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I've decided to expand my list of climbing critters to include grey fox due to our sparse coon population in an effort to give my dogs as much game as possible. Feral cats will be added to the list as well. I'm hoping some of you fox hunters can take me to school on the grey fox as to how they run primarily just so I have an idea of what they are persueing. I've also heard that if you have reds present in the area the likelyhood of having greys is slim. Schools in session. What say you.

There are gray and red fox both around my home which is mixed farm, pasture and woods but in the Nat. forest a few miles away there are very few reds but at times a lot of grays. Don't know if that helps you figure your situation out or not. A gray fox may go out of hearing from where you start him but if he does he usually goes to a thicket and circles rarely getting out of hearing from there. At night a fox can run a long time here ahead of fast dogs, up to 8 to 10 hours, in the daylight maybe a couple of hours. If you jump a red he will go to the fields or open woods, big timber and such, all bets are off on how big of circles he will run if he has the territory. You may find it different in your area, that's the way It is here. You may find useful info from older threads in the fox hunting and the bobcat section.

If you are wanting to use one of the UKC type coonhound breeds, you might not see too many grey fox in trees. I know of some folks using fox dogs long bred for grey fox, and they rarely see them in trees. A few each year, but not even half of those they ran. I think you could have some fun with them, but if you have become used to every track ending in a tree, you might get discouraged running the greys.

Feral cats might be disappointing on the other end of the spectrum. In my experience they don't give a race except in rare cases. they just pop up the first tree. The song birds and quail will love you for it though.

Sorry you are so short on coon. Hopefully they will make a come back.

i APPRECIATE THE RESPONSES. The more info I find I'm discovering that more than likely my sorry little pack will not have the throttle needed to put an end to a grey fox. I've learned that there are lines of running crosses that experience marginal success on running the greys and these are dogs selectively bred for this sole purpose. Don't get me wrong, I live to hear a good race second only to that long distinct locate that raises the neck hair on my head. I do have one last question however. Is there any advatage running them day vs night? Thanks again and God speed. G.

night vs day yes I believe theres a difference, 1 thing scenting conditions are a little better at night I do believe, have ran in the day and the race seems to be different the fox don't seem to want to run as far in the daylight ! being for not wanting to be seen I believe, hounds put eyes on him and teeth wont be long after, I have ran them as long as 12 hrs here with no climbing, but one that gets used to getting away will, a good running fox will run you all night grey that is, I don't run reds or do I have anything that will grey and cat only, and have never used a tree dog, hear about some on here that trees them, the fox we have here must be different than others cause I have never seen one tree, not saying they wont but have never seen it, old timers used to say don't run the little ones cause you will teach them to get away , to run back to the den, then he knows how to get away, those that tree them there hounds must put some kind of pressure on them to make them go up , and probably some that gets away with me goes up but me to lazy to go check it out, plus I aint wading thru the rattlesnakes to go see or will my hounds tree there no tree dogs

Run a fox in the early morning after he has hunted all night and has a full belly is a little like running a lion off a kill or a bear off of a bait pile for good fox dogs . Don't get me wrong its not shooting fish in a barrel, But more times then not it is easier.

I don't have red fox here... but I do have tons of grey fox and we treed them all winter long. I lost count of how many we treed. Hunting mornings only but I made a little over 2k on fox alone and the average price was only $12 so we took a little under 200 fox this past season, I tried to take only big males. It was not really worth the trouble of skinning, I was hoping for more like $30 each... There are still lots of fox, didn't seem to have made a big dent in the population but I am not running them much right now since its so damn hot and dry here, over 6 months since we got rain now.

I only took 10 bobcat this past season and averaged $150 each so while I made more off fox you can see its not really worth messing with them... But if I only ran bobcat and lion my dogs would not get many trees in

Foxes here tend to run very much like the bobcat and since the big fire many go into rock piles but most will tree, just depends on how far away the rocks are and how close the dogs are... I guess. Both foxes and bobcats will make small circles, 1/4-1/2 mile in diameter before treeing and I can usually tell if its a lion or just fox/bobcat by watching how they start the track. When they start fox or bobcat the dogs tend to be sniffing about in a small area usually around smaller rock piles and brush for a long time before they line out the track, then trail in a circular pattern. For lions they seem to line it out faster and go in a strait line when trailing.

I'm not saying that a fox runs like a lion or bear. I was trying to compare the three with full belly's. lot easier catch a lion off a kill with a full belly or a bear off a bait pile with a full belly. I have found the fox that I run in the morning are easier to tree. I feel it is the full belly. Sorry if I made it sound like they all three run the same

Yep morning is the best time to run them, unless you can legally run them at night. I don't like to try run them in the evening since its very likely to carry over into the night and I would have to call the dogs off. You could be right about the full belly, they climb fast in the morning, most times its less than 30mins or so before they pop up, once the dogs get them jumped.

something how they different from one place to the other, here we don't have that many fox ! wish we had a lot more, you guys seem to be loaded with them out there ! with what you say about how man you have if one got that many here he would wipe the population out they aint that many in the whole county !! and strange the difference in the running, one here will run you for a lot of times as long as you can run him ! the hounds I feed are straight fox hounds and aint slow there legs and lungs with short ears and short hair and can get under a piece of game , I usually want 5 hrs on him if he don't run out from under them on a road and the running I do is all at night ! don't go to kill just run his fanny, don't want to catch him that will be one less to run being we don't have that many

I only hunt during the day and i do a lot of cold trailing,sometimes for hours.Those ole fox cover a lot of ground in their night time hunting and go for miles.I struck one at 10am and luckily he was laid up close by .After a short,furious race he treed! Another time i cold trailed one for a hour and a half before jumping him .Rogue threw my young dogs out when the fox hit the road and ran around it for half a mile (by the garmin)before treeing .I tree them consistently but not all of them .They are fun to run ! Question:How do you tell when one has a full belly?lol .They are small.

Southern Fox I was thinking the same thing, man if you killed that many around here there wouldn't be any left. I think I run 1 of the same 3 or 4 every time I go, you can tell by the way a certain one runs and where he goes. I cuss those 30 minute runners though, I'm just getting comfortable with it thinking man we fixin to have a race, and then it's over. I think the good long running ones like to run, mr fox runs right past the gopher hole that he goes in all night long till he's had enough or the pressure gets to hot on him then he heads for that hole. And I think the good ones are like hounds, the more you run them the tougher they get.gmurdoch you may want to give them a try, there used to be a place some friends of mine hunted some that they caught a fox on the ground about every time they went there. They seem to be a little different everywhere you go. I've seen 1 that treed in 40 years of running fox in the wild, have seen several in trees in the pens,gray and red fox.

1bludawg wrote: Question:How do you tell when one has a full belly?lol .They are small.

I can't. He asked a question and I gave him the best answer that I had for it.

Jeff ,no offense meant .I was refering to the fact that i've never seen a fat fox as compared to coon,bobcat ,lion and bear .

The fox numbers are way up here, due to a Big fire we had back in 2011, so I decided to take advantage of it last season. I think its due to more open land and the vegetation that foxes like to eat is more plentiful. But right now everything is super dry, we didn't get much rain/snow over the winter. If we don't get a good monsoon season the population will likely crash back down to pre-fire levels...

Some of the fox I got had 1/2 inch of fat on their backs but you can't really see that unless you are skinning them.

I hunt mainly from my house and don't usually get more than 5 miles away. Its very steep mtn sides. Maybe fox run differently here than they do on more flat country? I have coon hounds, a redbone and a walker/lab mix are the two main dogs right now... lost two very good dogs over the winter but the catch rate didn't drop off much as the others picked up the slack.

Our season is long here August - March. We also have an orchard and that draws in fox, they love apples. I think it also helps that my dogs know their ground very well and will get ahead of the animal to cut it off. My two good dogs don't want to just follow it around, they want to catch it.