Find Dogs

[Critter Catcher]

ok well how about this when you dump the dogs and the long range dogs hit the woods smoken and are gone half a mile and you short range dogs bay up right there in front of ya  them long range dogs passed that one up  

EXACTLY....that was me experience when I went out with some local guys..they laughed at my dog only going a couple hundred yards but when Duke struck 1 then another they shut up and started looking at there dogs that were still hunting..we had 2 hogs down on my poor short ranger..

[Mike]

If they're passing hogs up, that's not the kind of dog i'm talking about. I like a dog that covers all the country around you, but will go deep doing so... not run straight away on a nature walk.

How would those short range dogs do in a 2,000 acre block of woods with 1 boar hog in it? Like I said, when hogs are plentiful, they'll all shine like a diamond.

[skunkhounds]

i got dogs that would do fine on a big place with just one hog on it just becouse my dogs are short to med range dont mean i dont cover some land when i hunt   and my dogs are hunting  if he is there he will be found  most times 

[Critter Catcher]

If they're passing hogs up, that's not the kind of dog i'm talking about. I like a dog that covers all the country around you, but will go deep doing so... not run straight away on a nature walk.

How would those short range dogs do in a 2,000 acre block of woods with 1 boar hog in it? Like I said, when hogs are plentiful, they'll all shine like a diamond.

Heck if there's 1 boar on 2000acs. you don't need to hunt it you need start planting hogs

this is Texas man there ain't a 2000ac track with just 1 hog...

[skunkhounds]

i agree with that the whole state got plenty of hogs  have been hunting hogs 20 years and there is more hog alot more now then when i started hunting

[T-Bob Parker]

Oh man i know you wasn't talking about him, but, I do know he has passed up several hogs and not taken tracks that i know he should have. I like him, but at the end of the day he's just a decent mid range dog, i wouldn't put him in the class of dog that BigO started this thread about. Ive seen maybe one of those and it belonged to Cward. I can't remember the dogs name but he made finding hogs look like it was as natural as taking a breath.  

And Mike your right, but if a 2000 acre place only had one boar, I wouldn't be getting called about depredations control, so that's my justification for no having a super dog...yet.

[Mike]

Critter Catcher, sure there is... I have several larger than that. We've hunted to piss out of them for many years... done our job and made the landowners happy. Now the hogs are few and far between. The type of dogs that produce hogs on these places, when there are hogs, are my kind of dog... dogs that hunt it, not dogs that I have to take to the hogs.

I've owned lot's of short range dogs over the years, and they do very well when hog populations are high.

[Mike]

i agree with that the whole state got plenty of hogs  have been hunting hogs 20 years and there is more hog alot more now then when i started hunting

They must have all migrated out of East Texas, cause they've been few and far between the past few years.

[skunkhounds]

i live in east tx and theres plenty of hogs here

[T-Bob Parker]

So back to a true find dog, is finding, baying, rolling out and finding more solely genetic, or is there anything that can be done to instill this virtue.
Nature vs Nurture

Let the games begin

Mike, you must be in a good mood this morning with all those smileys, as long as your happy, can i have tweety?

[Mike]

i live in east tx and theres plenty of hogs here

Come on now, that ain't East Texas. I call that country heaven... Madisonville, Leona, Centerville, Buffalo, Normangee, North Zulch, Fairfield, etc...

[Mike]

T-Bob... come on and get her!


Yeah right!!!!!

[skunkhounds]

it might be  heaven but its east tx lovelady i catch lots of hogs there thats east texas

[matt_aggie04]

Lovelady is nice country, you can usually drive through there and count the dead hogs on the side of the road.  No shortage of swine there thats for sure.

[t.wilbanks]

Critter Catcher, sure there is... I have several larger than that. We've hunted to piss out of them for many years... done our job and made the landowners happy. Now the hogs are few and far between. The type of dogs that produce hogs on these places, when there are hogs, are my kind of dog... dogs that hunt it, not dogs that I have to take to the hogs.

I've owned lot's of short range dogs over the years, and they do very well when hog populations are high.

How would those short range dogs do in a 2,000 acre block of woods with 1 boar hog in it? Like I said, when hogs are plentiful, they'll all shine like a diamond.

This is the biggest problems we have... i think we may have one place to hunt that is anywhere close to 2,000 acres...
Most are a few hundred and those few are usually 2,3, sometimes 4 different properties put together....
So yeah we kind of have to push the dogs around on the bigger places, but when we do find em, they are not a mile away when they strike .... another big reason i dont use long range dogs is because if that dog strikes a runner ( like more and more hogs are getting to be these days ) a mile off, where will they be by the time you get anywhere close to them? I know it all depends on terrain and all that, but long range dogs just wont work on our places.....

Looks like short and long range dogs are fixin to be like comparing curs vs hounds, dogo vs pit, open vs silent, and so on and so on!!!  

[bigo]

A top find dog to me, will get deep if necessary but not pass up the close ones to do so. A goog find dog will have a good nose, brains enough to use it and to know where to look for hogs. The conditions we have right now will tell you if you have a find dog or not. If one will hunt hard and find hogs quick in these hot dry conditions and do it on a regular basis, he is a pretty good find dog. I never pass final jugment on a dog untill they are hunted hard or used hard on cattle for a summer.

[Mike]

A top find dog to me, will get deep if necessary but not pass up the close ones to do so.

Bigo, that's exactly the type of dog I was trying to explain.

[DKBAR]

This was interesting....

Last year I took a farmer on a hunt, He hunts hounds....
He farms our ranch we live on....HIs Idea was we'd ride around and when his hounds opened up in the box we'd turn my cur dogs out.

I went with it, I'm a girl so i'm used to being treated like i know nothing lol!!

Well my cur dog started raisin hell in the box...so i said imma droip him there's a hog right here....The farmer with the hounds said no way.....my dogs would of smelt it and fired off in the box!!


Well i couldn't resist it, I turned out, bayed up a good ole sow, earned some respect.....laughed my way back to the truck.

Moral to the story is.....Everybody has a different opinion of what is what, and how it should hunt.  No 2 hunters hunt alike huh......from my voyages to the woods w others.....

IMO a good find dog where we hunt here will go hunt out a bit, and check back in, cuz this place has too many hugs and if I dump him out i dont want him piddlin hours of daylight away when we can load up and move along to a better spot.  Thats why I prefer a wind dog.......That rip dog I raised will wind/find/relay all day long....Every dog we start we try to finish that way, iy just works best around here.  My projects i'm workin on now are starting to get it.....but really i dont care how they hunt as long as they produce hogs consistently!!

[Circle C]

It's real simple for me, have a dog that is willing to find the hogs wherever they are. Short range don't get it done. I'd rather my dogs put me on the hogs, than me put my dogs on the hogs.  If the hogs are close, let's bay them close. If they are far, let's bay them far. My goal in the woods is to have fun and bay hogs... Not drive around dropping dogs, letting them make a 2-300 yard loop, then loading them up and trying a different place. I want to drop them at the truck, and then go find them bayed.


 

[T-Bob Parker]

It's real simple for me, have a dog that is willing to find the hogs wherever they are. Short range don't get it done. I'd rather my dogs put me on the hogs, than me put my dogs on the hogs.  If the hogs are close, let's bay them close. If they are far, let's bay them far. My goal in the woods is to have fun and bay hogs... Not drive around dropping dogs, letting them make a 2-300 yard loop, then loading them up and trying a different place. I want to drop them at the truck, and then go find them bayed.


 

Winner winner chicken dinner