When I hunt in idaho with hounds I wont turn my dogs out unless I know the track is from within 24 hours or so, even then you have to stay with the dogs no matter what the terrain, idaho is not flat like texas, if you relesed a dog on a seven day old track you probably wont even get a bark out of the best hound on that old of a track.And if your best dog does take the track you will regret ever putting that dog on the ground, if your lucky the wolves wont find him before you can get a cat up a tree.The only way to really age tracks in Idaho is hunt fresh snow from the night before, when you cut a track and turn the dogs out you can be sure that it is fresh and your dogs have a chance of catching up and treeing the cat.
Jason
Welcome to the boards and welcome to Texas, its not all flat.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_adXvtM_GcPg/SdLcrFbh8FI/AAAAAAAADis/T61IuEM-clQ/s1600-h/Hill+Country+view+near+Vanderpool.JPGDoes a 12 hour track headed north smell the same to a hot nosed dog named slingshot who was born on a leap year, as it does to cold nosed gyp named princess with three legs? No, it smells the same. The difference is does a dog have the desire to follow that track. Which is why I don't really think of it as a cold nosed dog more of a cold trailing dog. But ofcourse it really depends on what context you are talking about hog hunting or panther hunting? In my opinion a cold trailing dog is simply one that has the disire and instinct to take a cold track. Hounds have that cold trailing instinct curs for the most part do not to some degree or another. I just figgure a cold trailing hog dog is one that will work a track that is older than 6-8 hours, and dogs that don't are just not cold trailing dogs.
The thing is a cold trailing dog is no good to me and would just slow me down, I know where the hogs are likely to be and all I gotta do is take a dog to one of those spots and they will hunt it out and come back if nothing is around. Keep moving on till we find a hog or run out of place to hunt on. I can find hogs faster any day with a good Cur dog than I can with a cold trailing hound. But I'm not the type that likes to sit at the truck and wait for dogs to find something. If I did that my dogs would just stand there and wait on me. Ofcourse I get irritated if my dogs stay gone for a while in a random direction or on old sign without checking back in. Its like.. what the heck does that gyp think she is a danged hound or something?
Waylon
