yes...I can see your style is being a great and fun way to hunt...
I grew up hunting with dogs...slingshot, bb gun, spear, then a 22...and of course deer rifles etc as I got older...I also learned the way of the wildlife by hunting dry conditions and very wet conditions...I could and would be soaking wet but I knew exactly where to go to find deer or any kind of game...We didn't have hogs back then where I grew up...My dogs ate what we caught...I learned to stalk and sneak and my dogs would operate off of my signals and a few little hisses here and there if I wanted their attention...if we were stalking and wanted to give a signal I hissed just loud enough to get their attention...I knew when they were running deer or jack rabbit...rabbit...or having a big snapping turtle or big snake bayed...or coon or feral cat treed...you run the dogs enough and you will learn quite a bit about dogs...when I stepped off in the brush alone with my dogs I became a predator...the pack leader...
I speared lots of rabbits the dogs didn't catch that made it to the rose hedges before the dogs had a chance to catch them...
also shot many in the head with the slingshot...when I got a little older about 12 or so I started shooting them ahead of the dogs while on the run with the 22 auto...
one day I was at deer camp deep in South Texas and this ole boy about my age was telling how him and his 2 friends would leave all day into the woods and only take some salt, matches and a knife and come back late in the evening...he switched gears before my eyes as he was showing me how they stalked around...once I saw him I told him he didn't need to say no more...because I then knew what he was...
when I hunted alone with my dogs was not how I hunted when I had another person hunting with me...more because they would not understand...a kid can do way more with a dog than a man can...
a good pack of dogs can look great with the right handling...
Yes i get exactly what you describe when hunting alone vs with someone. I am very different when hunting alone and I like it that way but I also love sharing the outdoors with friends. I've learned to just enjoy the outdoors with them and not get caught up in ruining the shared experience with my own particular way I go about things when by myself.
I believe a lot of dogs will do better with some people than others. My dogs might seem like rock stars to some when my dogs are with me but if they was someones else's dogs they might think they was pot lickers.
Regardless of that, my opinion of an all around hog dog should be able to find pigs and catch them on a consistent basis without getting cut up much at all.
My finder holders are can work as stags on crop feilds just as good or better than stags can, the can hunt the woods like curs, rig like curs off a buggy, you can use them as a lead in cd if you so choosed, they pretty much are just all around pig dogs. A good cold trailing dry ground scent hunt is a specialty they can not by no means match, but hey can that cold trailing scent hound catch and hold the pigs he finds or is he a specialist all his own?
