po boyin

[chestonmcdowell]

alright i know its best to have a dog tracker. but what if you didnt have one at all, i know back then they didnt have a tracker. so if u knew you couldnt rely on a tracker how would you choose your pack of dogs. like short range or long range, gritty or loose, loud or quiet. i want to know what YOU would choose. thiis may be a stupid rookie question but i want to know.

[halfbreed]

well it's true we didn't have no trackers and i don't yet either so i been huntin personally as an adult for 42 years without one . i have allways then and allways now worked my dogs to be close to medium hunters that check back often . that being said , my first encounter with cur dogs was  [ wich way did they go  ] lol  and i started hunting me a semi-open dog . haven't got one yet  but should have one or two this year . i haven't actually needed to track a dog but only a couple times , didn't very many get away from them rough dogs i was running . but the couple times i needed a tracker that was the case of a busted bay on a bad boar hog or two .  a good mouth is necesary i got rid of one of the best gyps i trained on account of haveing a soft mouth on her . back in the day when we lost track of a hound we just waited um out blowing on the dog horn till they showed up spent a few nights sleeping in the truck just to wake up and ol blue would be asleep under the truck  lol .  i will invest in a tracker this year just for the fact of the people today alot of wich won't return a good dog to it's rightfull owner . before if you lost a dog hnting the majority of folks would call you and take care of your dog like it was their own till you came and fetched it .  but even with two tracking collars on or not i still would not hunt a long ranged go yonder kinda dog just not my style  .

[chestonmcdowell]

can u teach a dog to check in by just staying put?

[halfbreed]

   i allways start my dogs at a very young age just getting them woods wise . best way to go about it is to let a young dog get out a ways and while it ain't paying attention walk off and hide from it . it will panic at first but will usually settle down and start useing it's nose and track you down . and by young i mean 10 , 12 weeks old . this i done often and will usually carry over into adulthood . i demand that a dog hunt with me and not vice a versa . when they are still young at around 6 mnths old i will take them out solo and when they run off in one direction i will holler at them to come in and i will walk in the opposite direction they had started off in . i try and teach them to hunt in the direction i am walking . alot of times when the dogs get out a bit i will intintionaly call them back in and change direction of the hunt [ this being the older started dogs ] just to re-enforce them to hunt with me where i go . basically i like to hunt for what ever critter i am running and not be hunting my dogs instead , if that makes sence .  getting a good handle on the command to COME HERE  is the most important part of it .

[YELLOWBLACKMASK]

Got my first tracking system in 1998.  Spent 10 years prior with curs and another four or five chasing fox hounds with my dad and grandfather with nothing but a set of good ears and fast feet. Haha.

Actually classified in the younger category still...thank goodness .......but was fortunate enough to begin behind several generations of hound and cur hunters in the family.

Kida a funny thing this topic came up.  Myself and close friends had a gyp slip her tracking collar several days ago on our Oklahoma hunt.  My buddy Bayedhardhogdogs is also a generational hound hunter and spent plenty of years prior to the tracking system days.

It was almost like hitting the reset button on us. We initially panicked and then just fell into our old rhythm of .......stop......listen.........follow.  FAST.   So you dont lose them.

I was always partial to the longer range semi silent curs that would occasionally chirp on track....so to deliver a direction to follow.  A dead silent dog had to be short range......or you wouldn't have him to long. 

[dan]

 I didn't own a tracking unit for a long time either.  If the dog got too far, it was left in the woods.  I left my shirt in the woods and came back the next day to find the dog laying next to it.  Worked everytime and I can't recall ever loosing a dog.

Garmin has changed everything including dog handling skills.  I wonder sometimes how we ever hunted without it.

  

[dblackwell]

When I stared I tied glow sticks to my dogs collars. Until I got my innotec which I still use. My wife did just buy me a garmin with one collar for Christmas tho!!!

[Reuben]

Like already mentioned...when the dogs rolled out in a direction we moved that way as fast as we could walk and run...didn't have 4 wheelers back them...also carried a compass with me...also used that old cow horn to call the dogs in...and the dogs were trained to come in to the pick up horn if they weren't bayed

an mn-10 receiver with one sealed collar (16000 hour collar) on your best dog and that is about all you need to find the pack...but it is best to have a collar on all your dogs in case one gets a bad hit or one of the dogs go down with heat exhaustion or whatever...

ebay has quite a bit of used telemetry for pretty cheap because of everyone else switching to the Garmin...

[chestonmcdowell]

So y'all probably used mouthy hounds or gritty curs?

[halfbreed]

   gritty close working curs is what i started hunting hogs with , tried to buy me a  [ mouthy ] ol plott cur but she was tight mouthed  lol .

[dub]

I keep saying I am going to get a Garmin but just always have other stuff come up. That is why I like close range loose baying bay dogs and RCD's. That way they hog is caught fast and the bay dog is baying so I can find them fast. If the cur helps with the catch then they can't bark.

[justincorbell]

when I started we hunted with currs or curr x's. I had 1 male walker. He WAS our tracking system. to this day he ranks in the top 3 dogs i've ever hunted behind. He would open every 3-400 yds just a couple times but it was enough for us to hear em and know where they were.........at the bay he would shake the leaves off the tree's he was so loud. I miss that ol dog every time I go to the woods, damned snake got him.

[Reuben]

when I started we hunted with currs or curr x's. I had 1 male walker. He WAS our tracking system. to this day he ranks in the top 3 dogs i've ever hunted behind. He would open every 3-400 yds just a couple times but it was enough for us to hear em and know where they were.........at the bay he would shake the leaves off the tree's he was so loud. I miss that ol dog every time I go to the woods, damned snake got him.

Justin...if you could put a little of that Walker in your best curs... :oo

[quickfire]

I have a garmin and 2 collars but I still hold my breathe and listen for the bay or grunt for direction sometimes. Garmin is good to mark the truck and find a wounded or lost dog lol. I did lose a nice cracker cur one night she shot out without a collar on and never came back, she had my phone number on her collar but no one ever called. I personally like to have a tracking collar on everyone now just because that pup was showing so much potential and I never did find her.

[chestonmcdowell]

What is a good line of close working gritty curs?

[justincorbell]

when I started we hunted with currs or curr x's. I had 1 male walker. He WAS our tracking system. to this day he ranks in the top 3 dogs i've ever hunted behind. He would open every 3-400 yds just a couple times but it was enough for us to hear em and know where they were.........at the bay he would shake the leaves off the tree's he was so loud. I miss that ol dog every time I go to the woods, damned snake got him.

Justin...if you could put a little of that Walker in your best curs... :oo

Mr. Reuben, you have no idea how many times i have wished that I would have, I lost him in a very $hitty way. We got on a dang 110-120lb sow that took the dogs on an east texas pineywoods tour, when she finally screwed up and they shut her down they were in a creek with about 10' banks. the creek only had around 6-10''s of water in it and apparently ol amos either found a ball of mocassins or 1 really ticked off mocassin. I knew right after I got to the bay that he wasn't right, as soon as the CD hit he slowly climbed the bank and laid down. I assumed he had either taken a hard line off the creek bank or had hung up on something along the way because he wasn't swollen, just really sore. I ended up totin him out. the next morning I brought him to the vet because 1 side of his body was very swollen and almost blueish. the vet shaved him and found a buncha snake bites up and down his side. All I can figure is that he bayed standing on top of 1 or more mocassins. He died less than an hour after I got him to the vet and that was that.......I have tried on and off since then to get the information on his back ground to try to get another with zero luck.......such is life.

[jon]

i've never had a tracking system, now my hunting partner did but traded for dogs. Our dogs are short-med range gritty as all get out except my mt cur, she'll go a little further and dont put teeth on one less it tries to break... but, when she gets a few yrds from a hog while working the trail she'll yip so when we hear her yip we know theres fixing to be a hog. I would like to have a tracking system for my cds for broken bays i know where there going but heck i've made it since i started in 96 without one guess i can keep going.