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this is little bit i just read your cat traing post i was just wondering you said you start the drag from the tree you want the dogs to end up at and to me you should start the drag from the start point please shed some light on this for me i always want to learn thanks

I am not Mike, but its simple. When an animal lays a track it is stronger the closer you get to the animal right?

ya but as time gos by sent disopates so it should be less at the tree than the start im lost

I am sure Mike uses Grawes training scents and they are made of animal glands and when using these scents, little peices fall off your drag which makes the scent stronger at the tree than at the start of the drag. But anyway that is the way Grawes explained it to me

yeah but the drag is freshly dipped and you use the drag until you have to redip it. When you redip it and the scent is stronger it mocks a pool os scent as if the animal was resting in that space.

The Grawes you dont dip

You don't do that either

You know what I do?I go to where I'm going to start my drag I take my drag out of the bucket have a little squirt bottle with me.I lay my drag stopping every once in a while to give it a squirt and rub the shit out of the base of the tree.Just like thousands of other field trialers and hound people everywhere.If they run it I'm happy if they don't I shoot em The old government hunter that taught me so much loved to run drags and thats just the way he did them,when I asked him twenty five years ago about running it backwards,cause I had heard of that method,he laughed and said if a dog will run a drag,hes gonna run it frontwards or backwards.

It is a good method, but whoever told mike about it didn't mention that there are better tools for laying it. The thoery is that as the dog gets closer to the quarry, the scent gets stronger, hence laying the track from tree to start. Scent will dissipate evenly as long as there is more the closer the dog gets to the tree. Don't know what Paco is talking about, Grawes can be dipped, sprayed or whatever, if you make it work that way. Never seen a lion, bob, or bear drag themselves across the ground i personally prefer to lay as realistic a track as I can. Maybe whoever showed that to Mike was doing the same thing with the paint roller. As far as redipping to add more scent, how much do you need?? I would have to think that the abosrbing paint roller that is being used in this method would hold alot more scent than any animal is going to put on the ground for the duration of any trail you want to lay. Come back two days later and see if your dogs can run it, good ones will. Don't know about those southwest walkers bred by Mike Leonard. Lets all keep in mind that Mike Leonard is a good writer, and that my be the extent of it.

Thanks for all your help guys, sorry I didn't see this earlier we were out trying to catch up with a female lion to take her picture.

Larry, nobody showed me this method it was just one of those things you sort of put together and it worked out ok for me. I have layed drags in the traditional manner for years starting with my first hounds in 1970. I was never completly satisfied with it and yes I know what the field trialers do I have been around some like the late Vern Phillips from Wyoming who was very hard to beat at that game. I appreciate that you like my writing but I sense you may feel that I don't have practicial field experience. I do not claim to be any great hunter but I can assure you that I have been out of the house and away from the computer a time or two. LOL!

As for the method I described I wish you could have been with me saturday when one of my female walker puppies who has been worked with this method hit a female lion track on dry sandy ground that was at least 24 hours old. She got away from me so fast that I didn't get to see it but a freind who was hunting with me did and he was impressed by a pup that had never been on a real lion track before.

So that's about all I am going to say but remember this is not a drag, and also remember that nothing can truely take the place of being on an actual lion or cat track for training but this does help.

The one thing I can say about Mikes method. It was the first time I've seen a drag start like a cold trail and end sounding close to a jumped race.. with out a cat in the Picture..

1 1/2 Mile Drag with no Re-dipping. started at the Tree and finished crossing a logging Road. we didn't point out the track to the dogs, just dropped them down and roaded about a mile before we would road them over the track.

We weren't sure if the Dogs were even going to start the track, they all went into the Brush and cranked up some but no barks..... Watched their tails and they left into the brush, then a bark here.. and a bark there.. 20-30 seconds between barks and by god they were just slowly working a trial.. I asked my friend who layed the drag.. is there were you went?? I thought for sure this wasn't going to work..

They slowly worked over the ridge and out of hearing..

So we hoped on the bikes and drove around to a point and listened to the warm up. Now all the dogs were opening and they were moving, and getting more intense.. By the End I had thought we'll they jumped a deer or Coyote in there and thought the worst was comming.. but My friend assured me they were still on the track..

Sure enough they all come into the tree.. but not like a Field trial tree where they run up and jump on the tree.. A tree that dogs are scattered and smelling around it took them a while to find and locat the tree. and slowly one dog locates, then another and before long they are treed up hard so we let them tree a while before we walked into them.

It's still a Drag and as Mike said it doesn't replace Hunting. so if I have the time to lay a drag, then I have the time to go hunting.

I don't know many Pups that will start Cold trailing.. So for young dogs I would not run nearly as long of a track... or your going to be really disappointed..

So to answer the question for me.. why start at the tree??? Starting from the tree, Gave me a cold track to start the dogs on.. and the dogs have to sit down and work for it before they can run it.

I agree with mister Leonard on this one if you dont start on the tree you are going to have a colder track when the dogs hit the tree. When you start at the tree you will have a colder track at the road which is realistic as you can get when you let loose on a lion. You wont ever have a hotter track at the road then at the tree hunting. So there for it makes more sence to me.

You know what I do: I take my dog hunting and show him the real thing.

thanks guy for help i just got two plott pups when they are ready to start im going to try it and see what i think