BigGameHoundsmen.com

I'm glad that somebody read and remembered what I wrote once. I almost feel important. While I agree that a guy could run almost any time he wants with a cold rig dog, he still can't run every track that is runnable. And at some times by passing those runnable tracks, it will end up being a pretty boring day. Other times having a good winding type rig dog will end up with a chase, where a bear was nowhere close to the road. Unless I'm out trying to take the air out of one, I go for whatever comes first. I'm not proud, it makes no difference to me.

How many times do you throw down on blind rigs? Or on a fairly busy blacktop road? Or on a road behind another pretty good hound guy? AND THEN catch the critter. Around here those are usually a sign of a guy with a pretty good rig dog. Of which I not a part of, but have been some at times.

Last Question, Besides possilby finding a trophy sized critter and knowing it whereabouts, what good is having a dog that strikes a lot of tracks that it can't finish? Nothing and I mean nothing irks me more than dogs that boo hoo around all day and never put an end to a track. Granted it's going to happen, but if it happens more often than not I'm on a fast pace to switch up the batting order. I'll give good dogs a lot of leeway on the right track, but they've got to earn that right it's not given. And regardless of what's on the internet, NOT many dogs deserve to have that right.

As for the question of a handling or renegade dog? It makes ZERO difference to me IF they can catch it. I've always got room for dogs than can catch, if not I'll make it. With a little bit of time, I can make a dog handle good enough for me. I can't give a pep talk to make it catch critters.

As usual Nolte. I'll drink to all of that.

If my dogs are barking alot on the rig,and not move out on the track,i cut a two foot flexable pine limb with lots of long green neddles,and slap the piss out of them,it dont hurt em but it sure keeps there mind off those road runnin coyotes that like to piss on every rock and stump along the road

Nolte wrote: As for the question of a handling or renegade dog? It makes ZERO difference to me IF they can catch it. I've always got room for dogs than can catch, if not I'll make it. With a little bit of time, I can make a dog handle good enough for me. I can't give a pep talk to make it catch critters.

I think you just answered my question nolte about whether a dog is more valuable if it handles and strikes over a dog that will only trail and tree if you show it the track. The renegade hound is a unfinished hound and needs some work, and is no doubt a cheaper hound than a finished hound that will strike, rig and catch. I'll agree with you on one thing, and that is IF I was into buying hounds I'd take the renegade hound over the finished hound as well because it would be alot cheaper ha!

If you ever make it out to Salt Lake City nolte look us up, and you can show us old hounddoggers some of those bear tracks my red hounds are missing........

ike

only excuse for a dog that doesn't handle is a lazy or inexperienced houndsman. Discipline and manners also create a dog that THINKS. I personally would be embarrased to show up to hunt with a dog that blew out of the box and had to be leashed every second. The way dogs handle is one way to determine how much time someone spends with their dogs and if they are a houndsman or hunter. If i was in the market for a finished dog and saw the owner break out a leash, I'd go home and keep looking. Ike only has what should be expected by all.

I personally would be embarrased to show up to hunt with a dog that blew out of the box and had to be leashed every second. The way dogs handle is one way to determine how much time someone spends with their dogs and if they are a houndsman or hunter.

you can't honestly be serious. i believe in a good handling dog but one that has had the shit beat out of it so many times for running off when it comes out of the box is not the dogs fault. i don't mean to start one of these and this is the only thing i will post. i have seen some real good bear and bobcat dogs that needed to be leashed out of the woods or leashed into the bait or leashed away from a tree. Nolte has seen some fine hounds too that needed to be leashed and i guarantee he wouldn't have sold them for any price. bear and cat cold trailing and catching fools. i guess that's just the way we hunt. but i will tell you one thing is that it's not because we don't spend enough time with our dogs or are not houndsmen or hunters. we don't hunt on the internet because the game is in the woods.

i hunt with a guy that i can guarantee you spends more time with his hounds than any of you and i know he leashes his dogs out of the woods and into a bait. this guy is pretty much a living legend around our neck of the woods and if you want to check for yourself i can give you his name and you can just look in the boone and crocket book for bear here in wisconsin or the buck and bear book for wisconsin. he has also caught his fair share of lions as well. i am done with this arguement but don't tell me that i am not a houndsmen or a real hunter if i have to throw a leash on my dog.

I can remember starting out in hounds and leashing those dogs to the track, sticking their nose in it and having those young dogs go down the track. Lots of times they would catch the lion or bear they were after, and I was as proud of those dogs at a early age as I was in their twilight years. Most of those years I was only hunting three or four hounds and the leash deal wasn't really all that bad unless I had to pull dogs uphill from a tree in a deep canyon, then it sometimes got pretty tough.

For whatever reasons, and probably because I like to bear hunt, I beefed up my pack a few years ago to nine hounds. With that number, I could rest a few hounds every day if I hunted very much and about always had a few fresh dogs. But eventually I ended up hunting all those dogs alone and pulling nine hounds off a tree is pretty damn tough. Three or four years back I decided those hounds weren't gonna get me hurt while out there alone and I started call them off the tree and we all walked out together--without a leash. And truthfully, a guy my age could die of a heart attack fighting that many hounds off the wood. I see people in their forties and fifties in the obituary every week that tipped over from less..........

If you guys enjoy, don't mind, are young and tough enough to pull nine hounds by yourself then have at it......but ol' Ike decided years ago that he ain't gonna fight those crazy hounds anymore. And I'm done with this post as well because comparing hounds only seems to piss people off.............

ike

blackpaws wrote:

I personally would be embarrased to show up to hunt with a dog that blew out of the box and had to be leashed every second. The way dogs handle is one way to determine how much time someone spends with their dogs and if they are a houndsman or hunter.

you can't honestly be serious. i believe in a good handling dog but one that has had the shit beat out of it so many times for running off when it comes out of the box is not the dogs fault. i don't mean to start one of these and this is the only thing i will post. i have seen some real good bear and bobcat dogs that needed to be leashed out of the woods or leashed into the bait or leashed away from a tree. Nolte has seen some fine hounds too that needed to be leashed and i guarantee he wouldn't have sold them for any price. bear and cat cold trailing and catching fools. i guess that's just the way we hunt. but i will tell you one thing is that it's not because we don't spend enough time with our dogs or are not houndsmen or hunters. we don't hunt on the internet because the game is in the woods.

i hunt with a guy that i can guarantee you spends more time with his hounds than any of you and i know he leashes his dogs out of the woods and into a bait. this guy is pretty much a living legend around our neck of the woods and if you want to check for yourself i can give you his name and you can just look in the boone and crocket book for bear here in wisconsin or the buck and bear book for wisconsin. he has also caught his fair share of lions as well. i am done with this arguement but don't tell me that i am not a houndsmen or a real hunter if i have to throw a leash on my dog.

I agree, i've never hunted with someone that can just leave thier dogs loose all the time.Never saw it in Wi or Mi,I've seen some damn good bear dogs around here but they still got led away from trees etc.

Boy you guys have selective hearing, I said "leashed every second"! Nothin about pullin off trees. far as beating dogs, that shows your level off training ability Lots of hunters can catch game with dogs, but houndsmen take pride in their dogs over the amount of entries in a B&C record book, impressive point there

Here it comes now, BS, internet know it all, I must not know what I'm talking about to say such things. Whatever helps you make excuses I guess. i can promise you that my dogs wait to come out of the box til they hear their name in any order, the only time I touched a leash this year was when there were strange dogs hunting with mine or alot of other dogs, thats starting a track or leaving the tree. My dogs don't cower like they are beat, they just know the routine, cause I enjoy and spend lots of time making them a pleasure to hunt. They put up their fair share also. Lots of dogs will catch game, but not lots of houndsmen make them a finished dog.

far as your local legend blackpaws, I'm sure he can catch game, lots of people can. Every town has one.

I simply stated how I expect my dogs to handle, sorry if it bruised some ego's. Blackpaws, if you have to beat your dogs to keep em from running over you when you open up the box, maybe you should take up golf. you bet your ass i would be embarrassed to show up with a bunch of poor handling dogs and hunt with someone who's dogs did. I 'm pretty sure I know at least one guy that would chew your ass and send you packin for it.

I had a guy with me last summer who video taped me calling my hounds off the tree, but the brush was heavy and it isn't very impressive. Shawn Labrum who owns and runs a guide service and ran hounds for over twenty-five years went to the tree with me half a dozen times on bears last spring, and he watched me call those hounds off each and every tree without a leash.

I remember one tree he had put his video camera away and I called them off, and all six came on the run. Labrum said I wish I had that on video, so I told him to get it out and I sent them back on the tree. Labrum fired up his video camera and when he was ready i called them off again, then he remember all the times he pulled off a bitch lin tree and fighting his hounds and wished he'd taught his hounds to do that.....call him and ask him if it ain't so! http://www.monsterbulls.com/ (I'm sure he'll be glad to talk to any of you about it)

If I get somebody to a tree with me this spring that can run my video camera, and if the area is open enough to see, I'll have them film me calling the hounds off, putting them back on the tree and then calling them off again and post it up for you to see..........it's really something to see, a pack of eight hounds in full cry under the tree and they just turn it off and run to dad!

ike

I have to say I like a well mannered hound as well as anyone but I have a hard time believing that a dog that rigs and strick is more valuable and just because they dont rig or strike doesnt mean they are not a FINISHED hound. Maybe in certain part of the country or on certain game but her in Montana a strike and rig dog is useless. If someone wants to put their hound on the dog box here during cat season I would laugh and I mean laugh hard (poor thing would look like a pop sicle after a mile or so) I have never had a strick or rig dog and I have cought a few cats in my years and the hounds seem to do a very nice job doing so and every once in awhile I STILL HAVE TO HELP MY DOGS FIGURE OUT A CAT TRACK everyone has to remember they are all dogs and none are perfect! So bottom line is a rig and strike dog in this part of the country is useless. later Andy

In this country we have year long lion seasons, and my dogs have rigged dozens upn dozens of lions, anywhere from March to November and gone and caught lots of them as well. But when the weather drops down into the -20 stuff my dogs ride in the box as well; when it gets colder than that I stay home cause I like my dogs! Winter is only a short time here, just a few months, and the best lion hunting is in the spring and fall when the snow leaves. In my experience, a good strike and rig dog will get a guy hunting about every day while those guys who have to have a track seldom get a run in the dirt........

ike
Home of the Wolf Pack, open ground rig and catch hounds.......

I find it sort of funny that a guy from Utah is telling us WI boys how "tough" it is to wrangle dogs out of the woods. Besides elevation, I don't think you guys got much on us as far crappy terrain. Here it's either thick, wet or both.

I walk all my dogs out of the woods with a leash, but they follow me. Some guys like to have them out front so they kind of guide to go around brush. Whatever works. I'd like to have them all handle like a lab, but I think that level handling is over kill for what is needed to hunt hounds here. I don't think a guy would want to get in the practice of calling hounds off a tree here, unless you want to extend the race.


I learn something new every day on here. I can't wait till the next time I get in a BS session with someone about kill season and tell them I'm more of a houndsman because my dogs followed me out after we got a 125lb bear than they are after they whacked a 4 hundo bayed tight in the thick stuff.

This whole thread reminds me of the saying "What difference does it make how short your pecker is if you get to use it alot".

This whole thread reminds me of the saying "What difference does it make how short your pecker is if you get to use it alot".

god that was funny. at least you won't have to put a leash on it.


Joe

Home of the dogs that rig sometimes and catch sometimes hounds

Good posts Nolte. You crack me up.