ya ever run your dogs for fun??

[californiacoyotes]

i hear you guys talk about hunting with your dogs but do you or have you ever just hunted with them just for practice and NOT to take an animal?

 

[Tobey]

My hounds are my living for 3 months out of the year.When the season starts they need to be in top notch shape and ready to make hay.
Yes I run for fun all the time.I start training pups on coon and work them right up through to bear.I tree 10 times the game for fun than what we shoot.Hounds don't need fur in their teeth every time to keep them interested

 

[George P]

I'm with Tobey. I tree way more game that we dont take than we do. I went back and checked my calender for the last 2 years.Last year I treed 28 bears and took 7. In 99 I treed 44 and took 10. The difference in years? I worked a regular job in 2000 in 99 I didnt. I can assure you I wont have that problem in 2001 !!!LOL
In 99 we treed 15 during the kill season and left 5. Sow with cubs,3 small bears and one good one where we didnt have a shooter.
I actually prefer training season sometimes.All the fun without the work that starts when someone pulls the trigger.

 

[josh]

When I was a young lad, coon prices were at an all time high, 30-40$ was not uncommon..For a 15 year old kid with nothing better to do It was like winning the lottery!!

Things have changed a lot in the last 15 years, coon are worth almost nothing now

So if you still hunt them, you are doing it for fun

. We travel over to Wisconsin to run bear in the summer too, usually tree 2-3 a night! I personally have NEVER killed one, and have only been present at one tree whare the bear was taken.

 

[engman99]

I think almost every houndsman has the same attitude these days.We dont shoot everything we tree,and we hate shooting the ones we shoot.Every time we pull the trigger we are just making it that much harder on ourselves to find tracks.

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Hunt hard and prosper.

 

[GatoMan]

Most states have set aside times for Dog Training, what I call pursuit season, you can run and tree but no kill....in Idaho the units I hunt in are about 2 1/2 months long for pursuit season for bear.

 

[Mountain Boomer]

I run mine every Thursday night just for fun. I bet it has been two years since anything has been killed in front of my dogs.

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[Tobey]

I found some coon tracks and a deen tree today Their out and walking around even in all the snow Think I will sneek out their with a pup or 2 tonight LOL

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We having fun yet//Tobey

 

[bcat]

Calif-We run our dogs in the off season, just for excercise. When we find a coon has been to the barn overnight we run it, usually dont kill it because we dont have alot of coons here. We train the pups in the off season on barn cats after smaring a little lion scent on their feet. We only kill about a third of the lions we get in a tree, more or less, depends on the year. We used to run every track we found female or not but have found that, for the benefit of those females with kittens that we dont even chase the females much anymore. I take my dogs irrigating with me sometimes, for the excercize and of course the bonding. When we can we run a bobcat. Never had a chance to run one all winter, been a bad winter for us, but next year will be better. bcat

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If you aint the lead dog the scenery never changes

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