Long distance running

[Duckhunter2102]

What is everyone’s option on how long a hog can run .  How long long can they run with out over heating or dying of heat exhaustion .  I know people who claim they run  hogs for over 8 Or 9 hours and they claim the hog never stop .  Is this possible or are their dogs just going from one pig to the next .

[Judge peel]

I think a lot of people are confused in this subject.  I feel like most hogs don’t run that far. The ones that do are experienced and it don’t take much to beat the average dog or young dog and they just one up each time until they just take clean off. Most of the time dogs are running multiple hogs and the handler just thinks he is running a big monster. I believe most of the time it’s a smaller hog and the dog just can’t bay it up.  If this is happing a lot more then likely that’s the case. Now most serious hunters know the difference but a lot don’t or are just blind to what’s really happening. I hear people all the time tell me man we got on a monster the dogs kept baying it up and fighting off the dogs. Well that’s easy to debunk if the the dogs ain’t cut up. Any way I feel like if a hog runs most of the time he ain’t going that far maybe few miles and lot of time turns back to where he started. If he runs 5 miles plus that’s a running sob and you best have some dogs with stick or your done.


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[Judge peel]

Few things to take in as well are they pond hopping is there creeks and rivers to hit and recharge themselves. These are wild animals they dont have a food bowl and a/c they only know survival.


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[Slim9797]

I’ve heard people claim to run them 20+ miles. I have yet to see one bay after any longer than 8 or so and that’s been very few times


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[Cajun]

There are some places where the hogs run bad & the dogs do not always stay on the same hog but keep switching. There are  others where you can see the hog cross numerous times & know you are on the same one. Most of the time when you stay on a good boar for a number of hours & you just know you going to bay him any minute & all of the sudden the dogs are all split up running different hogs. Hogs cannot run very long but in thick cover, they can trot all day & in a lot of places, the dogs just cannot open up & run. If you can relay them & keep the pressure on, sometimes you can break that hog down. Most of the hogs that we have run for 20 plus miles & we caught them, they died within 10 minutes of tying them up. Every hog we have run a long distance, has always been a good boar. I can tell you this, if a hog wants to run, you will be lucky if you stop him with the same set of dogs you started him with. I told a guy one time that the dog that starts it, is not always the dog that bays it. lol We relay a lot, mostly because I have these sorry Plotts.

[Goose87]

I think more times than not the dog gets to far behind and the scent gets weaker and when it runs across a warmer scent it takes that one leading one to believe that they've ran the same hog hours and hours, at the beginning of summer me and my partner hunted a 13k acre block of timber company pines with branch heads all through, me and Billy got away from the group and got our own hog jumped, several hours later the other groups dogs get on the same track as ours but several hours behind and whenever they would get down in the bottoms where they could smell good they would all blow up and them boys kept calling us and swearing they was running a monster, they had a walking bay and the hog was whipping their dogs and just walking off, mind you they had 15 head of piranhas down, when I got around to them finally, I showed them on my Garmin where their dogs had followed our's track step for step and every place they had a "walking bay" was in a creek bottom where the scent was lingering longer and it's more open and the dogs could really move better, the timber company won't burn around here so it's bad kinda thick, miraculously every time this big bad boar would get up in the pines  and thickets they would go back to "running" him would "walk bay" again once in the branches, a lot of times these monsters and all day races are just a lack of knowledge and knowing the game and terrain, very rarely do we have all day races in the summer because we won't let the dogs runs that long, but in the winter or cooler months we will and around where I mainly hunt if a dog is lining straight out of an area then most times it's a good male, there are some hogs who refuse to bay and will literally run themselves to death, there will always be skeptics that say the physiology of hogs will not allow them to run great distances over a period of time, I caught a boar 3 summers ago that we jumped at daylight and by 11 am he had done covered over 18 miles according the Garmin and never left a 3 square mile are, the farming area I hunt has countless spring heads and branches  good flowing creeks and farm ponds and unlimited food supply for the hogs, about 10 years ago I caught a huge sow one summer that refused to stay bayed, she would go from branch head to branch head and knew where every pond around was,only way I caught her was I ambushed her with a bull dog as she was coming out of a pond that had an artesian well coming out of the ground, this was mid summer and this huzzy knew the game and had survival on her mind...

[Reuben]

Over the years I have had my dogs on 4 to 5 hours on one hog regular enough and once in a while 7 or 8 hours...some of the races could be shorter if I kept a catch dog...

There are hogs that can run off an on for hours stopping in the real thick briars to rest and then will move on to a marsh drink and cool off and them move out again...they can keep this up most of the day or night...

In open country these hogs won’t run far because the dogs will shut those runners down more often than not...

[Reuben]

If you ever hang a big boar, skin it and take the fat off with the skin after you’ve gutted it...cut the head off at the base where the head meets the neck...and don’t cut the feet off...

Stand back and look closely at how the hog is physically built...you will see power, speed and agility...the ribs are deep but not wide for perfect movement of the front legs and also the depth allows for more lung capacity...

What is surprising to me is the actual length of legs...

The above observation was on a tall boar that was built to run and kill dogs...he had given us the slip 6 or 7 times and we created a plan to catch him and we did...his mistake was that he always started in the same area and he always ran the same route because it was working for him...

[Slim9797]

Red belly says the hog been running. Comes from my uncles who’s been dogging hogs for 25+ years


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[Goose87]

There are some places where the hogs run bad & the dogs do not always stay on the same hog but keep switching. There are  others where you can see the hog cross numerous times & know you are on the same one. Most of the time when you stay on a good boar for a number of hours & you just know you going to bay him any minute & all of the sudden the dogs are all split up running different hogs. Hogs cannot run very long but in thick cover, they can trot all day & in a lot of places, the dogs just cannot open up & run. If you can relay them & keep the pressure on, sometimes you can break that hog down. Most of the hogs that we have run for 20 plus miles & we caught them, they died within 10 minutes of tying them up. Every hog we have run a long distance, has always been a good boar. I can tell you this, if a hog wants to run, you will be lucky if you stop him with the same set of dogs you started him with. I told a guy one time that the dog that starts it, is not always the dog that bays it. lol We relay a lot, mostly because I have these sorry Plotts.

We must've been typing at the same time lol, you made a good point I forgot to mention about relaying dogs, more times than not the dog that jumps him isn't the one who bays him, how true that is, around here if a hog pulls a pretty decent lead over the dogs then he has the ace up his sleeve and can set a steady pace and in this thick cover that can extremely frustrating at times, especially once it starts getting hot, and also like you mentioned, just about every big hog boar or sow that I've ever caught in the summer time after a long race died with in the hour of being caught....

[Judge peel]

Good points fellas. One thing I never do is drop fresh dogs on a race. If that set don’t get it then we just didn’t get em. Slim there are plenty dogs that will stick for long long time twenty miles is crazy but I have seen it


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[Slim9797]

Good points fellas. One thing I never do is drop fresh dogs on a race. If that set don’t get it then we just didn’t get em. Slim there are plenty dogs that will stick for long long time twenty miles is crazy but I have seen it


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Yessir I do believe it. I think it takes a lot of different factors to line up such as right country in right conditions on the right day and definitely the right dogs, but the guys I’ve hunted with that have talked about it, have never shown me. I have one night seen a running hound gyp do an easy 15 behind a hog and we had to cut her off near I-20. I personally have no desire for dogs that will do it simply due to the fact I do not hunt a single place with the acreage to hold that kind of race. We hunted some big grain fields on the brazos the other night and got to see just how well them hogs know what they’re doing. They’d run big circles in that grain and once they knew they were ahead they would cross back out of the fields right on the trail they’d been coming in on. We’d watch hogs cross and 30-45 seconds later here come the dogs. When it’s real dry like it has been down here and the hogs get way ahead, in my experience 9 times out of 10 your not catching that hog.


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[Duckhunter2102]

Thanks for all of your  responses to my question .

[l.h.cracker]

Dang runnin a:;;$ hogs.Nothing is more satisfying to me than one dog breaking down a bad runner solo.3-4hrs seems to be the magic number I've found down here but keeping one where you can stay on him that long down here is the real problem.Bad hogs know where every boundary is where every gator infested river, swamp or creek is and they know if they make it you're gonna call the dog off.But if you can keep a fast paced track dog on em for 3-4hrs you got a real good shot.6-7mph average through everything thickest of the thick water wherever it wants to go.I never pack fresh dogs so the dog that started is always the one who finishes.I believe it's a bit harder to pack to silent dogs especially if they're fast on track because by the time you get to where they crossed an opening if they ever cross one they're usually 8-900 yds past it and dropping another dog that far back is useless.What I try to achieve and expect in my yard is a dog that can do it right by themselves and need no help.With that being said by no means do we catch every hog and getting outrun is just a part of it for us.I know that being able to put fresh dogs in race will increase the pressure and odds of winning but our races lengths are generally dictated by terrain,risk assessment and boundaries.