the swamp, on the first out she would move out on a much slower pace and have a coon treed in 5-10 minute. Anyone who has coon hunted much at all knows what happened. The average slow race with a tree is about 30-45 min. The average short fast race with a tree is about 10. The next time you have a fast race started look at your watch, when it’s over look at your watch. They are usually not as long as they seem. I’m talking dogs running game swapping leads and never missing a bark.

[lawdawgharris]

Running to catch is more of an expression than it is the actual act of catching. It could also be said running to put it up, running to bay it, running to stop it. Treeing it, baying it, or catching it all mean the quarry is no longer in flight. It means they have caught up to whatever the quarry may be and are doing their best to make sure it stays right there. It's absolutely true that many wanted to hear the race and it is true that most of those that "caught" were discarded. Later on though the opposite was true when people needed them to catch. They were hunting to rid the coyotes, fox, coons, etc. The pretty sound of a good race was not the purpose for these people as it was for the nobles. Catching their quarry or allowing the person hunting the opportunity to kill the quarry was at the forefront of desirable traits. I'm 47 years old and have been super fortunate to be mentored by some men that were very good dog men. The terms run to catch or run to chase are terms I've grown up hearing. Just as the animals we hunt evolve, so do the dogs we use to hunt those animals. A good example of what I was speaking of are the hounds we used at the prison. If we had put dogs on an escaped inmates track that just wanted to run or chase we wouldn't have caught many escapees. But because these dogs ran to catch, they pushed the track as fast as possibly could because that was their reward in a sense. And I promise, they ran to catch. You didn't want to be where they could get to you when they caught up. My hog dogs are not rough, but are running to stop a hog. Smaller hogs in the 100 to 120 pound range had better get in some good thick cover and stay put or it's likely a caught hog when more than one dog gets there. Bigger hogs than that they will bay but it better stay faced up or they are gonna grab it in the pride and joy and I don't mean reach up there and pinch it. My last coon dog was a bluetick/treeing walker cross. He ran to catch. He would over run the track a lot of times because he was in such a hurry to catch up to the coon. He loved to catch'em on the ground and it didn't take but a couple shakes for it to be done. He wasn't gonna bark if he could get to it. It had better tree if wanted to live. That's the difference in what I consider to be the 2 types of track dogs.

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[macedonia mule man]

Lawdag, nobody in my area used hunting to thin out predators back in the day. If some was loosin stock of any kind, they used poison. Everybody had a small wooden keg of stricnine, probably about 25#. If they had to poison they usually let all the neighbors know to keep all the dogs shut up for a few days. Whatever ate it was found only a short distance from the kill.

[lawdawgharris]

Yes sir saw that a lot here too. But, at one point I was pretty bad many people didn't mind keeping their dogs up for a couple of days but many of them didn't want to do it for prolonged periods and so it got to where they were doing any and everything to thin out the coyotes. When people hunted for hides, they wanted numbers. The race sounded good but the objective was numbers. They couldn't put the numbers with the run to chase type as they could with the high pressure dogs. I'm not knocking those type dogs at all. I appreciate the good sounding race myself and I certainly agree with David on how there came to be so many of that type. This all makes me think of an old man that I met years ago. He had asked me to come hog hunt an area where he ran coyotes so his young dogs wouldn't be tempted to trash on them. He was 90 years old when I met him and was one of the last people I knew of in our area that was still running free world coyotes. Most were hunting under high fence already. He said he would've too but he didn't want to change dogs. He said he tried it but the pen owner got kinda put out with his dogs because they made much shorter work of a couple coyotes than the other peoples dogs. They had dogs bred like the nobles did. They didn't care near as much about catching as they did about listening to the race. He had bred for speed and for them to catch and kill the coyotes. The coyotes his dogs caught had just been put in there. He said he'd just ride it out in the free world hunting because at 90 he didn't think he had much more time to hunt. I wish I had been smart enough to get some of those dogs from him.

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[david]

...He had bred for speed and for them to catch and kill the coyotes. The coyotes his dogs caught had just been put in there. He said he'd just ride it out in the free world hunting because at 90 he didn't think he had much more time to hunt. I wish I had been smart enough to get some of those dogs from him.

It’s true. We still are culling the dogs that catch; they get banned from the pens. And those that are smart enough to anticipate a critter’s behaviors and cut to him are called cheaters and penalized. So we cull out the brains as well.

I met a sheep man back in the eighties in Oregon. He had registered Walker foxhounds. He said he had to have them to put on sheep killing coyotes. (I wondered if he had told his wife that so many times that he was starting to believe it).

But he said he had searched his whole life to find dogs that would catch and kill, but that he sure enough had them now. He had enough Hunters Horn magazines to stack from the floor to the ceiling a couple times.

His name was Ray Carver. And I have often thought the same as you Lawdawgharris. Probably the key I spent much of my life trying to find was right there. I wish I knew then what I know now.

[macedonia mule man]

I started to understand that I liked to hunt and listen to dogs run things in about 1950, I was about 10 yrs. old at that time. Most all the fox hunts I went to, the talk around the fire was what dog was in the lead. Never heard any talk or any interest who had a catch or kill dog. They wanted a dog that could control a fox race. You didn’t have to have a kill dog for that. Speed with line control was the desired dog. I never found many running walkers that had a desire to kill, run to overtake or stay up close to be able to smell stron fox scent maby was the dogs idea of enjoyment, I don’t know. Most will put their mouth on game in a bay up but not with intent to kill. I’ve only had one running dog that would kill game by himself . That fox hunting, don’t know much about cayote.went cayote hunting with my cousin and the chayotes ran his dogs back to the truck. I don’t think he had kill dogs.

[ethertonee]

The average race for me is 10 min or so and 1/4 to 1/2 mile distance. If it goes much more then that I have a dog that gets kind of quiet. He catches about 1/4 of them or more on the ground. The other dog has only caught 1 or 2 on the ground in 6 years. I have races that will go 30 min and over a mile some times, but that is more the exception then the rule. I hunt mostly in central Nebraska in river bottoms.