Been through this before, but my question is, those of you with rough dogs that you claim will stop any hog in the woods, how do you know that thats what happening? Have you ever seen a dog that can keep up with a hog in a thicket? I havent. The key is to have dogs with the heart and bottom to stay with a big hog til he wants to stop, IMO.
You are correct that no dog can hang in real thick brush nor will a dog be able to stop a hog %100 of the time. If you are hunting super thick stuff with running hogs, loose with bottom would be the way I would go also if at all possible. That is how we hunted in Three Rivers with the hound crosses.
In some cases like where I hunt it is grain fields and river bottom you can use fast dogs and they can be effective at shutting running hogs down. I have see this pair of my dogs on more that one occasion run down a hog and make it stop on the river bottom. That is well worth it to me because I have had dogs with bottom out there and we spent more time hunting dogs than hogs. Plus, if the hogs cross the river they are home free. Again, they are not batting %100, but they are more effective when they are there, then when they are not.
I am not sure what people call "rough" but I don't consider these dogs rough, but they aren't loose either. That is just my take on this, if any one wants together and test some e-net talk in the woods I would be glad to.
