BigGameHoundsmen.com

Lets get some productive conversation going here. How many dogs do you hunt at one time on lions and bobcats and is there such a thing as too many? If so how many is too many? I think this applies to both the dirt and the snow.

I hunt all my dogs(7) at the same time unless I'm hunting hard everyday then I split them up in groups of 4 and rotate which dog goes back to back, which is usually my 2 year olds.

A couple days ago we had 19 dogs out on the mules and hit an older lion track, the dogs moved it pretty well for how old of a track it was, it was awesome watching 14 dogs really hammer the dirt, they trailed off into a big nasty canyon that the devil could probably live in the bottom of and kinda got stuck, they couldn't figure out where he went we let them work that one place for probably 40 min a dog would try and go out but couldn't move it across a southern facing slope, so we tried to pull the dogs, well 3 pretty good dogs would not leave it and once we got the other dogs out away from them those three dogs figured out what happened trailed across a rockpile and really started moving the track out of the rockpile, we took the other dogs back down to where they left the rocks and they too struck the track and trailed in the exact same place and really started pushing the track. Do you think this was a case of overloading the track? I think the scent had disapated more on the south slope with all those dogs we simply covered the scent up. What do you think? I've got lion hunting on the brain but it's 83 degrees here. Waiting for that nice weather comin this weekend.

you know mike, i think its when you get that many dogs that most are pups that they get really mixed up, could have been just that the scent dissapaited more on that side of the slope, or they could have covered it up movin through it so much...both of those sound pretty logical
you said the older dogs struck it again but when you threw the rest of the dogs back on it it got trailed up the slope again? sounds like it was just an old one with not much scent..

hopin for some good weather this weekend as well, i'll be up in globe
but i heard it was gonna rain

To me, it depends on the condition of the track. But if it is down and dirty time to catch one I only take 2.

i only run two or three on cats in snow. on dirt i dont know cause we always have snow by the time season opens in dec. i bear hunt more than cat hunt but a couple old timers i know say that more than two or three dogs will wipe out the scent and the dogs following are just smelling dogs. dont know for sure but thats what ive stuck with. im open to any opinion as like i said i havent cat hunted much. good luck to ya all down in the desert and i wish to hell it was at least in the 50s.

From what I've seen in this dry region is exactly what you portrayed in your post. Sometimes too many dogs get in the way of the older more experienced dogs. Not that the dogs are covering the scent just that there are so many that they are bumping each other around and the good dogs aren't able to follow the trail without running into some other dog. I have a good buddy that has been hunting hounds for over 20 years and whenever we get into a pickle we pull all the dogs but two off of the area and let those two dogs work it out. Once they get it moving again then we let the rest of the pack back in. This seems to work most of the time.

I too have fed as many as nine hunting age dogs at one time and usually ran all of them down a lion or bear track unless I was hunting back to back days and then tried to roate half of them so I didn't beat them up too badly. Bear hunting was most likely the reason I grew my pack to so many dogs. Those dogs would honor and follow any lion or bear track regardless whether there was only three or four or nine.

Eight or ten dogs do make alot of noise cold trailing a lion or bear, and I never noticed where too many dogs bothered their performance. However, my concerns about running that many dogs comes after the catch not on the track. If a young lion is run to bay with nineteen hounds, odds are that lion is gonna turn into dog chow. And then somebody better have a kill tag or the whole bunch is in trouble.

Colorado and some other states have a limit as to how many dogs a houndsman can put down a lion track, and I know some of the managers in Utah have kicked that idea around. Personally, I'd rather see sportsmen limit themselves rather than have more laws piled onto them. And on a rear occasion a few extra dogs may well make the difference in treeing a rough bear that needs killed, but we all know a seventy or eighty pound bitch lion isn't gonna stand off nineteen hounds on the ground.

A good number of hounds on a lion track is three or four dogs; if the lion climbs a dozen isn't too many but if it don't all hell can break loose...

just my thoughts on the subject,
ike

I have bare ground hunted with ten or twelve dogs and it can be very impressive I agree when they are all hammering on the track and get to leap frogging that track things can really get exciting and the dust really boils.

For my taste even on bare ground I want no more than six dogs to manage and watch. Of course I am more concerned about watching the development of dogs and their work than I am about catching and killing a lion. I am not an outfitter and I only hunt for my own pleasure and after all these years it is really about watching the dogs work. To me a really great day is watching dogs have to work out a cold trail and make somthing happen and if it takes all day that is ok with me. I sort of agree with one of my old hunting pals who said the only thing I like better than catching a lion is trailing one.

On snow I truely beleive unless it is a very fresh easy track you set yourself back by running more than three dogs on it. The dogs get to track hunting in the cold spots running to every dog track and smelling it and if you get into a kill area or a family of lions you will have a cluster. I usually have those clusters because I usually don't take my own advice and put too many dogs out but I think you will have a higher percentage of catches with three or less good dogs on an older snow track. One usually does the work but I don't like going out with just one dog. Sort of like having just one cartridge for your gun. usually will get the job done but just what if?

I would have to say if your trying to catch a bob in the snow two is best,or maybe three. Like some the others said, by the time the back dog comes through theres not much sent left in that snow.