EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

Is there anyone out there who has these dogs that can bay up a whole pack of hogs at one time.  If so I would be interested in tagging along so see this with my own eyes.  I hear about it in tournaments all the time, but I find it hard to believe.  I have my own pack of dogs, but I use catchdogs.  If there is anyone, let me know if you are not to far from Victoria, Texas     Thanks Trent

If the hogs will stay together, mine will bay them all day long. ;D

I prefer loose baying dogs and leading the catch dog in. I like to see the bay and watch the dogs work... and then see the catch dog hit.

... but most of the groups we get on scatter before that happens!  :'(

My dogs will bay a group of hogs also.  Most times when you turn the catch dog aloose that's what brakes the bay.

We use no guns.

So when you take the first shot the hogs don't scatter?

Some times they don't. I have bayed up some groups in the grain fields when they are planted. Some times you can get several shots off before they actually scatter. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Can't have any gritty dogs they tend to bust the groups up and all myne have been when I was on foot to a bay. Have yet to drive up to a pack bayed.

Have bayed groups several times. The largest group was covering a county road, on both sides as far as could see in the dark (moon was good) and could not even begin to tell you how many hogs were in this group. Hilscher and Renee drove up to them on the mule, they were running into the Mule on purpose. I had one caught in the brush, Thomas had catch dog on one until the herd turned on the catchdog and attacked the dogs, several dogs were getting a whooping, luckily more sows and hardly any cuts. Mike was shooting them a little .22 pistol and killed 3 point blank range, all this was going on at the same time.
These hogs were the most aggressive I have ever encountered and the chattering had the hair on everybodies neck standing up. The hogs had put Thomas up balancing on top a fence post.
This was not al that far from where we live. Have seen large groups. Have bayed some good ones with Mr.Masona nd took pictures. Can't tell the dogs what to find and bay, We do not carry a gun so you can hold the catch dog back and wait  and see if the hogs start breaking out, or go ahead and send in the Cacthdog and see what happens. Sometimes you get the smallest one in the bunch. Sometimes you can use two catch dogs and spread out and get one from each direction. Hopefully your bay dogs are experienced enough to roll out and stop another from the group when the break. Have had catch dogs caught in small groups and the other hogs go to helping fight the catchdogs.

I bayed a group one nite and couldnt tell how many were there but it sounded like the longer my dogs bayed more hogs were showing up, the hogs grunting got so load that I could barely hear my dogs baying, I think thats what they call a ralley. anyone ever heard of that?

Ralley is correct . Did your hair on your neck stand on end with that sound?

ralley, that's interesting. can one of you give me a short definition so i can add it to the hunters terms on our begginers page?

Ralley- Hogs version of a Blitz :)

okay, so what- they all start coming at you?? not sure i understand...

It was king of a joke, but in a way kind of true. Kind of the first thing that came to mind. Hogs are usually on the defense. In these cases they ban together to move against the your dogs, usually on the offense. :)

Blitz: an intense campaign; an overwhelming all-out attack;attack suddenly and without warning; defensive players try to break through the offensive line

(http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e103/pwt3/10-19-2006-06.jpg)

I have one good pick of a big sounder bayed. That happens more often for me in the daylight. I have seen the herding behavior in hogs just like in cattle. A sounder with several sows with young and adolesent members will come into the bay as a natural defence maneuver. They will pack up to defend their selves. Cattle will do the same thing, when hunting cattle and I get a good bay going I always take my time getting there and come in quiet. If the cows have calves and are balling at and fighting the dogs others will come to help, I have seen a 5 cow bay turn to 20, and when they get the numbers right they will run over the dogs at that point and escape. I have seen hog act the same way and I have watched singles try and leave the sounder and the dogs hit them and run them back in, just like cattle.

I used to just call that bunchin' up but now I will call it a RALLEY ;D ;D ;D

Paul T

about two years ago my wife and son and me went out on the four wheeler took 3 bay dogs and no catch dog we were really just exercising them when they struck some hogs it souded like there was a 100 of them in there when we walked in we counted 14 sows and one little boar and i dont know how many little pig but all of the sows and the boar were standing butt to butt with all of the little ones underneth just grunting away my wife wanted to shoot one and i told her to wait till i said ok , i whistled at my dogs and they kind of backed off and she drilled the boar in the ear with the 30-30 win , hogs scatterd everywhere.

I'm not sure how to put it in words but I believe a Sounder to be a "herd" living/coexisting together and when on the defensive, like Paul spoke of defending cattle behaviors to be a "Rally" The noise they make is eery and I am wanting to get it on an audio tape.

We named this local unusualy large sounder "The MOB" because that is what it reminded us of a riot where the energy grows and esculates into bigger things

(http://www.uglydogranch.org/photopost/albums/userpics/10001/DodgeMax05.jpg)
the picture angle does not show all the hogs, this was kinda like what Paul was talking about where a dominant hog would charge out at the dogs and the other hogs would start moving towards the same direction, these two dogs weren't going to sit still and let that big fat sow run them over, like she was trying to do. What you can't see inthe picture were about 20-30 more sows and pigs and on the backside of them were Mr.Masons dogs baying on the other side opposite of where we were standing.

I totally understand the sow with pigs outlook,  but when guys bring in all boars and they bayed them all, I want to see it for myself.  Very neat pics by the way.

Hogs bay up just like cows and it takes the same kind of dog to do both jobs.  I beleive that hogs wont break bay unless they feel pressured to do so.....either before or after the dogs find them.  Could be they heard ur 4-wheeler or dog box rattle and that put them on edge so when the dogs do find them they have allready started leaving or they scatter once they see dogs there.  Or they will break bay if they smell, hear, see you,.....I have broken allot of bays that have been going on for half an hour or more, then I get there and the hogs smell me and they bust and run.  Turning allot of dogs into a bay that has settled will often times put too much pressure on hogs and break bay.  Some times a single dog will be bad about putting to much pressure on groups and will always break bays.  Sows with little pigs are the easiest to bay in a group.  Usually mature boars dont bay in groups because they dont travel in groups.  Some times boars will bay with sows if they are tending sows that are in heat.  Rarely do boars bay together.  The most male hogs I have ever heard of baying together was two barrows and a boar.

Waylon

Different times of year sows group up and boars group up.

We turmed two catch dogs loose to a bay in an oak mont and all went running in. As the catch dogs went in there were boar hogs coming out. I had two boar hog come down the trail I was on and ended up jumping onto a tree limb. There was a fence about 30yrds from there and they were hitting that fence running. You could hear that wire stretching.

Brute that is exactly what I would think would happen, these guys told me they bayed a herd and shot everyone of them, I find that very hard to believe.  It just seems that they may get one or two, but these were 200 pound range hogs.  He told us he didn't even need the catchdogs the whole weekend, that has to be neat.

trent, are you reffering back to the TDHT contest that was held a couple of weeks ago? if so i still have alot of questions about how some of them hogs were caught. i hope they keep pushing for the lie detector,just my ten cents worth.

Working on Polygraph right now.

You can follow the thoughts on Contest 2009 at this link. Please feel free to submit your own opinions as well.

http://tdha.net/joomla1.0.11/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=28&func=view&catid=2&id=2390#2390

Realdogs,

   Without a picture, it is just a story on a message board ;D

Chris

So I am seeing this correctly you will take a shot with a gun with a dog on a moving hog and, not worried about hitting the dog?

Realdogs,

   I am all for seeing a demonstration ;D

Pictures are nice, but there is nothing better than the real thing!

Yes, and I know what you are reffering to in the tournaments. They do actually bay up big packs and more than one person goes with a gun and they position themselves for multiple shots. Not all the hogs shot have a dog that is specifically baying that hog.

Alot of them do it at feedlots or where there is net wire or even if they have the pattern on hogs. They turn dogs loose and catch what they can and have more guys posted up at the spots where they know the rest of the hogs will run. That is how those guys use to bring is 40+ hogs. 20-25 is about the max most guys who stab a hog can do.

Most contests allow this because the rules say "As long as dogs are on the gound" but it is still cheating and the main reason why most knife hunters do not want hogs that can be shot in the same division.

I agree Realdogs,
Dogs that are used with guns do things a little different than dogs that are used with catch dogs.

thanks brute, starting to make a little more sense, sounds like we dont need to take a knife to a gun fight!!!!!!!!!!

Exactly... alot of people have got the same if you can't beat them, join them, attitude. I have asked before to name one person who hunts tournaments that only bays and shoots, all the time, no catch dogs. I have yet to get a name. There is alot of smoke that gets blown you know where on the public eye.

From what is sounds like TDHA will solve this issue at the next contest and HHK sounds like his contest might be good also.

What is hhk tournament

So if I get the chopper that is used to hunt hogs off the places we go, I can just drop a dog when I see a big one and shoot it LOL.

HHK is a guy who posts. He is talking about having a contest.

And the chopper deal... "as long as dogs are on the ground."

alll about a contest to meet new hog/dooooog hunters and keep it fair, as for the chopper deal,well i think it would be a wonderful time ,but way to easy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! maybe its harder than i think.

Helicopters huh.   Here is something to think about.

Copied from the TDHA board, a post by Charlie Gasch


Looks like they did better old school than the guys did with helicopters.

Not sure who was flying and shooting from that rig. SOme have killed over 300 in a day. They can kill 150 or so regularly around here.

Alot of times they try to get guys to come in behind the choppers that will run down the wounded. They can run the choppers and it will slow up a little... but there are still pleanty of hogs for a hog dogger.

These people are doing it to protect crops and stuff, not for the sport. To even make a dent you have to hit them from all angles; choppers, dogs, and traps.

Brute,

You are correct in that you need to hit them from all angles.

The point I was trying to make is that one could hire out a heli and still come up short in a contest.

It's why they call it HUNTING.

Fly in a Helicopter over some thick woods and try to imagine how hard it is to even see a hog down below.  And its not exactly a smooth ride so it aint easy to hold the gun steady for a shot.  Most of em' use shotguns with buck shot, for that reason, and I would bet they wound more hogs than they kill.  When I was young we hunted a ranch that had just been high fenced.  The County trapper was freinds with my dad and had been shooting hogs out of the ranch with a helicopter because the ranch wanted them gone.  The supposedly killed hundreds and let them lay.  He asked My dad to come and clean up the ones that got smart and hid in the brush which was supposed to be only a sow and a few shoats.  So we brought some freinds and first hog out of the box was a boar, 22 hogs later we caught the dogs.  We saw no carcases, no bones, no buzzards, no proof that they had killed any hogs at all.  Only thing we did see was some wounded hogs we killed.  I can say that that county trapper was buying hog dogs after that for some pretty high prices.  Choppers work ok in the begining and then the hogs get smart and squat in the brush.

Waylon

No disrespect Realdogs, but whats the difference between a dog that bays hog that get shot and one that bays hogs that get caught?  The job is the same, find and bay hogs.  I've done both with the same dogs, and so do allot of people.  The only difference I see is one you pull the trigger and the other you unsnap the bull dog.

Waylon

I still want to see this video of the dog that drags hogs out one by one while the other is still baying. ???

The difference I see is that the dogs the regulary hunt with guns tend to be more aware of people coming up, the shot, some know to get out of the way, ect...

I have some that can do both also, but I have some you can not use with a gun because they bay too tight or are too gritty.

if someone gives me video on a disk, i can usually do something with it. and put it in a format that makes it postable. i can't do anything with tapes of any type. just don't have the conversion equipment for that.

Sorry, yes, you never know. Just like that only getting 9 hogs.

But if you come down to a heavily populated are like here. Its money in the bank. Like I said, they get 100 to 300 hogs (kind of depending on how big the ranch is, smallest maybe 5K biggest 100K+) regurlarly on the ranches we hunt and surrounding ranches, that is free range, no high fences. That is running during the day from say 10am to 4pm. Can't remember for sure, but for a day like that it is around $3K-$5K. With TDHA giving out over $2K this past year... its not to far off of an idea.

They use to have guys that would go with goosekneck trailers and pick them up then they would haul them to a big pit. Now they just leave them. Typically these guy use .223s around here. They will do the same for coyotes.

There was a guy I hunted with whose dogs would do that also. I was with him one time and he missed....  :o THat hog was chunkin them dogs. I bet they were like, "WTF BOSS?" :D

Realdogs I agree with you 100% there.  I was just wondering in what way you are talking about them being different

On single hogs ours will grab hold once you shoot the hog, but not like a bull dog.  Sometimes they foul up and will do it on groups when they are supposed to role out but you just kick em in the but and they go do what their supposed to do.  And like you said some get so bad about it to the point that you dont wanna miss if its a big boar.  I caused a gyp to get the pad on her foot bit in half once because I shot a sow that went down and the dogs piled in, but she got back up and tried to eat the little gyp up.....pinned her in some vines trying to bite her and rolled her over and did what bitin' sows do and bit her on the foot and I was a month working on that foot to get it healed up.  I guess thats punishment for making a bad shot.

Waylon