Registered packs run to a lose? How?

Alabama John · Post by **Alabama John** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 9:22 am

Chris, I'm surprised at you being impressed. I know of several packs around here that very rarelyhave loses either. The rabbit is still being run when you pick up your dogs, or, it is caught and either brought back to you, or a fight ensues over who gets some, or it goes in a hole and some dogs bark treed for a while in the hole or hollow tree, so you know.

We do not run hare, or in your conditions, maybe that is the difference as the other Southerners said that were hunting hare with you, "they do not lose one" and I believe they were being truthful.

Of course we have days the you turn the dogs loose and they jump a rabbit and cannot run it because scenting is so bad. We go home and wait for another day.

I have been making the point of not losing a rabbit that the pack has been running, thus, scenting is real good or they would not have been able to run it.

We do not have loses that last minutes and most time it is a solid roar with no visable loses. Not much trick pulling as there is just not enough time or enough lead to pull any without getting caught.

Yes, our pack on a check quickly scatters, swings out, some close and some farther out, and circles ever widening, someone will find it quickly. By far most packs used for hunting do that here. So do I if I am following a blood trail of a deer and the trail ends, I swing out in a circle ever widening. Rabbit dogs, not field trialers should do the same in my opinion.

This sounds like bragging, and I am uncomfortable with how this is coming across as I am not that kind of person. What I have said about our pack is very common with other packs I know of around here, we are not an exception, nor have super duper dogs, they are just matched, and they would be too swinging and not close enough for most folks.

Beagleman973 · Post by **Beagleman973** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 9:56 am

John,

I have close hounds that don't swing, but like you, I for the most part don't have those types of losses either. If we do it's because it's usually because they're very young rabbits that don't put out very much scent. Also like you, there are some days when running just is never very good, but once a track is up and running hot, the rabbit is usually accounted for or we pick up the hounds.

Chris, I don't know a thing about hares.....but most cottontails, or at least the ones in Illinois and Indiana, quit running when the hounds hit a hard check. They squat and rest, catch their breath, and usually won't take back off until the hounds are almost on them. I've seen it time after time. Maybe that is the difference.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 11:09 am

John, I don't mean to ask too many questions; it just struck me funny that you haven't had any losses. I've never had reason to disbelieve anything that you've said, and I still don't. I guess it's just the different terrain/game. I'd give my left nut for no losses over a whole season, let alone as long as I could remember.

I also mistook your 'never' to include all scenting days. I, too, have days when my dogs don't lose, or even check hardly, but only when scenting is well above average (about 2 days out of 10, maybe). Don't have the luxury of picking just good days to hunt. Most days they stick to the hare, but there are usually various scattered checks of a few seconds to a few minutes. Always looking for more nose, but it's not too plentiful. Hardly ever run more than 3 or 4 dogs during gunning season.

Sounds like we have the same type of dogs John, mine reach more than a lot of folks like, but I've found it beneficial. It seems to keep their forward progress maximized. A dog that runs the whole line doesn't get the most done around here. Not every day, but over the season these dogs run a lot more rabbit than some average Small Pack type dogs I've had. (please don't everyone with Small Pack dogs send me nasty e-mails, it's just my experience)

Beagleman, I think that's probably it. I haven't hunted cottontails very much, but when I have, it did seem a bit easier because they didn't get that far ahead. It was as if it was almost always a hot track. I've heard cottontails have less scent than a hare -- I can't smell them so it's hard to say, but maybe it's because the jumps are closer together and the track is most always newer that makes cottontails easier, on average, to run; if they'll stay up. I've run plenty of hare when the dogs were screaming, running just about as fast as a pack of dogs can move, and the hare can still be 300 or 400 yards ahead of the them. It's not uncommon at all.

Post by **Bev** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 11:27 am

I was avoiding making this post out of fear that it would make too much sense. This is for all of us "all-knowing, instinct-driven, primarily predatory human beings that need a fire alarm in our homes because we can't even smell the smoke around our heads when we're asleep":

As much as we may love our hounds and think they have the ultimate control over the quality of a run on any given day, consider this: Rabbits suffer predation from many sources, not just our little beagle hounds. Most of the time they manage to elude these predators. If they couldn't, there wouldn't be many of them. If they can elude the coyote that lives amongst them, and the hawk that swoops down upon them out of no where, I'm fairly certain they can shake our recreational predators a large percentage of the time.

I've always belived that rabbits control the run - not the baromemter, soil type, temperatures, quality of nose on the hound, etc. If they don't feel like running that day, you won't have any running. If the dogs have put enough pressure on them they can say, "See ya" and be gone. And we, with our noses off the ground about 5-1/2 feet are silly enough to blame it all on scenting conditions, or lack thereof. It may very well true, but we are only speculating.

Also consider the more hounds in a pack, the more likely the scent to be trampled in a check area. Running large numbers of hounds is pleasing in some aspects, but a price can be paid for it. You weigh the plusses and minuses and do what gives you the greatest pleasure.

As far as the NBC Formal Pack folks go, I don't care if they wear pink polka-dot pants. If they support rabbit hunting with beagles, I'm behind them. I know it's fun to tease about those white pants - they're probably used to it by now, but in their defense as fellow beaglers, I have to say they have graciously invited the rest of the beagling world into their living room by hosting the Triple Challenge (no small endeavor), and although we might show up in holey t-shirts stretched over beer-bellies, baccer juice running from the corner of the mouth, dog boxes made out of air-conditioning cases, and breath stinking of vienna sausages, I don't believe they'd say anything, so give them a little credit, lol!

TomMN · Post by **TomMN** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 11:33 am

My experience is like Chris. We have days when most hounds can run without a loss but on average the dogs are going to lose one once in a while. I haven't seen any beagles that didn't. I run both cottontails and hare. On an average January day here you will do best with one or two dogs, add more dogs and you will have more lost tracks.
I don't think you can say that cottontails always stay closer to the dogs than hare but as a general rule they do. I have run hare with one old slow dog and they stay just ahead of the dog. I have also seen cottontails come flying past me a long ways ahead of the hounds. I think the speed your hounds run has a lot to do with how far the rabbit or hare stays ahead of them in the checks. I know if I had John's dogs after me I would not feel safe with less than a mile lead on them!

Alabama John · Post by **Alabama John** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 12:09 pm

Chris, If scenting is good enough to RUN a rabbit like the type we have here, then we get back to my original question, How do you while running, just stop and cannot continue on as if the track has simply disapeared? Where did the rabbit go? It either stopped and squatted, or ran over something the dogs cannot smell the track in.

Once we had a rabbit run to a road that was being asphalted and it ran down the road a long, long, ways on the fresh hot steaming asphalt. The workmen told us what it did and we called the dogs off and got another rabbit going. We did not call that a lose, but an obstacle insermountable although we could have gone to where they saw the rabbit get off the asphalt and put them on its track again.

They do not swing out THAT far!!!

When running several packs together, we have loses and we always go to where they shut up and sic them for a while to see if it can be picked up. It is not a usual and common occurance.

I do not know how we got off on my dogs as I was simply asking about the registered packs reason for losing as it was mentioned in the article.

In all fairness though, in a check, when our dogs swing out, I know they sometimes jump a different rabbit and continue on by running it. We feel they would have picked the original rabbit back up as they do, but it will get a welcomed break from its fellow rabbit being run now. We do not call that a lose either.

S.R.Patch · Post by **S.R.Patch** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 12:36 pm

Scent is a very strange thing but one thing is for sure, its ever changing. We go out on good days & bad, some start good and turn to the worse, some start poor and improve as the day goes on, the banner days are the ones we like best.
In the coal mines, there are large areas of poor ground, scent will not lay well there or is over come by the acidity of the ground(even I can smell the sulfur). Hounds must cast out from these areas to regain the line or it is lost. The problem with this is, they are just as likely to make a new start on a different rabbit as the surrounding cover is good, then the pattern is changed and the spot you had found for a good view is worthless.
I believe nature takes care of her own and the predator is not meant to catch every prey animal it may pursue, especially when the only link the predator may have is the fleeting line of a faint scent left by the rabbit. If it were not so, then one of natures own design would surely be more apt to succeed than anything man has created and we all know the foxes is always on the hunt, he is very good at his craft but undoubtedly there are nights he goes to bed hungry. This is what makes hunting so interesting, the conditions, the tricks and craft the rabbit may use in his effort to evade the hounds. The working of the hounds to unravel the twisting, doubling line of the rabbit in good scent an poor, on good ground an foiled, in other words, the "sport" of it.
John, you of all people I would expect to respect tradition an honor. The formal pack is a carry over from the English pack tradition, of where our hounds originated.
There's a place here called Freindship Village, every year the Indians come to show their dress an the buckskinners to shoot their muzzleloaders. It's a very good time and everyone learn alot about the history.

May all your runs be long and check free...Patch

REBEL · Post by **REBEL** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 1:05 pm

Alabama John-I am with you all the way-my hounds seldom if ever have a total lost and the checks are few and quick and this si what i have been saying for some time now and those that can't belive it can come run some hounds with me and bring your best to compare mine with yours.John i have a 2004 Indian Hills Majer Male 13" out of Trapper that is making a fine rabbit hound,lots of leg built right with speed and in the near future two more,yes more,pups and one directly out of Trapper.Want to run some hounds soon??

REBEL · Post by **REBEL** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 1:15 pm

Chris-I have one thing to say about running hare in the great North-I sold two medium speed hounds to Richard Smoker of Pa cause they were to slow for my pack--Richard took them to run hare and on the first day these two caught 5 hare--now these being a true med speed hound and mine being much faster how many do you think a fast hound would catch and why take a gun if your hounds can catch the limit each day and my hounds can run day in and day out,only to refresh over nite and next day run as if they had not ran the day before.Chris how about answering these questions if your hare is such crafty creatures??how about coming south with your hare hounds and see how many swampers the first day they can catch or even hole??I have your type hare hounds in my kennel out of some of the finest bloodlines they are to be found.So i have your question answered allready.But would apprecaite your ersponse.

Alabama John · Post by **Alabama John** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 2:10 pm

S. R. Patch, I did not intend for this to start going like it has. Of course if your dogs could notsmell a rabbit scent, I'm sure mine couldn't either.

My example is scenting good enough to RUN a rabbit with a matched pack and all that entails in the areas we run in that scent lays good all over, or all over it doesn't so the dogs cannot run at all, much less have a lose, and does not leak rotten egg smelling sulphur anywhere. That sure is a different and difficult environment!

I'm not meaning to make fun, I just want to know if they are running dogs that lose by having the rabbit outrun their noses as the walkie talkie dogs do here, or what causes theirseemingly totally accepted loses? I'm trying to see how their well deciplined packs run and what speed. I still have not gotten that answered and I will not ask it anymore as I think I have it figured out. Hobby beagles they are called here and GOD bless them, I wish them well as fellow Beaglers. I was just curious and yes, I understand tradition very well. I wish now that I had never brought it up!

Rebel, when we ran together we ran only one rabbit and that was the big one your Reba dog jumped. There were no over 5 second checks and few of those, much less a lose? You and I were both following where we could on a field road when they ran in a large briar patch right in front of us and shut off opening. Wasn't the next sound we heard growling and fussing until the rabbit was portioned to all present? We then quit to keep from losing anymore rabbits.

REBEL · Post by **REBEL** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 2:49 pm

John-you can bet we had fun and ran a good race and it was thick,not like it is where most the time you find snowshoe hare and hare does have a stronger odor and the hounds can chase the hare more in a straight line out of hearing and back again and the snowshoe hare does not go to hole and any constant pressure on the snowshoe the hound will catch it or you will kill it and in many instances the hounds can sight chase the snowshoe and with our type hounds this means one thing,caught snowshoe.Todate i have seen but one fast hare hound and she is in my kennel and yet she likes the energy i like to see in most my hounds,all other hare hounds i am aware of and the ones in my kennel are trailing hounds,heads down typeand i doublt if most have even seen a hare,less long catch one, most are not run to catch hounds,like we have.John i am glade to see you being more active on the board.

AlabamaSwamper · Post by **AlabamaSwamper** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:20 pm

John, you sure your dogs don't have some sort of turbo built into them. lol

I cant wait to see them run over here in these bean fields. That ought to be a blast.

By the way, I saw that blue dog run that bunnyseeker has. I think he was the one you had up at the trial that day. He did really good but my poor oil lickers couldnt keep up. lol In fact, neither could his other ones. lol

Your friend
Brian.

By the way, running on snow in my honest opinion, is way harder than running here or even in an average swampy place. I tried it deer hunting once and it was ok but the dogs had a hard time throughout that couple of days. THen I couldnt run them for a week because of cut up feet. I have run in some swwwaaammmmppppyyyyy places. Be it at Seven Mile Island WMA near Florence, Al or a private spot we had north of Florence. It was tough of course but we kept races going pretty good all day. The private place was a little tougher because they were hunted harder there so they were smarter. We killed lots of rabbits over these medium speed hounds but maybe we just hit it on good days. Hard to tell, wet ground usually means better running as long as the water aint standing to deep. Them beaver ponds are h$%l on the dogs and so are the sloughs. Them swampers like to swim to much so we did have the occasional 5 minute loss while the dogs were hunting up and down the banks. I love them swampers though and miss hunting them, almost as much as I miss hunting deer with dogs.

CANADIAN · Post by **CANADIAN** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:29 pm

REBEL, I don't know anything about cottontails because I have never run them, so I won't pretend that I do. One thing I do know is that the things you mentioned about hare are very far from the truth. I can't comment on cottontails and how they run becuase I don't have experience on the matter. I comment on what I know about and not what people tell me. I find it hard to believe that the dogs you speak of caught 5 hare. The dogs up here always win or place at the AKC nationals in large pack and don't catch hare often, if that were the case, we wouldn't be able to have field trials.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:34 pm

REBEL wrote:Chris-I have one thing to say about running hare in the great North-I sold two medium speed hounds to Richard Smoker of Pa cause they were to slow for my pack--Richard took them to run hare and on the first day these two caught 5 hare--now these being a true med speed hound and mine being much faster how many do you think a fast hound would catch and why take a gun if your hounds can catch the limit each day and my hounds can run day in and day out,only to refresh over nite and next day run as if they had not ran the day before.Chris how about answering these questions if your hare is such crafty creatures??how about coming south with your hare hounds and see how many swampers the first day they can catch or even hole??I have your type hare hounds in my kennel out of some of the finest bloodlines they are to be found.So i have your question answered allready.But would apprecaite your ersponse.

Well Rebel, I'm glad you're going to appreciate my response. I hope you appreciate it as much as I appreciated your questions.

Rebel, we've been through this before. Remember? Someone's doing some serious truth-stretching when they claim any two Beagles caught 5 hare in one day. Period.

I would guess that TomMN has some pretty solid dogs . Tom's in hare country. Tom, how many days, on average, per year do any of your dogs run down a healthy hare? How many days have your dogs caught 5? LOL How about some of you other hare runners? How many hare has your best, fastest dog caught in its lifetime? Pretty good dogs right? Yeah, mine too. My dogs catch on average about one (total, among them all) each year, that they legitimately run to death. I'm sure we all believe that Rebel's two medium speed dogs caught 5 in one day, right?.

Rebel, the last time you made that ridiculous claim you got away just making yourself look a little foolish -- this time you may have outdone yourself. I know it's false; you know it's false and so does everyone else. Don't insult the intelligence of the houndmen on this board spreading that kind of ridiculous cucka. Straight talk is respected, poopoo rots.

John, I'd prefer no losses too, but it's just not reality around these parts. I get the impression that your'e a level-headed, top-shelf guy who obviously knows hounds. I don't doubt for a second what you're saying isn't true. Obviously, things are just different in different parts of the country. Don't be too hard in calling them 'hobby' hounds for a lost rabbit or two. The best hounds I've ever seen have lost their share.

Different areas of the country are obviously different. Some day I've got to catch up with you and rabbit hunt. I bet it'd be a blast.

[edit] CANADIAN, you must have been typing the same time I was. I didn't see your reply before I started my post. We may have been born in the morning, Reble, but it wasn't this morning.

[end edit]

Alabama John · Post by **Alabama John** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:59 pm

Alabama Swamper, (Brian) I admit that our dogs are the tall (14 and 15-16 inch) leggy, hot nosed run with head up type. Most would not have them.

Ever see your pack or a single dog get zoned in and not hear, see, but be in a seemingly hypnotized mindset oblivious to all suroundings that just keeps closing the gap and never have a check, but, just constantly opening and gaining until? Now, that is a thrill!

I have one that does it more than the others named Queenie that I got from Ted Peercy from Tennessee and she has run down and caught to date well over 40 herself (she's three) when she's zoned, the pack just comes along for the ride. When not zoned, she is just a pack member. She is not the only one that gets zoned, but she does it more often. Other friends of mine have dogs that get zoned and we will remark, hollar and call everyone's attention to it as it is very exciting!

Now that I bet will get comments!!

How did this turn into an explanation of John's dogs anyway???

When I get where I can, anyone is welcome to come and we'll run together, not compete. Several have and we all remain friends to this day.