EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

You don't see the term used much these days, but in years past was a prized possesion. In the open range days, you had to find the stock before you could gather them and a top find dog would save alot of looking. I have looked at lots of dogs on peoples yards over the years and the ones they would stop in front of and brag on the most, were always find dogs. These days people confuse range with find. A top find dog will find in front of, behind, and to the side of most long range dogs these days.

Finally someone with some sense. Too many people judge a dogs character on how far he will hunt. Honeslty if i kick my dogs out and they dont wanna hunt like a think ill pack up and move out. Cause 9 of 10 times there aint number 2 there.

  I agree with ya on this one BigO, Im still kinda confused on how someone can put a "range" title on their dogs. Whos to say that a "LONG" range dog has more hunt than a "short" range dog. Maybe that long range dog is running like a fool in a straight line away from the owner until he comes across a track warm enough to run and it just so happens to be 1,000 yards away when the dog strikes. Then you have a dog that doesnt get out that far but covers 10 times more ground than that "Long" range dog, Thats the dog that I want.

you sure said that right

I think your exactly right, there are a many people that believe just because there dogs range out they're looking for a hog. I have seen first hand where my close to medium range "find dog" will hit track while other dogs ran right pass sign to get out and range. Now with that said there are places or pieces of land where you need a rangey dog because hogs are few and far between. My places have pretty good sign and numerous hogs. In my opinion a good "find dog" or "strike dog" will not flat open up and ran but works his/her way out if sign ain't close by..JMO..I walk hunt most of the time so I don't want a 2 mile dog.

That is why my jagds work so well for me. They cover every inch of the woods... May not go to far but sure cover some area.

Hey dirtydog how do those jagds do in this heat, they peak my interest...those little suckers have energy to spare.. :)

I'll agree 100% that a find dog is a prize possession.

But, I'll take a medium to long range dog that FINDS hogs any day over a short range one... they come in handy when hogs are scarce. ;)

Any dog will shine when hogs are plentiful on a property.

maybe they're running past'em ;D 

Nope. ;)

More than that, I think they confuse good with not so good.

There should be no difference in how a rangy dog and a shorter range dog locates hogs that are near.  A long range hunting dog that misses hogs as he/she goes through the woods is just a poor dog...that's all.

The only difference is a rangy dog will keep rolling out when dropped where sign is not.  In my opinion, a rangy dog is an independant dog.  The latter is my desired quality.  Range isn't necessarily my intent as much as a dog that will leave and do it on their own.  When I open the box, I want to see nothing but tails for a second...then I don't care to see them again.  A good way I've found to evaluate the independance of young pups is to drop them out alone and see how they roll.  The ones that consistantly leave without looking back, are always my top picks.

this is true..I do understand the need for a rangy dog for lets say grain runners or if you're on a LARGE place like some have but most guys including myself have smaller places (500 to 1000 acs.) it becomes a problem hunting your dogs down in somebody's back yard or another place. Now when I say madium range that might be anywhere from 100 yds to 600 yds, I don't count bottom as range and I believe some do.

how do ya know they aint passing them up have you put some good short to med range dogs on the ground behind them to see if they are running past the hogs just to get gone  ;D

A dog that leaves just to get gone is also a poor dog.  I suppose it's just called having faith in and knowing your dogs.

thats a fact but i have seen it more then once in the years i been hog hunting . have a long range dog bayed up and catch 2  hogs on the way to the bay with short range dogs that the long range dog passed right up

Well it could have been that the long range dog struck a group and a couple split and just ran the wrong way ( straight towards you )  ;D

Due to the size of most of our places, i prefer a short/medium range dog.... 300 yards is plenty for me as long as the dog stays busy and hunts hard
....
But if i hunted some bigger places like many on here do, i would prefer a longer ranged dog...   ;)

You don't KNOW that your long dogs passed them, they may have split  and doubled back.

Critter, you just wait, six months from now them red pups of your and my ol Red will be sporting radio collars while we hunt towards them with the straight curs id bet ;)

I pretty much already said that T-girl.... gosh , cant you read!!!!  ;D  :laugh:

No doubt at all we will have a total package soon..just for the record I wasn't referring to your RED..I saw him strike the first night..20 to 30 head ;D
I do have to admit I got a couple pups that I can already tell will be REAL rangy because I liked T-bob's RED and the way he got gone..

I'm referring more to some of the guys who have to find their dogs 1.5 miles and no hogs to count..come on if your dog hasn't found a hog in the distance then buy a shorter range STRIKE/FIND dog because that dog or dogs just ain't doing it.

ok well how about this when you dump the dogs and the long range dogs hit the woods smoken and are gone half a mile and you short range dogs bay up right there in front of ya  them long range dogs passed that one up  ;D

EXACTLY....that was me experience when I went out with some local guys..they laughed at my dog only going a couple hundred yards but when Duke struck 1 then another they shut up and started looking at there dogs that were still hunting..we had 2 hogs down on my poor short ranger..

If they're passing hogs up, that's not the kind of dog i'm talking about. I like a dog that covers all the country around you, but will go deep doing so... not run straight away on a nature walk.

How would those short range dogs do in a 2,000 acre block of woods with 1 boar hog in it? Like I said, when hogs are plentiful, they'll all shine like a diamond. ;D

i got dogs that would do fine on a big place with just one hog on it just becouse my dogs are short to med range dont mean i dont cover some land when i hunt   and my dogs are hunting  if he is there he will be found  most times 

Heck if there's 1 boar on 2000acs. you don't need to hunt it you need start planting hogs :D ;D

this is Texas man there ain't a 2000ac track with just 1 hog... :D :laugh:

i agree with that the whole state got plenty of hogs  have been hunting hogs 20 years and there is more hog alot more now then when i started hunting

Oh man i know you wasn't talking about him, but, I do know he has passed up several hogs and not taken tracks that i know he should have. I like him, but at the end of the day he's just a decent mid range dog, i wouldn't put him in the class of dog that BigO started this thread about. Ive seen maybe one of those and it belonged to Cward. I can't remember the dogs name but he made finding hogs look like it was as natural as taking a breath.  

And Mike your right, but if a 2000 acre place only had one boar, I wouldn't be getting called about depredations control, so that's my justification for no having a super dog...yet.

Critter Catcher, sure there is... I have several larger than that. We've hunted to piss out of them for many years... done our job and made the landowners happy. Now the hogs are few and far between. The type of dogs that produce hogs on these places, when there are hogs, are my kind of dog... dogs that hunt it, not dogs that I have to take to the hogs.

I've owned lot's of short range dogs over the years, and they do very well when hog populations are high.

They must have all migrated out of East Texas, cause they've been few and far between the past few years. ;D

i live in east tx and theres plenty of hogs here

So back to a true find dog, is finding, baying, rolling out and finding more solely genetic, or is there anything that can be done to instill this virtue.
Nature vs Nurture

Let the games begin ;)

Mike, you must be in a good mood this morning with all those smileys, as long as your happy, can i have tweety? ;D

Come on now, that ain't East Texas. I call that country heaven... Madisonville, Leona, Centerville, Buffalo, Normangee, North Zulch, Fairfield, etc...

T-Bob... come on and get her!


Yeah right!!!!!

it might be  heaven but its east tx lovelady i catch lots of hogs there thats east texas

Lovelady is nice country, you can usually drive through there and count the dead hogs on the side of the road.  No shortage of swine there thats for sure.

This is the biggest problems we have... i think we may have one place to hunt that is anywhere close to 2,000 acres...
Most are a few hundred and those few are usually 2,3, sometimes 4 different properties put together....
So yeah we kind of have to push the dogs around on the bigger places, but when we do find em, they are not a mile away when they strike .... another big reason i dont use long range dogs is because if that dog strikes a runner ( like more and more hogs are getting to be these days ) a mile off, where will they be by the time you get anywhere close to them? I know it all depends on terrain and all that, but long range dogs just wont work on our places.....

Looks like short and long range dogs are fixin to be like comparing curs vs hounds, dogo vs pit, open vs silent, and so on and so on!!!  :-X

A top find dog to me, will get deep if necessary but not pass up the close ones to do so. A goog find dog will have a good nose, brains enough to use it and to know where to look for hogs. The conditions we have right now will tell you if you have a find dog or not. If one will hunt hard and find hogs quick in these hot dry conditions and do it on a regular basis, he is a pretty good find dog. I never pass final jugment on a dog untill they are hunted hard or used hard on cattle for a summer.

Bigo, that's exactly the type of dog I was trying to explain.

This was interesting....

Last year I took a farmer on a hunt, He hunts hounds....
He farms our ranch we live on....HIs Idea was we'd ride around and when his hounds opened up in the box we'd turn my cur dogs out.

I went with it, I'm a girl so i'm used to being treated like i know nothing lol!!

Well my cur dog started raisin hell in the box...so i said imma droip him there's a hog right here....The farmer with the hounds said no way.....my dogs would of smelt it and fired off in the box!!


Well i couldn't resist it, I turned out, bayed up a good ole sow, earned some respect.....laughed my way back to the truck.

Moral to the story is.....Everybody has a different opinion of what is what, and how it should hunt.  No 2 hunters hunt alike huh......from my voyages to the woods w others.....

IMO a good find dog where we hunt here will go hunt out a bit, and check back in, cuz this place has too many hugs and if I dump him out i dont want him piddlin hours of daylight away when we can load up and move along to a better spot.  Thats why I prefer a wind dog.......That rip dog I raised will wind/find/relay all day long....Every dog we start we try to finish that way, iy just works best around here.  My projects i'm workin on now are starting to get it.....but really i dont care how they hunt as long as they produce hogs consistently!!

It's real simple for me, have a dog that is willing to find the hogs wherever they are. Short range don't get it done. I'd rather my dogs put me on the hogs, than me put my dogs on the hogs.  If the hogs are close, let's bay them close. If they are far, let's bay them far. My goal in the woods is to have fun and bay hogs... Not drive around dropping dogs, letting them make a 2-300 yard loop, then loading them up and trying a different place. I want to drop them at the truck, and then go find them bayed.


 

Winner winner chicken dinner

I would cull the rest....  If a dog is not a FIND dog then I don't consider it a HOGDOG...

x2

I like a dog that circles around me as long as I am moving, loops from 100 to 500 yards. The dog should be cold nosed but is inclined to take a semi hot track, usually the hog should be found in 1 to 1.5 miles and bayed or caught. If I am moving along and I don't see a dog in 10 minutes I stop and check the location of all the dogs. If they are together then I won't move and will recheck in a couple of minutes to see if they are bayed or moving. Not talking about garmin...

These dogs will have a good winding nose and these are not bush beaters. There are dogs out there that stay busy but don't find many pigs and then we have the dogs that run far in a straight line that might find a hog or maybe not.

If I stop too long these dogs will keep moving on, however, I like hunting with my dogs and not hunting for my dogs unless they are on a runner. I do not like a strike dog that quits a track or quits because the thicket got too thick.

I like a strike dog that will never look bad no matter what set of dogs he/they are hunting with.

If there is a hog in the woods being hunted the dog/dogs should find it.

I agree.... I want a dog to start huntin where I turn it loose and range out away from only as far as it takes to get on the closest hog, Not run a 1/2 mile before it starts hunting.. I know of a lot of dogs that have been  given credit for hunting just because they ran a mile ..

yeah we hunt a 17,ooo acre peice, so i'd rather drop dogs.....or use my wind dog.  If i'm huntin just started dogs i'll drop em where i think they might get on some, If no luck load up and go again

x2...setting the dogs up for success is part of it. Sometimes it is the little things, that over time, are what make the good hunting dogs great.

This is pretty much the norm here in florida...

I don't think I have ever really seen a dog that hunts out far like you texas guys are talking about