Open mouth dogs (on track)

[BMichalak]

i know alot of guys that run some dogs that are open on track...i was just wondering do alot of yall have some dogs that are open on track? and if yall do does it bother you at all? what do yall do to prevent it (if you can)... i have dog that is semi open on a VERY hot track and it doesnt really seem to bother me because usually the hogs is not too far ahead of him.... BUT i know some guys do not like that because all of the others dogs that are out hunting come to the bark thinking it is a bay... and might throw a loop in your hunting style... i was just wondering about some of  yalls opinions on this subject!

[cantexduck]

  I am very new but........ That very thing happened a few months back. We had two older dogs taking a track (300-400 yards away) when a younger dog started yelping on track(25 yards in front of us) it pulled the older dogs back. They never picked it back up after that.

EDIT- By older dogs I mean the oldest we had with us. 1.5 y/o.

[TShelly]

Id say over half our dogs are open on track, with some being extremely mouthy... and we catch PLenty of hogs every year.... part of the beauty of hunting with dogs for us is listening to the race. If your dogs are fast enough and have enuff hunt, they'll stop the hog.

Whats up man, I came out to your place with Marshall when we got that sow out of your trap. my name is Tony

[Black Gold]

I personally dont own any bay dogs (Only RCD's) but I've hunted with guys that hunt dogs that are open on track.  If their pack is set-up like that and used to it then it functions fine. (Other than the belief it pushes the hogs.....I dont know because I've never been between the dog and hog to see if it stopped or ran further )  But when a group of hunters get together with different bay dogs and one opens up on track then it can call the others who come looking for a bay.  Some guys swear by them.....just not my cup-o-tea!

[Jasonmac]

Personally i don't like them mouthy dogs.My dogs honor a dogs bark and it messes them us.One mans trash is another mans treasure.

[WestTexasCurs]

When you hunt your dogs together long enough,they know the difference in a bay and a trail bark.If the dogs are good dogs,they are gonna catch hogs,open or silent.

[Jasonmac]

Your right I dont hunt with mouthy dogs therefore my dogs dont know the difference.

[pig snatcher]

When you hunt your dogs together long enough,they know the difference in a bay and a trail bark.If the dogs are good dogs,they are gonna catch hogs,open or silent.

That is verry true. 

I hunt with some open and semi open dogs and it really doesnt bother me.   They bay hogs just as good as any silent one.

[BMichalak]

yea i know alot of people have got different ways of hunting... but every time my dog has opened up on track he has caught the hog himself( he is pretty gritty). i just wanted to see everyones opinion on this subject...personally it doesnt bother me too much unless they are opening up on trash because my dogs will honor another dogs "yip" "bark" or "bay"...good thoughts guys


trophytakers (tony) hey man yea i remember ya coming out with marshall that time, i talked to him yesterday and he was wanting to know when we could go hunting so whenever yall are ready give me a holler and we can roll out there and try to catch a few , i have been shooting the hell out of them over deer season and shot a few good boars too so just give me a holler and if u want u can pm me your number and i will send u mine so we can get in touch!!!

[matt_aggie04]

I have never hunted behind good open dogs or even a dog that was what I would call open on track so I can't knock it.  I do feel in the back of my mind that constant pressure from open dogs would make the hogs a little more jumpy and more apt to take flight but that is just my opnion and probably not factual.  As long as you like what your using I think that is the most important thing.  I would like to hunt behind a pack of hounds one day though and see how it sounds to listen to the race and then get the hog stopped and bayed etc.  I personally like knowing that when I hear a bark the dogs have the hog stopped but I could see where it would be cool listening to a dog start a track and then listening to it "heat up" before the hog is stopped and bayed.  Just like everything else I suppose there are good open dogs that produce like clock work and then there are those that just make a lot of noise, look forward to trying it one day.

Matt

[clint]

The best dog ive ever hunted with was a semi-open plott dog. she may bark on track some but you can bet that 90% of the time she was gonna stop it. even if she had to run it 10 miles

so like some of yall said, i think if the dog is good enough it will stop and bay hogs if they're open or silent

[Bryant]

I have hunted behind some open dogs, but probably not enough to form a factual opinion. 

For those of you who have more experience with them then me, let me ask a question that I've always wondered about.  I know people hunt hounds and other open mouth dogs and catch hogs often with them.  Generally speaking, my question pertains to the distance that the hog is finally caught after the dog originally opens up.  It would seem to me that if hunting dog-smart hogs, that an open mouth dog would give the hogs a sizeable head start resulting in bays that were further off than those dogs that are in a pigs face and baying his tail off before the hog has a chance to get out of dodge.  Do you guys find this to be true?

[buddylee]

I personally don't like open dogs. I am sure there are exceptions to the people I know but the people I know that run quiet dogs catch far more hogs than open dogs. Most folks that run open dogs enjoy listening to the race. I hunt small pieces of property and need to stop a hog fast. If I can't stop him quickly I just let it go. Some say this teaches a hog to run. Maybe so but I don't have the property to run a hog for several miles.

[Wmwendler]

It Depends on the timing and duration of the barking when you are talking about open-mouth. Barking Before they see a hog I dont like.  Barking after a hog breaks bay is ok and helps you figgure out which way the hog went after he broke bay.....as long as they shut up soon enough.  I've hunted with both but prefer dogs leaning toward the silent side.

Waylon

[txmaverick]

Having hunted behind open hounds for years then going to "one out", moved to RCDs then to closed mouthed simi gritty dogs...........
I will never go back to any of the other ways.
I have personaly sat and watched hogs move ahead of open hounds, get far enough ahead of them and stop to rest.........wait for the hounds to catch up then move out again. This was a pack of full blood hounds...I know guys in my area JJ being one that runs hounds with curs and this doesnt seem to be a problem for them, my personal thoughts are number one; the curs make up the differance in grit; two that the hounds feed off the curs and will be more apt to catch and speed up thier trailing.....I believe this is due to the hounds being started with the curs working as a team. If you brought a new older hound into the pack I dont believe the result would be the same.
Every situation and very ranch here in the Hill Country presents a new situation, what I run or do on one ranch may not work on the next.

My personal thoughts and what I have personally seen is that a pack of full blood hounds, no curs in the pack at all will move hogs ahead of them here where I hunt. They will also draw closed mouths dogs back to them if the dogs dont hunt together enough.

Will a mixed pack of hounds and curs work? YES without a doubt!!! Do I like or hunt that way? No, the reason I dont is because after years of hounds everytime I hear an open mouthed dog even if it is with the curs or looking at a hog, my first thought is "oh number 2 their going to move out". Again this is just my thought.

Last year during the TDHA contest my dogs were put with an open bluetick.......never having been around an open hound she pulled 3 yr old dogs back to her off the trail they were on half a mile ahead of her.

Even hounds can be trained to trail faster or even stop the trail and move ahead to dogs ahead of them. This is what JJ has from what I know of his dogs the hounds will start a colder trail but then move ahead to stay with the cur dogs when they pick up the trail, makes a good combo if you start them out right but would be a hard conversion with 3-6 yr old dogs.

Now I am broke after sharing my 2 cents.

[txmaverick]

Years ago and I am talking about before Hog Dogin was a sport, before most on this board were born; 30 yrs ago. The only dogs anyone in the Hill Country ran were full blood hounds that barked everytime thier foot hit the ground, no curs, no catch dogs.

In those days and yes I was part of that.......it was nothing to start a boar before daylight and kill him after dark the same day, killing him while walking along with hounds beside him walking bayed never stoping him, but barking all day looking at him.

The same boar today with closed mouthed dogs on him that have some grit, or a mixed pack of hounds and curs, the story would be very very different.

My runs today on the same kind of boar or much much shorter, what would be a 12 hr run with those hounds 30 yrs ago may only be an hour or two now days and this with every hog in the country knowing what dogs mean or having been run before already.

We had lost a hound one day in the rain but knew he was still on the boar we had started before daylight. We decided to go eat lunch, wait out the rain and see if someone called saying they had found him...no one then knew what a tracking system was. In the mid of the afternoon we got a call from an old man 12 miles from where we started the boar, saying he had killed a boar hog with his axe while out cutting cedar and behind the boar about a half a mile was this ole hound. He said the boar was so worn out he was just walking along down the fence and walked right past him not caring he was there, so he hit him in the head with his axe. Sure enough when we got there to pick the dog up there was the boar with his head split open.

Things have changed alot in 30  yrs, not just hunting styles but breeds of dogs, the amount of hogs, and many more things. Again as I said in the first post, even a full blood hound can be trained to work much more different than those hounds back then, and breeding today has changed some of that.

[BMichalak]

i agree with waylon... one of my dogs wont open up almost until he see's the hog in front of him and that doesnt bother me. but if a dog opens up "yiping" and keeps on the trail open and doesnt come on to anoything for another minute or so, then i think that would be disturbing the rest of the pack from hunting

[Wmwendler]

Don't know about thirty years ago, but there have been Cur dogs in The hill county since the late 1880's at least.  Thats when George Lacy brought over some dogs to Marble Falls from east Texas and started his line of dogs the Blue Lacy.  Not just George Lacy but other men also had allot of free range hogs back then just like in east Texas from then on into the 1920's and 30's.  Ran them on the Acorns that fell from the oaks that are thick around that area, and used Cur dogs to gather and work them.  All of this is documented of course, I'm getting this information from an article that was written in The Cattleman magazine in 1941.

Waylon