Watch your speed when bare ground hunting from saddle animal

[Mike Leonard]

Maybe I should have put this in the hores and mule section but then again I thought more folks might see it here. It can actually pertain to roading as well in some circumstances. I found this out years ago huting in central Arizona during soem really hot dry times. We were useing saddle mules to cover the desert mountain country and were hunting as many as a dozen hounds at a time. Now then some of the old boys I was hunting with knew this country a lot better than I did, and they knew the general pathways that lions liked to travel thru this country. They had their established circles they had covered for years and they clipped right along on those little slick walking mountain mules. Well one day we were getting a bit hungry and it was along around mid day so we thought we would stop and eat a bit and let the mules and hounds rest a bit. Well we were setting there eating some brisket and buscuit sandwiches and a cookie or two and shooting the breeze. Most of the hounds were laying in the shade of a bush or rock and cooling a bit. One little red dog trotted off into a rock pile and I was watching him and before long I thought , well that little son of a gun has some energy he is over there trying to choust out a rat or a rabbit or something. Well directly he opens up and really starts working. Several of the other hounds got up and trotted over there and in a minute we had a lion race a going. If we had kept on riding at the regular clip we were going we would have trotted them dogs right by that spot. Oh yeah, the track was good going out and we had a fine run once they got it going down into a sycamore bottom where it treed, but we would have never know it. I thought about that a ot over the years, and just this morning as I was leaving the trailer at barely sunlight I told myself to slow it down. Checking on my GPS I find that even thru [retty rugged country the little sorrel gelding I was riding can walk right along at about 3.3 MPH. Ok that's pretty slow you say. Yes but the dogs casting back and forth across the direction of travel have to cover at least twice as much ground in the same amount of time so there you have jumped it up to 6 or 7 or my guess even a bit more MPH for the hound. Well you say they can rig a track at 30 MPH so what's the big deal? Well not all ground or tracks or condtions allow a 30 MPH rig , especially when working a cold lion track on desert bare ground. No sometimes it has to be detected in a slow mid- step and then gone back to and worked off a rock, a twig or a log even. So rush them along and they want to be your buddy and stay with you, and you will ride over some runable tracks at times. Yes a slick walking mule or horse can really scramble thru the country but dogs remember have to go much faster covering ground so slow it down a bit, and you will be surprized what might happen.

I slipped off a sand wash up into a sandstone undercut running up to a big drainage this morning. It was littered with deer tracks and droppings. Jiggs and Blue hit the undercuts noses popping and Tuggs hit the tops. Never saw a track but before long Jiggs struck and was trailing across bare rock and Blue fell in with him I was setting still just watching. Two pups went to them and soon they were flagging and working hard. They went a ways and I found the track and it was a pretty good sized bobcat and real fresh, but it came right back out across the sand wash and in the powder dry sand they cound't hardly smell a thing. Tuggs moved it by sight across a 100 foot stetch and then the dogs picked it up in the sage and this was on the shaded side so they really blew up and started to move. Long story short, they jumped him on a brushy hill side and it was pretty steep and ran him back towards the bottom and he ( I say he because of the track size) got into a pile of swdan sized sand stone boulders and I found the dogs laying on their sides digging and barking into a cut under some cedar debris and rocks. No we did n't get him, but if I hadn't slowed down, I probably would have rode them right by his track and never got any excitment at all.

So think about it the next time you try to cover too much ground too fast.


Good luck!

[lepcur]

Very enjoyable reading Mike and I'd have to agree with ya 100% as I've seen it over the years many times also, thanks for sharing. Mike

[TomJr]

Good post, even for those of us that hunt on foot it pays to take your time and even sit in the shade for a while. Especaily during the realy dry times, we have not had rain here since January so the ground is powder dry now. Of corse sitting in the right spot is helpful. I only hunt a few canyons around my house and know where all the water and game trails are. There has been many a time that I have sat down to rest and just let my dogs sniff about and they found something that if we had been moving they would have passed right by because they don't want to get to far behind.

[Filips]

Great story, just illistrates the only thing i really know about hounds and that is that it takes a lot of patients.

[elkheadb&t]

in this day and age its sure easy to get in a hurry, but every now and then something happens that says slow down!!! good post thanks for shareing.

[cecil j.]

in this day and age its sure easy to get in a hurry, but every now and then something happens that says slow down!!! good post thanks for shareing.

Thats why alot of cat hunters don`t use ATV`s on hard ground/ the cat listens too as hes being run and he is more that aware of mans presence because hes not much afraid of the dogs, he can climb up and be safe from advanceing dog or two, but he hears an ATV and it trying too keep up and stay close and all, the cat instantly heads a new course away from the area he hears the ATVcomeing from. That really messes up a hounds haveing too reconnect to even a newer pattern yet by the cat and just adds another knott in the rope ! I know ya was talken bout moveing too muich ground in coverage but consider also any ATV rider this in the thinking and remember it .
I hear wolves so thats why they want too stay close too their dogs/ can`t dissagree with that but I`d sure hate too hunt under those conditions/ might would consider varmitt calling and a silencer and a dog in heat tied and me in ambush ! There is no reason outside Alaska and YellowStone too have a wolf liveing in other states they change once their is enoughf of em and then no one can put up with em !