You already named one part of it, they have to have hunt in them. You can take it out of them but you can’t put it in them. If it was me I would bait some spots. Then start out by casting the dog(s) about 100 yards down wind of the spot. Depending on how quick they catch on as to how fast I would graduate them to harder and harder situations. Casting from further away, colder tracks, etc., until it really is just like a live hunt where they have to beat the brush until they get into sign and then they can go find a hog. In a sense they are almost hunting for sign as much as they are hunting for a hog because they know it leads to a hog. Putting them in a position where the wind is in their favor is also important. Some dogs hunt hard but are rarely in the right areas where other dogs hunt hard and are in the right areas. These are the dogs that find 90+% of your hogs on 90+% of your hunts. So there’s hunting dogs and dogs that know how to hunt. School your dogs in areas where hogs are going to be, around food sources, water sources, or known bedding areas. The dogs learn these things I promise you. We cast hunt 100% of the time. We pull up drop dogs and wait. They may bay 60 yards out of the box and they may bay .6 out of the box after they’ve made some pretty big loops. Myself, when I cast a young dog solo, I pay attention to when they leave me. If they don’t find anything, when they check back in, I’m going to be in very close proximity to where I was when they left me. This lets them feel secure in the fact that I’m not going to do anything without them or leave them. When they check back in then I might push them a little further and do it all again. I try to always do it the same way so that they learn my habits as well. I also don’t pay them any attention when they are around. I ignore them, we aren’t there for attention unless we find pork. If they want to hang around and not leave then I put them in the box. They don’t get to just hang out and wait on someone else to do it. All my dogs will leave together but within a couple hundred yards are going to be fanned out combing the woods. I like this as it leads to faster locating. It’s a good team effort while it’s competitive because they each want to be that one that finds the hog. Like I say though, they have to want to go on their own if they are going to make casting type dogs.
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Makes sense to me! Cast hunting is a new world to me we’ve been just roading dogs for the majority of my life only recently (past 3 years) been cast hunting got a handful of outcross dogs I’ve been messing with trying to make a cast dog and I’m thinking it’s time to scratch them and go back to the drawing board waiting on the next cross to hit the ground
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