Successful hunt???

[rdjustham]

I like turning the dogs out and having a god time with friends. pig(s) or not if your having a good time with friends/family and no dogs are hurt that's a successful hunt.  Ive goose egged more times than I care to mention but they were all still successful. 

[oconee]

Goose egg is all I know, I just like stirring these guys alittle!!!  Lol!   

[Bo Pugh]

But if I go on a work night during the week I like to turn out early as I can catch 1 or run one and get on back to the house it always don't work out like that but when it does it's pretty nice. I try to only put on one hog during a work night that second turn out will make things turn into a all nighter but when I'm off work i go to hunt for however long whether it be 2 hours or 8 hours I enjoy good dogs working

[bigdics_offroad77]

yea it doesn't get much bettter in my eyes than sitting back on the side x side and just closing your eyes while listening to the hound singing away in the woods on a trail.  Buddies won't hunt with me much anymore because of the "Open" aspect of it, but doesn't bother me a bit.  Reminds me of when i hunted hounds with my dad, we would just sit on the tailgate and i'd look at him, his eyes closed with a big grin on his faces listening to the hounds singing away.  I sure miss the ole man.

[Reuben]

Sometimes we can see better with our eyes closed... 

[rdjustham]

Goose egg is all I know, I just like stirring these guys alittle!!!  Lol!   

I try not to stir too much, Notice I said NOTHING about the WAY I hunt.  Never hunted hounds so I cat say id enjoy hearing a race or not.  I do know I don't like my dogs barkin unless they are bayed, so sitting back waiting for my buddies and I is listening to each others BS stories as opposed to listening to the dogs.

[bigo]

Win, lose or draw, if I feel like a dog or dogs have given me their best effort in the style I like and breed for, then I'm happy. I call that a successful hunt, wheather I catch it or not.

[hoghunter71409]

Guys I am in Central Louisiana (around Alexandria) and I hunt 5-6 open hounds and one cur dog.  If you've never hunted behind  hounds, I invite you to come along and hunt with me sometime.  If you cant make it here, try to hunt with someone else who has hounds.  Hunting hounds might not be for everyone but if you've never hunted behind hounds and you want to know what its like, I'll be glad to let you tag along.  You can bring your dogs and we can try to make a good hunt.

[Shotgun wg]

Out of the guys that posted on this thread how many grew up running hounds on deer. I think that may be part of the lure of the song of the hound. I was raised this way and sure do miss those days of 20 family members showing up about 5 and watching the old guys sit and talk dogs and drink coffee then bout good daylight everybody was in there spots when the tailgate dropped. Oh how I miss it. Even hunting the dogs down once they left hearing. Lol


Shotgun
Arkansas

[Purebreedcolt]

Yep you boys are crazy.  Kinda different for me the fasterthe catch the better but most of my hunts are short and smaller properties. 

[Judge peel]

Just wondering all you fellas that like to run a hog how big are y'all spots I have a few spot of 1200 acres but most are 800 or less and my dogs cover them fairly fast just thinking out loud they must b some big land

[Cajun]

Shotgun, you might say I was raised in a dog rich environment . I grew up in Fla. & all my family had running Walkers for deer dogs. We rabbit hunted, squirrel hunted, bird hunted, & coon hunted. If we hunted, it was with dogs. Just a way of life.
  When we started hog hunting in La. it was with curs. Back when I was a lot younger it was about how many you catch & how big. Now it is all about the dog work. We had Russian hogs brought into our part of the country in the early 70's & that really changed things. I will say I lucked up & got some pretty good cat curs from Sow Smith. They ran hogs in woods & kept that line of dogs. Rangy built that went about 40-55#. They had good noses & were 4-6 hour dogs on running hogs. If they were in hard running shape they could do better but I caught a lot of the runners with them. Along about 1980 I got into Plotts & started bear hunting a little bit.
  Now, whether a cur or plot, to me the most enjoyment I get is finding a track, putting a dog or two on it to get it started & listen to them coldtrail it up. If it breaks & the race is on, that is even better because I like to break them down. A lot of the time, the dogs that start it, are not always the dogs that finish it, but that is the way it is.
  It also does not matter if it is a cur or hound. As long as that dog puts forth the effort, that is about all I can ask.
  Judge, I have a 12000 acre lease that surrounds my place on 3 sides & it is not always big enough but we have other places that big or bigger but it seems like every year we are loosing spots to hunt.

[Bo Pugh]

Most places I hunt are large. The biggest being about 30000 acres but most people around here where I hunt don't mind if you come across the line to get a dog so it's usually not a problem if a dog runs across two land owners. I have 60 acres by my house and I might cross 10 different peoples line before I get my dog back but like I say most are good people it's usually out of town deer hunters that have something to say. If I had to hunt smaller places I would use a different caliber dog one that won't bark just grab but i sure hope it don't ever come to that.

[hoghunter71409]

I didn't grow up with hunting dogs.  I got serious about hog hunting about 13 years ago.  I learned from a guy from FL that had FL curs.  When I came to Louisiana, I met some guys that had cur dogs for hogs and hounds for deer and coyote.  I built a foundation and for the first few years I ran nothing but curs.  I had what I felt were some good cur dogs.  I could turn them out on a pretty fresh track and they would fo 4,6,8-- yds and bay.   It was fun, but I was concerned about the inconsistency of the cur dogs.  I talked to a friend that had plotts and I decided to try one out.  I took a 7 month old gyp that had never seen a hog before and I put her on a track.  She left out and trailed that hog about 900 yds (no garmins back then).  She bayed the hog and I was hooked ever since.  I hunt everything from national forest to 26,000 acre lease to 3500 acre leases.  Most people are pretty decent around here and don't mind you going on their property just to retrieve a dog.  When they find out I am hog hunting the say get dog and the hog!

I just like good cold nosed hunting dogs that will hunt!  Mt dogs have a lot of stick and they stayed bayed when the going gets tough.  I find the plot breed to be very versatile and extremely tough.  Combine this with good speed and good mouth; it makes a great hunting dog for me.  I also like the fact that I can take my dogs to other parts of the country and they will run bear.  There is not doubt in my mind that they will run cats or just about anything else I put them on.

Just me.  And yes I like to hear a good pack of hounds hammering on any game.  I think a lot if depends on where you from too.  Hounds are strongly preferred in the mountains where you need to hear dogs.

[Kid7]

The more I hunt the more I appriceate good dog work. I used to be all about hear a dog bark then haul a$$ drop the tralgate send the pack and 3 bulldogs so he don't run off! Lol but now I don't run but prolly 2-4 loose loose dogs and like to sit there and watch my garmin. Look on the map and see wat they're doing. Learn alot more about my dogs that way.  I also started hunting with some old timers from Arkansas that moved over here and one gentleman had a place that's 14,000 acres and he doesn't get out of his ranger. The only reason I get to come is for manual labor! Lol. He'll drive me as close as I can to a bay and there will only be 2-3 dogs on the ground ill go catch the dogs, flush the hog out, wait for a minute, then out 2-3 more fresh dogs on the track and most of the time the hog will run back to the group..... They'll rally, ill catch the dogs, flush the hogs out, they go everywhere, and turn loose and do it again. It's a blast! It's also really good for young dogs.

[Shotgun wg]

The biggest place I have to hunt is 10k acres. But as long as the dogs are running a hog I would say I could go 10 miles any direction and not find anyone that wouldn't let me go get my dogs. The smallest place I have hunted was 40acres but again neighbors said kill them all. I have very few places I can't with standing permission go get my dogs. A couple places want a call. 1 place has told me they had rather me cut them off before they cross but u gotta go get the dogs and kill the hog.

For the record I know lots of people around me and have a good reputation that has kept me out of trouble.


Shotgun
Arkansas

[Reuben]

successful hunts are hunts that stand out in my mind from the past...

we are cruising along and I see my dog put his nose up in the wind and starts going into the wind...I am thinking the hogs are about 1/4 mile ahead in a wooded area...the dogs keep moving at a steady pace and just pass that area up and I am trying to second guess the location and the dogs go about a mile total into another wooded area and catch a hog...that was a highlight I won't forget...

another time we were headed to a spot that had hogs according to the ranch hand...on the way one of my dogs put his nose up and went in the briars and came back out...right away I saw what was happening so I was going to put the dog where he could pick up the scent again...but my friend wanted to go catch these other hogs so we kept on going...I like working out all possible strike but I went along with the original plan but made that mental note of the location...we went ahead and caught 3 or 4 hogs pretty quick out in the open prairie...on the way back the dog picked his nose up into the wind in that same spot...I turned into the wind and as I was riding I saw that the briars and brush was thick and way over the dogs heads so they were losing the hog scent I kept going into the wind and at some point the dogs picked up again and went on and caught a big sow...they dogs rolled out on another hot track and we caught another that had almost made it to the river...the right terrain and weather with excellent dog work not only makes it successful hunt but one that will never be forgotten...