BigGameHoundsmen.com

certainly is material for a book.

Catch wrote: Any ole dog can cold trail,

Catch, sorry man but I highly disagree. I can get all sorts of dogs to burn a hot track but darn few that I consider real good cold trailers.

I've also found that while most dogs will run other critters and probably do it pretty well, they really Excell on one. It's jusr wired in them. They would prefer to run that critter.

I've also noticed that dogs need a bit to slow down and work an old cat track, after wheeling on bear all summer. Once they learm to grind out those, it will really help them become a better cold trailer the next year on bear.

I agree with Catch and Ike that there are certain dogs that seem to be able to adapt to any game or condition. I have met people like that too, but not all that many of them. Most follow a particular profile and even though they think they are very talented in all aspects of their domain they find out when they see a truely talented person just how lame they really are. LOL!

I has a fellow I work with one time who was an avid golfer and he was a good one usually cleaning out the pockets of the local boys at the club and he strutted around in his fancy sweaters and slacks and you would have thought you were around a genuine celebraty. Well they had this big open tournament in the area nd some of the better golfers in the southwest showed up because of the money.l Well I thought I would go out and stand around the gallery and see just how old Chuck did against these boys. Well on the first tee box I watched him and a young stud looking guy about 26 steps up to his ball , looks down the course step up adjust his cap and WHAM! I mean that ball wernt out of sight right down the middle. I looked over at Chuck and the color drained out of his face. He turned around and looked at me and said Mikee this is going to be a long day. LOL!

Any old dog can cold trail ,I like that. LOL! Any old dog can sometimes make a trail look cold would be a better way of saying it, I think. LOL!

I agree with Mike as I have seen many a hound stay in one spot and babble their head off and the owner is just so proud as their dogs is a true COLD TRAILER. If you like setting around listening to your hound thats fine. A true cold trailer will drift on the track and keep moving it rather than stay in one spot all day. Not all cold tracks are cought but the hound needs to be able to drift past the hang ups and move the track if at all possible. I am only speaking of bobcat and lion as no nothing about bear hunting.

i think calling a dog a "cold trailer" can be over used sometimes. i also think that conditions has a lot to do with the scent holding better in different parts of the country. here in wisconsin where Nolte and I are from, we have some smaller sections to run. it's not like an entire mountain range where you need to go and find the bear on horseback or 4-wheeler. we do have bear that travel a lot and need a true cold trailer to get things moving for us. last year we had a little plott female that cold tracked a bear 7 or 8 miles before it was jumped. it weighed 434#. i wouldn't even consider her our groups best cold trailer. just because some of these other dogs wouldn't push a track that far doesn't mean i would part with them. they all have their own positives to help eachother out. Nolte has hunted with a couple good cold trailers that are now listed in the R.I.P. tribute section. those dogs would cold track a bear for 10-15 miles without a problem. saw it myself and also heard about it from numerous people. our group has a walker dog that cold tracked a bear down a blacktop road for almost a mile, went off in the woods and jumped the bear. i think people's opinions on a "cold trailer" can very in different conditions and other parts of the country.

blackpaws wrote:i think calling a dog a "cold trailer" can be over used sometimes. i also think that conditions has a lot to do with the scent holding better in different parts of the country. here in wisconsin where Nolte and I are from, we have some smaller sections to run. it's not like an entire mountain range where you need to go and find the bear on horseback or 4-wheeler. we do have bear that travel a lot and need a true cold trailer to get things moving for us. last year we had a little plott female that cold tracked a bear 7 or 8 miles before it was jumped. it weighed 434#. i wouldn't even consider her our groups best cold trailer. just because some of these other dogs wouldn't push a track that far doesn't mean i would part with them. they all have their own positives to help eachother out. Nolte has hunted with a couple good cold trailers that are now listed in the R.I.P. tribute section. those dogs would cold track a bear for 10-15 miles without a problem. saw it myself and also heard about it from numerous people. our group has a walker dog that cold tracked a bear down a blacktop road for almost a mile, went off in the woods and jumped the bear. i think people's opinions on a "cold trailer" can very in different conditions and other parts of the country.

yup
dont know a thing about lion hunting -

i would guess that using bear dogs to cold trail bear would only help them to cold trail lion or vice versa -

takes breeding ,experience , training , and lots of luck - lol

never seen dogs cold trail a bear quite as far as blackpaws is talking about

id be the guy calling them back ,if i knew it would be that far lol

but cut all those figures in half and ive seen quite a bit of all of the above-

they wernt just "ANY OLD DOG " but best ive seen

what you do with dogs makes a difference-

got to crack some eggs to make an omelet -

or run a few moose - lol

if you just use them as pack dogs on bear , turn them in from the truck on hot tracks for years in a row-

good luck trying to make instant coldtrailers out of them , no matter how they are bred -



anytime u work a pup or young dog on coldtrailing

its a big help - they learn --if they got it in them -

some dogs just not wired to do it ,i dont think you can change that alot by training

- anytime i get a chance to let pup work on coldtracks - its time well wasted - LOL


i like mikes scenario - all different kinds of hunting/cold trailing

we get all different kinds of bear hunting here -depending on seasons - red hot tracks not so hard to find in june and in late october or november may go to about any extreme to get them on any kind of track -

all different kinds of cold trailing being done too

never seen dogs cold trail a bear quite as far as blackpaws is talking about

id be the guy calling them back ,if i knew it would be that far lol

the examples i used were during kill season. we can run off of bait here in wisconsin so we know the tracks are only a night old since we do the baits the night before. when we throw on them big tracks during kill season, that's the bear we want to catch and hopefully harvest. otherwise we don't mess with it. like i said, we have some bear that are just travelers heading back to their den area for the winter so if he hits the bait an hour after you rebait it, that gives him almost 12 hours of travel time. they can go along way in 12 hours. we put timers on some of the baits just to see how old the tracks are. Nolte's group had a dog that is now deceased that could push a 12-15 hour old track like it was jumped. i'm talking 10-12 miles like this. unbelieveabley cold nosed in my opinion. another thing i was saying before was conditions. if a bear hits the bait right after you bait it at 7:00 at night and you don't even put a dog on it until 6:30 the next morning, that track is 11 1/2 hours old. also, we get a heavy dew here at night and that sets in on top of a lot of our tracks. sometimes the dew is so heavy it feels like it is raining. put that on top of a 11 1/2 hour old track and it gets tough for a dog to track.

twist wrote:I agree with Mike as I have seen many a hound stay in one spot and babble their head off and the owner is just so proud as their dogs is a true COLD TRAILER. If you like setting around listening to your hound thats fine. A true cold trailer will drift on the track and keep moving it rather than stay in one spot all day. Not all cold tracks are cought but the hound needs to be able to drift past the hang ups and move the track if at all possible. I am only speaking of bobcat and lion as no nothing about bear hunting.

That is the type of hound I'm referring to in my last post when I wrote any ole hound will cold trail.



I'm not a golfer, but just like anything else in life Mike, there are people that know more and do it better!

Boy that is for sure and I like hanging around those types if they will let me. LOL!


I knew and old man that was a great woodsman and a pretty good back country lion and bear hunter. He never claimed to be the end all of it and he only kept about at a time. He caught most of his bear with two dogs at a time and lion the same way. Hunted mostly heavy forested areas that he knew well. He only kept four dogs for his little humble house and back yard sat right in the middle of a little town that was fast becoming a bigger town and urban sprawls was closing in on him. Every few years he he would sell one of the older dogs to make room for a new pup to train. He had one old blue dog with a tan head and tan up his legs. He had real long ears and if ever a hound looked or sounded like the end all of a southwest lion hound old Rowdy did. This dog had been a decent bear dog and a fair snow lion dog but not one of the best and as he got older he lost some or most of his hearing and some of his brains too I think. He started trashing again like a pup but for some reason he got to where he couldn't move a track fast enough to scatter his own dung, and I think he was going senile. He was only 8 according to the man but I think he lost a few years somehwere along the way. I knew he had a new pup coming and I asked him if he was going to put old Rowdy down. He looked at me with his little devilish twinkle in his eyes and said what are you talking about that's a trained lion and bear hound. I said well you know how he has been acting. He said oh that's just a phase he will buckle back down I am sure grinning again. Well he already had some young potential buyer on the hook and he was fixing to pay for that new pup plus a little with this fine pup trainer for sale. Well the guy came to hunt with the dog, and they went out nad next time I saw him I said well did you sell him old Rowdy. Sure he said he couldn't get that money handed over to me quick enough. Really I said what did you do with him. Well he said I took him out inj such and such place and I saw where some deer had crossed rthe road it was bare ground so I drove on past there a bit and said. Lions cross here all the time I bet old Rowdy will get us one going here directly. So he got the dog out and then walked him at and angle thru the trees knowing he would intersect the tracks of the deer, and sure enough old Rowdy struck. Well he trailed around bawling and finally moved it a bit and this old guy said you hang with the truck and I will see if I can get a line on which way he is taking it. Well he bawled and bellered and he had a beautiful big mouth and that guy back at the truck was about to pee in his pants listening. Well they disappeared into the trees and after awhile the bawling stopped and in a bit the old man comes back leading the dog. What happenhed asked the guy? Well the old man said that lion track was at least three days old and the direction he was going into is really bad country and you said you had to leave in the morning and there is no way we would ever get down there to that lion and dog and get out of there. It might take us two days of trailing just to jump and tree him. Well the guy was sold and he was there in person and saw this dow with his own eyes.

Hw
e was a cold trailing type for sure even though he couldn't even do a decent job on a fresh deer track anymore. LOL! Oh yes stuff like that happens and although it was a little crooked he didn't twist the guys arm to get the money he handed it over. I learned a lesson listening to that story, and maybe it will help sombody else along the way.

Wow Ike that is a good example. Hey don't forget the rest of Mike's career. Oh wait, his greatness ended that night.

Your alittle off on timing facts with TYson.

Thanks Catch, I liked my Tyson story a lot better than Mike's golfer story....

blackwater -we cant use bait here but ive run off some bait in maine-

i understand what you mean- when you KNOW that bait was hit last nite - no reason not to let them take oldest tracks -ive never seen them go that far- wasnt doubting you, just havent seen it, i have seen them coldtrail from bait to bait to bait . where i go they are usually about a mile apart -

one time , bait was all in buckets--all set up the same - -- it had been raining all nite - one bucket didnt have as much rain in it as the others -- so cast a couple dogs-- --lol they split and ran two bear - -- we caught them off both - just small bear -- i think a pair of yearlings but nyways -- was along time ago and never forgot that -- kinda neat-
the way it was raining i dont think track was very old- but had crossed a couple roads and we could barely see the tracks in the last road they crossed just before they jumped - even then , was still raining so hard i was pretty skeptical

bait is easy

-if dogs not used to it - bait is hard- lol , was kinda a learning experience for me and my dogs - i can take semi straight dogs and run trash off a bait-

every critter in the woods is there to clean up any crumbs - what better way to get pup trashing than to keep casting him on a bait lol




have seen honest dogs strike at every bait-, hit or not -just so much scent there-

seen real good dogs that were a little overbroke with e-collar refuse to run off bait--, they think its a setup ,lol

takes dogs a while to get used to it- best thing i like about bait,pretty good chance ,going to get a run everyday - check enuff of them

have seen honest dogs strike at every bait-, hit or not -just so much scent there-

some dogs will start to rig on the smell of grease i think. yeah every critter comes in and eats the leftovers when the bear leaves.

our problem with some baits is during kill season, the bigger bears will come in befor the little bears. so if and when we throw on that bait there is a good chance the dogs will take the fresher track.