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Just curious but how many of you actually dry ground lions with the same dogs your bear hunting with and have consistent success with them...or do some guys have one pack for bear and another for lion.

I know a lot of people bear hunt and wait to chase cats in snow so that can be done no problem so im excluding that party here.

I won't keep a dog if it won't do both. I run lions in the dirt in the spring and some of the early summer, and when the spring bear hunt starts I do both. Just whatever track I find first. Don't
catch them all but give it hell. I do hunt lion in the snow as well, and do catch a lot more of those than we do in the dirt. But don't seem have a problem switching from either one.

lionhunterdaves,

Are you rigging those bears or are you free casting?

Mostly just rig the bears. Sometimes the dogs won't rig as well in the spring so we drag roads and look for tracks.

One pack all game (including deer, elk, coyote, fox, porcupine, and skunk)!

mike, they have to do it all dogs with enough experience should be able to figure out when they need slow down from rigging bears to trailing a lion or a bobcat in the dirt!Its like a foot ball team they help each other out and they learn to trust one another during the loss of a track.

Jeff I would bet you couldn"t make them dogs trash, but rumor has it they could catch a hog if ya ask em.

Same dogs year round here.

Jeff Shaw NM wrote:One pack all game (including deer, elk, coyote, fox, porcupine, and skunk)!

Now thats funny.

Good dogs should chase both.

OOPS! forgot to put TURKEY on my list! Gotta git out and see if I can get one for the table... Happy T DAY!!! later Jeff

Mike,

I beleive there are plenty of hounds and hound hunters out there that can get it done in style on all the mentioned species with the same pack of dogs. I have never been that good at it but the reason is not the dogs themselves but the manner in which I mainly hunt. When I was running bears with my my dogs and then attempted to bare ground hunt lions with the same dogs on horseback I ran into a lot of probelms when hunting the warmer months whent he bears were still out roaming around. Generally speaking and very true in my area bears are much more numerous than lions. So many times when I was attempting to cover the country and pick up a lion track I ended up chasing after my hounds who were attempting to apprehend a fleet footed bear. all good fun but not very effective when you have a lion to catch and the next day you end up sore and tired and your dogs are shot from the bear wars. I am sure if I could have trained them to only go after bears they rigged and not to strike them on the ground I might have been ok but I never got that accomplished. I did ok if I waited for the bears to go to sleep and then free cast them off the ponies but that cuts out some very valuable lion hunting and training time. So I had to decided if I was going to hunt bare ground lion year round, or only in the froze up months, or keep seperate packs of dogs for bear or lion. I just opted to try to keep them straight on cats and when I had the wild urge to run a bear I would go hang around Chaser's shop until he took pity on me and drug me along. LOL! Heck at one time I thought I was a bear hunter and had bear dogs but after going with him a few times I realize I was sorely disillusioned. LOL!

I would like to run bear bobcat and lion! This was the first season I have ran bear never put them on any bear sent. I did run a couple of coons early in august but don't know if it helped on catching bear. I don't rig I just free cast and let the dogs work areas I think the bear are. My buddy and I have treed two bear so far but still a little season left. On thanksgiving we got some snow finally. Went out looking for a bear track and hit a canyon with a couple bobcat tracks. Back in march I had ran a handful og bobcat drags and it must have payed of cuz I ended up treeing my first bobcat. Now would running bear have helped in this? And could my dog pic up a lion track in dry ground or snow? A little of the topic but would like to know thanks guys!

Kyle,

Most dogs I've seen even cow dogs once they have the idea of the game it justa matter of showing what's accepted and not. Trash or game. Hope this helps. Not every dog is this way but seems like most to me.

I'm going to give it a try. I had trouble finding bears this fall and pulled my dogs off a couple cat tracks looking.

You guys are just being too picky. Bear, lion... at least those animals climb trees. I'm happy when they stop trying to train deer to climb trees. I keep telling the pot lickers I only get one deer tag per year.
Sean

Because of the different seasons here, summer dirt, or winter and snow for 5 months. I run the dogs on bear in summer, no coon, as their always on my bear baits during the summer. Or bobcats in winter, and if I cant find a track that day, let the young dogs run a yote. If your running both game on dirt, who knows what you will end up with. Bear or lion I suppose. I have trained several dogs over the years to run yotes in winter, bear in summer and not switch, they seem to know the season bear on dirt, or coyote and cat on snow, and what were looking for. I got a buddy which conditions his dogs in a yote pen in early summer before the bear training season opens, and he will have a bear or yote race all summer. Keeping a straight dog or two for the game hunted I feel is key. The rest of the dogs will fall in behind once the track is warmed up a little. If your only running a few dogs, and running bear and lion as an example, I would think it would be hard for the dogs to resist trailing an old lion track, after they crossed a hot bear track, LOL My old buddy as an example, he dont care if he is running a yote or bear, as long as he hears the dogs running