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T dog the coldest track I put on I will let you figgure out how cold it was. A good buddy Chad told me he was coming in town and he would put some corn out. He put corn and a camera out at 3:00 pm and I got there the next morning around 6:30 am. He told me nothing had hit the corn so we went down a little bit and turned loose on a hog trail. My female Dancer was opening a little bit but I could tell it was really cold. His two dogs came back and I said we could leave her and go hunt another place. I turned another dog to Dancer and we went on. 1/2 hour later his phone dings and he has a picture of those two dogs trailing past his corn and camera. He says Mike nothing has been there since I put the corn out the day before Chances are that track was made the morning before withing a 1/2 hour of daylight making that track around 24 hours old. They did jump the hog but ran it across the highway on another club.
   Now not all my dogs have that kind of nose and for the most part I really dont need that cold nose of a dog. I have put down on tracks and other dogs didnt want anything to do with it.

make em squeel

I take no offence also. But there is surely a knack for every type of dog. I love a hard hunting birddog. One of the best I every had was a 3/4 cur 1/4 bird dog. One of the roughest dogs I have ever owned. Never barked one time at any size hog.

All my dogs are house broken. If a dog lives here it has to be habitable and not a wild animal. Last weekend I hunted them friday night and took the hound and a cur dog to a beer festival all afternoon and to an several bar/restaurants in the evening on Saturday. They even get to ride on the boat in the summer. 

Cajun do you have any idea of about how cold the coldest trail your plotts have worked up was? Another question I’ve wondered about with the open dogs is do they pick their heads up when the track gets hotter or do they typically keep it down. I would assume that it’s a dog to dog basis, meaning some stay low and some pick their heads up. Do the heads up type give as much mouth and is there a difference in their tracking speed?

Make-‘em-squeel I ask you the same question about yours and your partners dogs?

No right or wrong answers nor trying to start anything. I have wondered this a lot about different breeds and crosses. Matter of fact one of my hunting buddies and I were just talking about this very thing yesterday with our dogs. I have seen hogs passing through an area in the evening and then return to home from a different direction, kinda made a big loop. I put out where I saw them the evening before and the dogs took the track and got bayed a half mile away. Kerry told me once that he put Raylynn’s brother Amos out on a hog track that the game camera showed he came through at a certain time. I’m pretty sure he told me it was 12 hours from the time the hog went through to the time he put him on the track and he took it about a mile in like 10-15 minutes and bayed the hog in his pajamas. Now those numbers could be off either way a tad but that’s what I was told. I thought that was pretty impressive personally. I have seen my dogs wind from .92-1.2 numerous times and go straight from point A to point B like somebody told them which bush they were under to get bayed. I understand the scent cone and things, but from that distance, it impresses me to see. My dogs are dead silent but a few will what I call squeal behind a runner if they can see it. If it manages to get ahead or out of sight they will quit giving any mouth until they bay again.


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No offense taken here. You have to use what works for you. If I only hunted hogs and had a lot of them I would stick to curs but since I like to bear hunt when I can I have the Plotts. Also other then the Marsh we are not hunting in areas with large hog numbers so we rely on tracking and the dogs rigging. We also cast in places we believe hogs will be. In fact we hunt hogs about every way except walk hunt. The only walking I want to do is after we get as close to the bay as we can and then walk in. Also the fact that I like to hear a good cold trail that turns into a race or bay. With the hounds I am assured that those hogs know what is coming. lol

I can definitely see advantages to the pointers. It almost always comes down to preference. The plott guys usually want to hear the mouth so that’s one incentive for having them or using them for crossing. I would say another is consistency. The pointers that work are nice but there are a lot of them that won’t take to hogs and there are a lot that will but won’t reproduce puppies that consistently do. You may have half a litter that will and half that won’t. Some people can afford to keep a whole litter to weed through them but most can’t afford it or don’t have the room for it. I’ve also seen a few pointers that would take to hogs but literally not bark, just stare and more or less point. It’s hard to always know they’ve located and even harder to get other dogs to them to bay. So one breed can be really loud and the other silent to the extreme. Both breeds have noses and motors.  I see the pluses and the minuses of each. I’d say hog dogs are probably the most diverse group of dogs out there simply because there are so many styles and methods to hunt and it just boils down to individual preferences. I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong just what makes the person buying the feed happy. Ernie definitely has found a niche. I was always fond of his old cat males looks. I thought he was a pretty rascal.


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Not to offend the plot/hound guys on here but if not line breeding I think the EP cross is better bc there silent and hunt as hard as the hounds.

Ernie is the only hog hunter ive known that his strike dogs are potty trained pets lol They stay out all day and sleep on the porch in good weather but sleep inside the living room on a bear skin rug

Yes sir I thought so. The ones I’ve  seen were nice looking dogs.


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YES, hes had good dogs for the 20 yrs ive known him using stock Catahoula's and long ranged hard hunting English pointers

Cajun I won’t lie, those dogs would probably have have won my heart. I can’t do anything but respect that mind set. That “you aren’t going to beat me” mindset is so awesome. It’s truly the mindset I’ve tried to raise my kids to have. This is a little off course but kinda related. When I was a senior in high school, I lived next door to my cousins. They had a buddy come visit that was what I would call fast in a foot race. Competitive natures got the better of us and we ended lining up in the road to race. He beat me several times in a row but nearly a photo type finish every time. I was doing any and everything to gain an advantage. I ended up barefooted before it was over. He wanted to quit but I wouldn’t concede and just kept pushing buttons to make him keep running. Finally, my bottom was either more than his or he gave up, either way I won. I walked up to the house and walking down the sidewalk I noticed my feet burning more than they should’ve. I looked back and I was leaving bloody foot prints. The whole skin of the soles of my feet were just flopping. I thought dang this smarts but it sure was satisfying.


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We’d probably be cut and released if they found we were cutting hogs and releasing them. We have such numbers that it’s not in our favor to release them. Where we are, every hog needs to be taken out.


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