EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

Lets say you are hunting a area were you know big hogs roam big bad boars and big bad sows its a hot Texas morning 89 degrees and humid as hell.  The country is ruff and hard to get threw bloodweeds , briars and just hell for a person to walk threw and make any time at all.

Now your dogs get bayed they are 375 yds from ya and on a on big Poppa and he is walking with your dogs in other words he aint going no were fast, walk a little then turns and  kicks some dogs ass walk a little more kick some more dog ass now in five mins he is now 400 yds.

Dogs baying hammered down now ten mins go by and you are trying to get there but its just pure hell cant hardly get threw the bush now he is 420 yds and walking with the dogs .  He is kickin ass every time he stops you can hear one of your dogs yelp and know one done got hit maybe two .

You still tryin to get there and you have gained a little ground now you look at your garmin and you are closer all the while he was fighting you are now 225 from the bay and there is some major ass kicking going on both dogs and hog!

The bush is bad bad and you are tryin but its a slow slow go .

Now you are 200 yds and the woods are on fire with dogs bawling and rockin and rolling you know some have been hit you know some have been hurt .


200 yds out what ya gonna do?

You gonna turn the catch dogs loose lets say you got to CD's to stop all the running ?

You gonna hold your catch dogs and keep tryin to get to your dogs and the bay hoping the dogs can keep him stopped till you get there and hoping no one is dead already .

What ya gonna do ?

Me personally i dont have nothing to ruff so i am gonna hold mine till i get to at least a hundred out if its a big bad boar they better grab them nuts stop him then back up n bay keep doing the same till i can get close enough to send em!

Im goin to take my time and not worry about it!! Ease in amongst Them and bust him in his ear with a 210 grain hollow point !!

well at 200 yrds and i can hear my dogs gettin whooped im sendin help and when i turn the CD to them im gonna give it my all and be right on there butts cause my dogs are like my kids i ant gonna stand by and let them get hurt.....and trust me when this fat id gets move and much gonna stop me other than a bullet or a TREEEEEE!!!  ;D

I'm kind of like lionboar I'm going to keep on keeping on.  If I'm spent when I get there I can't help the catch dog any way!   Just ease up there watch it unfold, try to find a path to send catch dog down.   When my bulldog catches everything else is going to catch also so I better be on top of the situation.  I hunt alone a bunch,  makes you take your time!

I agree,....but I may not actually 'ease' in if they're moving as fast as I can walk. I may circle and let 'em come to me if possible....and give him 110 grains. But I'm dang sure gonna shoot him.

i am gonna do what i allways do trust my bay dogs . my bulldog is no more than a gun to me we gonna keep pluggin along till we get there and go in together . much as i like my dogs it's there job to hold that pig . but if it's to bad a boar hog and i'm not there when the bulldog hits the rest are gonna pile on with him and then the real fight and damage will begin with no help from me . i'll wait .

Man tooooo many variables for me to call. If it sounds like a settled bay I probably would try and get a little closer if he is still moving just depends on the brush.  89 degrees is tooo hat for me lol.

I'm with halfbreed my catch dogs are no more than a gun. I'd wait and get closer because if he brakes and you get there with out your bulldog or gun your really in a pickle.

I'm gonna

1. Trust that I put hog dogs on the ground and say a lil hail Mary mother of grace for them.

2. Ease on in there to them

3. Catch the hog

4. Go buy a good horse and start hunting off it.  :D

Your hypothetical situation actually describes every property I've ever hunted. Down here on the cancer coast the woods are thick and thorny. I've hunted from a truck or walk hunted my whole hunting career but Cward's advice has finally got the better of me and I'll be in the market for a good hog broke horse soon.

Yeah we run into this all the time over here.  It really is a judgement call .  What even makes it worse is the boar hogs that know what humans are.  These big boars love to fight a dog and the thing is they will walk with the dogs no matter how good they are and they will stay were they feel is a safe distance from humans sit up and fight .  Thing is soon as they smell a human are hear a human they bolt like lighting now we talking 250 lb hogs here and bigger .  They take off to 300 500 yds sit up and fight all the time we are tryin to get to them then again soon as they smell are hear ya they are bolting .  Now we get our share but we sure as hell miss our share too.

The deal is when running catch dogs if you turn him loose from 200 are even 150,  is you had better be able to get to the bay when you let that CD go cause if not and he gets there and all the dogs pile on like what normal happens and you cannot get there for a while you are going to have a mess on your hands.   

Now on the other hand if the catch dog misses are the hog breaks before he gets there now here is another mess if the CD trys to go with the hog and the hogs runs another 200 yds and the CD catches then here you are 300 yds from the bay and catch .

So its damn if you do and damn if you dont really.1\

If you hunt with a gun of course you aint got to worry so much just sneak in and kill the thing .

People want to ask why do so many get away well read this and you might understand not everything works perfect in the woods in real time .

I think I'd have to wait till I could get closer, especially being that thick. I don't want my catchdog caught without me being able to get to him pretty quick.

This is my experience from all of this and what I have seen.

I most the time will wait till I can get there and send the CD.  But we cannot always get there and the race goes on without us until the dogs are just so wore out they start coming out one by one are the hog crosses the river and is just off to another country.


On the other hand.

I have found that if I let the CD are CD's go early 150 out and he are they can get there before the hog breaks  we usually end up getting the hog but some of the dogs pay big prices because of us not being right on top of the bay.  More hogs caught for sure this way but more dogs hurt are expired !

Either way tuff decision sometimes.  Just my experience.

I'm gunna stick. I don't run a bulldog but if my dogs are baying for long then they are in a bind, and waiting for the right chance to hit the hog. I'll stay within earshot so as not to spook the hog by making a bunch of noise by crashing thru the woods and putting that much more pressure on. As soon as I hear that they have caught I'll get there as fast as the brush will allow.

T bob

I do 90% of my hunting horseback. You'd be surprised some of the places you can ride that you could never get a wheeler. Screw walking ride right up to the bay! Very peaceful and quiet. Your horse won't make ruts or get stuck, their battery won't die, and you don't have to turn them off to listen.

thats a real good question ,  but my dogs are kinda rough an if they trying to catch an are gettin whooped i usally dont turn bulldog loose over 100 yrd but , if they gettin hit an still anit backin up im prolly gonna send 2 bull dogs to them an be right behind them ,3 or 4 dogs can stretch a hog out if they work together ,

but i guess i donno depends on the way i hear it goin down , i like all of my dogs alot an sometimes you gotta take some risk , i know if they getting whooped an anit backin up they need some help , so might as well send it to them an hurry your butt up , they guys i hunt with know i will go through some things in a hurry to get to a caught hog

I don't care how thick it is I can cover 400 yards in 10 min. 89 degrees ain't hot. My CD would have already been there and so would I. That is what I would do.

There are tricks for getting through the thick stuff. Confederate soldiers knew the tricks. ;D

lol ten minutes is a looonnngg time on a bad boar hog .

I gonna get as close as possible before I turn my bulldog loose. Nothing is 100% right though. You may turn them loose at 20 yards hog break and go 200 yards and bay up again. Then there you go the catch dog is caught way before you get there. I have seen it take an hour to make it 400 yards in some of the thickets I hunt in. Been in some you couldn't crawl through.

I got to agree man 400 yds is a long long long way in some places I have seen with 60 foot gulleys stright up and you might have to cross two three to get to them not to mention briars so thick you cannot hardly get threw and then having to worry about weather are not your bulldog is gonna get hung up .

Yea I have got to within 50 yards and they be across the creek, bayou or whatever. So close but yet so far away. If you would have turned the bulldogs loose you would be screwed.

THE WAY I LOOK AT IT IS YOU TURN YOUR BULL DOG OUT AND IT RUNS TO THE BAY FROM THAT FAR AWAY AND IT STILL TAKES U A LONG TIME TO GET TO THEM YOUR DOGS ARE HOT YOUR BULL DOD IS OUT OF WIND THATS NOT HELP THATS JUST A GOOD WAY TO HAVE A BIG HOG WITH NO EARS AND KNOWS HOW AND WHAT TO DO ON THE RUN AND 90% OF THE TIME ALL OR MOST OF YOUR DOGS WILL GET CUT DOWN AND THE HOG GETS AWAY WITH NO EARS THEN ITS O SH** THE NEXT TIME U GET HIM STOP AND U DONT HAVE A GUN WITH U THEN YOU HAVE MORE CUT DOGS.....
                                                              SO I THIN I WOULD LET MY BULLDOG GO WITHIN 5 YARD AN CAN SEE THE HOG

In that type of terrain, I personally would hold the bulldogs. No right or wrong answer though...If you want to dance, sometimes you have to pay the band.

Let the dogs run him till his hooves fall off. If they ain't bayed solid I ain't sending no bulldogs period. If my dogs ain't got the grit to stop em or have the bottom to stay hooked till he stops then im culling out and moving to another line of dogs.

But I do know how thick it is in your country this Arkansas boy couldn't keep his feet under him!

I agree with AR... I like to have a solid bay before cutting anything loose. I want to have the "leaves shakin'", as Jimmy says...  ;D I want to know that they are not going to make it break again at least until it sees the CD coming. My dogs are little on the rough side, and will try anything around their size... so if it's bigger than them they are normally backed up hammering. It only takes a couple seconds for things to go really wrong out there in the woods, and especially if you are using CDs... We also use two CDs most of the time, and that makes it a lot easier on them stretching it out and getting the job done. I try to give them the best chance possible to catch, and if I don't think (at that time) that it is possible then I will ease on in until I feel that I am close enough. You really never know out there though, and sometimes you have to make decisions that you normally wouldn't make. I have had the creek thing happen before though, and was about to cut the CD loose, headed closer instead, and ended up crossing 4 creeks before we even got close enough to let the CD go. Judgement couldn't be a better word for it because you have to figure out what, not only YOU are ready for, but you DOGS are ready for as well. Jimmy, I honestly think that this comes all the way back to knowing your dogs very well... how they sound in different situations, and how they can handle a bad hog. Good post!  8)

id start to bay and shoot if thats the case.

harder to do in this type of terrain. Not always gonna get a clear shot especially this time of year hog could be backed up in a big vine thicket taller than your head definitely makes the goin hard with no breeze and stail air. From March to bout October everything is green as can be and thick thick thick.

I would wait till i got close. Thwe reason i say that is i lost the best catch dog i ever had, i loaned him out they turned him loose to early he fought the hog over ten minutes when they caught the hog one bulldog was dead mine still was alive but had his guts cut open and did not make it.