I have had more luck lately just putting one or two dogs on the ground. Maybe its coincidence or luck but they have bayed where they struck the past few hunts
one or strike dogs on the ground can work real well. The dogs will back up and bay and not put much pressure on the hog. I am talking about dogs that have enough grit to only bite down if the hog tries to break. Add another dog or two of these type and they will pressure the hog into running...In this part of the country where it is thick in most places. The hogs will get away because most dogs can not keep up with the hog during this time of the year when the weeds and briars are think and tall...no to mention that the hogs can usually outlast the dogs in the heat...cause most dogs are on a chain most of the week and are not in top condition for this time of the year...
But if the hogs are dog smart they will run as soon as they know the dog is on track and run hard and non stop...When they feel the heat they turn to the thick stuff but most know to go to the thick briars...
I know what the perfect strike dog is but there is a fine line that you can go over one way or another...but not that hard when running 1 or 2 dogs...what is hard is to have 4 or 6 dogs of that type hunting together...because they will go over that line...
But I like to run all my dogs and I like grit...so my style is best suited from January to the first days in April...When the weeds are down the races will be quite a bit shorter...Summertime, the races are longer but usually there will be a bay...sometimes the dogs fall out from heat exhaustion...but this is hog hunting...
I like catching hogs...but my top priority is to hunt the dogs and catching some hogs rather than catching more hogs but hunting less dogs...now if I had the hunting places I would option to go with the fewer dogs if that was the way to catch more hogs...different hunting spots require different stratagies...
This topic of all topics has been the most challeging for me...
one of the problems I had was catching hogs 2 or 3 ranches over due to the dogs sticking no matter what and that there puts knots in your stomach...but like I said before...if the dogs could run in it it was a caught hog pretty quick...
I have been thinking for a good while on starting a thread on what you perceive to be the perfect strike dog...this one that T-Bob started is close but coming at it from a different angle...
