A general forum for the discussion of hunting with beagles, guns, clothing and other equipment and just talking dawgs! (Tall tales on hunting allowed, but remember, first liar doesn't stand a chance)
Joe West wrote:Chris when you see the hare get up and go it's not a cold trail.
What's the difference between that and a dog getting way behind a hare. It happens regularly when scenting's tough and there's quite a lot of snow. You get on a rabbit that just keeps going at every check, and even lightning-fast dogs can get a long ways behind, because they can only go so fast. I've gotten to a fresh track and though it would be a good place to wait for the rabbit my dogs were running to come through also. Turns out that my dogs came through on that very track and I had been there at least 10 or 12 minutes. It's not a rare occurence. At what point is the scent old and weak enough for that dog to be accused of cold trailing and branded a retard by anti-cold trailers? Would your smart, non-faulty dog pull up and quit? Surely that track has the very same scent that an older track would have in better scenting conditions, right? What exactly are we expecting from our dogs?
My point is this: a dog with a good nose isn't born knowing how old a track is; it only knows if it thinks he can run a particular track. If the dog thinks he can run it and can make forward progress, he should bark. If a dog is a good dog and has a brain it's going to produce game, otherwise it's not going to bark. If it continually babbles around and doesn't produce a rabbit then it's a useless cull. If a trail's not hot, then it's cold. There's a big difference between cold-trailing and babbling in my mind, and nobody's going to convince me otherwise, because who's to say how hot a track is. I can't smell it. If that dog shows you the rabbit then I think it's ridiculous to criticize that dog for running a track that other dogs can't or won't take and bark on.
This morning was a very heavy frost in south indiana. I met up with a friend that brought 4 dogs i took 2. We hunted in a old overgrown junkyard. It was about 9:30 it didnt look like frost would leave till noon. It wasnt long untill a couple of his dogs started babbling. At least from what i have learned i guess thats what they where doing. Then after about 15 minutes one of them started coldtrailin a straight line. By this time none of the others would hark in. Finally one of the others picked it up and the race began. I still have a hard time wondering when he quit babblin and started cold trialin. Is it possible for one dog to do both? It looks to me like its very hard to talk the same language when we run in such different weather conditions plus habitat then throw in type rabbits.
I don't understand how a dog that is quick to open on scent can be called a babbling idiot. To babble is to utter or tongue meaninglessly or with confusion. I would say that this dog was the best one in the whole pack as it opened and produced it's game. Of course the others chined in but not until that idiot did ALL the hard work. Most dogs can run a rabbit from a squat or when turned out of a box trap including my wife's cocker spanial. It takes a real idiot of a dog to run a track the others can't even smell and be so proud it tells the world it's doing so. I guess dogs are a lot like people...some are leaders and some are followers. You may never have jumped that rabbit if it hadn't been for that babbling idiot.
bkg: I'm a hunter and non trialer from upstate NY. If it is cold trails we are speaking of then lets hear about the cold trailer going every which way following a cold trail as laid by the rabbit. I hunt and run year round and in adverse conditions. Certainly I want a hound with a powerful nose but I do not want a cold trailer. Nor do a want a hound who lacks the nose to get the job done.
kjohns: IN fact hounds will learn to ignore the cold trailer when they have been fooled enough times and if they are not working their own line will hark to him when he sounds right. IN your case it sounds as if you are useing the cold trailer as a specialist. That is you let him do his thing because he isn't interfearing with the other hounds who know he doesn't have a rabbit up. But now consider what good your specialist is if ran solo.
Chris: You don't give the hounds enough credit. Hounds can tell the difference from one rabbit to another, they will stick to their original rabbit even when a side jumper crosses over or runs along the same track they are running. They can tell when their game is out distanceing them but they also know that eventually he will stop to rest or watch his back trail over a trick and set and clean his feet. As long as they can run there track they will knowing that if they are successful eventually they will catch up. That is not the same as starting out on an old track.
As far as the scent when a rabbit outdistances the hounds and a true cold trail smelling the same, I dont know and only the hounds really know for sure but they may not for the hounds warming their rabbit up is also a regular occurance.
Hounds do know how old a trail is. Cold trailers may not, but as a rule hounds do know. Before we criticize a hound we must see a trend and the trend of a cold trailer is wasted time. Time spent trying to figure out an old track when the rabit that made it is sitting waiting to be run close by.
Hey laal,I myself want my dogs to open on the trail to jumping the bunny and don't consider it a fault.Just because you and the rest of the field trial folks think tight mouth beagles is the only way to go doesn't mean it's right.Thats just y'alls opinion just like us open trailers have one.In my humble opinion the beagles you guys are breeding with the tight mouths offspring may eventually be silent trailers like what happened to some lines of Treeing Walker coonhounds.And Joe,when my ol pack of behind the rabbit two days ago strike a trail ,they don't start going around in circles following every step the rabbit made while feeding and frolicking.......they more or less hit the spot and make a circle around that area then find the freshest track leading away..........believe me I don't know how but they do......and they trail it anywhere from twenty five to fifty yds. and sometimes more...........and jump the rabbit.And as far as wasting time trailing him to his bed or where he sits how can this be less productive than a dog running back and forth trying to step on a rabbit and make him jump up?For crying out loud the rabbits scent leads to where he went and where it came from but it's just a matter of having dogs good enough to follow the way he went and not where he came from.OK check out this scenerio,A rabbit sits by a tree with low limbs for three days and doesn't move.Now there is no scent anywhere of him accept whats coming from his body and in his bed.Well anyway three days old our coldtrailers could get him up LOL...........OK so lets say rabbits are scarce here........he's the only rabbit in ten acrces..........We start hunting this area and chances are we will be hunting awhile to jump this rabbit......HECK A DOG IS GOING TO HAVE TO PUT HIS NOSE ON HIM TO MAKE HIM JUMP.......so the dogs or dog will have to walk right up to him and touch him to make him get up.I myself have seen a dog walk within two feet of a rabbit and he missed him and the rabbit didn't get up...........there also was no trail going to the rabbit.Now this reminds me that my ol trailers mostly trail in the morning......just because they trail doesn't mean they don't hunt hard and reach out to jump rabbits like the tight mouth hot nosed dogs.......they just trail mainly in the morning from tracks left the night before or early morn.So now another scenerio........a rabbit is feeding around starting at 3am.................he feeds in an area about one acre in size and eventually moves the entire length of the acre.It's also thick here as it was in the other scenerio.Now at 7 am we turn loose four semi silent ,no trail dogs and they hunt in that acre but can't jump the rabbit because he's the only one in a ten acre area and they are trying to jump him out of his bed by hoping to just step on him.Ok so now we go back to the truck and get out four of our good open trailing dogs with cold noses like we all like.............Now one can see that in a ten acre area that now we narrow the rabbit down since we have an old line to work with.We don't just have one rabbit size spot to look for like a needle in a haystack BUT we have a line around one hundred yds long plus that one rabbit size spot.Now any Elmer Fudd can see that our odds in jumping this rabbit have gone up at least 1000 percent that is if we have four good trailing dogs...........I mean some that have been doing this from five to eight years.Ok lets say the rabbit is point z........and we put points along the 100yd line equally spaced and we label them a thru y.If a dog hits the line anywhere from a thru z..........then we are either close to the rabbit or closer or he's jumped.But in scenerio one we had to hit point z to do a thang period.Now considering we have a scarcity of rabbits around here and my old pack of barkers have had a lot of experience trailing them ol big buck rabbits and swampers up I bet you mine are going to jump that rabbit.And if we had big nosed dogs that only bark on the jump it's so thick here when they do jump----since we can't keep up with them by sound.........hey maw lets get a beeper collar for ol spike.........WE won't be able to locate the jump spot to start our standing to try and kill that bunny.My point is what if the semi silent beagles with tha big noses trail the rabbit or hare to his lair and it's a hundred yds away we won't know where they are till they jump then if theyr'e like alot ii've seen they won't bark enough on track for you to keep up with them........we need more than four of them to have enough barking to locate them.............tight mouths to.Anyway to each his own and i'm with the coldtrailers or trailers..............tight mouth dogs also don't bark as much when the rabbit is jumped compared to normal dogs...........that's why tight mouth dogs are also semi-silent.And last........I have read that a chop mouth is dominant..........I don't really understand this for most beagles i see are bawl mouthed.I have also read that silent trailing is dominant..................I don't understand this either because hounds are open.But if this is the case and we kept breeding semi silent to semi-silent then eventually the dominant trait would come out and we would have silent dogs.Take care all............FullCry
A dog that don't open on a cold trail is not tight mouthed. (my opinion)
I am not a trialer I am a hunter but do go to some trials I have seen cold trailers at trials,
I don't know why you think a dog that don't open on a cold trail is hot nosed?
My best jump dog has a BIG nose but she hardly ever opens untill the rabbit is up, she does not get hung up on a cold trail, but if she has trouble finding a rabbit I have seen her take a cold trail and work it untill she jumped the rabbit, she does all of this with out being mouthy.
I say a dog that opens on a rabbit before it is jumped is faulty, I have seen some that does this that I would like to own. But I do not want one that takes the first rabbit scent it finds and trys to work it to a jump barking like a fool!!
I will not hunt with a dog that does a lot of cold trailing.
The actual definition of tight mouth is lack of sufficiant tongue on the line. fullcry I am trying to imagine exactly what your hounds are doing or to trecall a time that I have seen that would compare. I cannot. The rabbits don't don't wander this way and that and then always go 25, 50 or more yards in a straight line to a squat. Instead they just wander a round and find a suitable spot to set when they are struck by the whim to set. Your description does not sound like any cold trail I've experianced but does rather sound like a faint trail left by a rabbit fresh out of his form.
When searching hounds aren't trying to step on a rabbit although there are times when they will sit so tight that may be required, but just to flush him from his form so he leaves a scent or to wind him as he sits in his form. Now hounds will pattern an area when they find old scent knowing the rabbit is probably close by and during their search the rabbit is most often scared out of his form and then the hounds get his trail. Now when the hounds pattern the area they will search it in a sensible manner often similar to a check. Their action scare the rabbit and he'll move for them and that is his downfall. Doesn't matter though because left to their own devices the hounds would have found him anyway because except on rare occassions even rabbits in their form will give off a little scent and sometimes they can even be winded while sitting in their form. It is an efficiant manner of searching when they know their game is most likely close by. When a hound works a line he knows is old he knows he might probably have a lot of line to unravel before he reaches his goal. Since rabbits can lay down a lot of line in a small area when feeding it is less efficiant to try to run all of that line then it is to search the area in a sensible manner.
I saw an old rabbit that had a neet setting spot one time. He'd take a big leap on top of a big rock next to a brush pile and just sit there and let the hounds work all around him. When he was finally discovered he took a big leap off the rock and the chase was on. There was no trail that led to him though and who knows how many times the hounds hnew a rabbit was probably sitting close and searched the area without finding him.
I am not advocateing tight mouthed hot nosed hounds. I don't even use the term hot nosed but I take it's meaning to be an inferior nose in which case who would want that.
This has been very interesting to someone a little new to beagles. I personally want a dog to open when they are working a track, be it before or after the rabbit is jumped. I have run coondogs all my life before switching to beagles recently. I always loved going out to hunt coon for the sound of the chase. It was fun listening to the dogs do different things. Being at night we sure couldn't see them, to enjoy the chase we of course had to hear them. Most coondogs I was around would have a little different voice depending how hot the trail was. I guess this being my background, that is why I want a beagle to open when they are working a track. I can see both sided to this issue, I guess it just comes down to personal preferance. I wouldn't call either one a fault. I just like to hear the dog work, even a cold track. I live in Duluth, MN. Most tracks are cold, even the hot ones here. Maybe you have to live here to understand that. Anyway, I wonder how many folks that like to hear a cold trailer work also have or used to hunt coondogs?
Danny, I feel the same way as you do and competition hunted coonhounds for years but only hunt beagles now. It's a whole lot easier tromping around in the day time where you can see what's going on. I like to listen to the chase and strike em in as soon as they open up and if they don't produce the game... minus em. Sure wouldn't win many nite hunts with a hot nosed slick treeing specialist would ya? I've seen a lot of those tree dogs that couldn't run a track if their life depended on it but sure could run in there a grab a tree when the others did the work to get Mr. raccoon there.
I am wondering if we all hunt our hounds differently and if there is a trend in that difference between those who like a cold trailer and those who don't. We just stand still and talk up in a conversational tone and let the hounds search wherever they want within hearing of our voice.
Coon is not a rabbit.
When I speak of a hound opening only when he has his game up I am not implying they have an inferior nose. Just as I am not implying that the cold trailer is babbling or has a superior nose. They are different things. Now a hound opening on a faint trail left by a rabbit who has left his squat when the other hounds are not able to get the scent is a superior nose. That may be what you guys call cold nosed, It is a term that I do not use. Cold trailing is not a superior nose but may be an inability to determine age of the scent.
I've spent a LOT of time hunting coon and cats in the past. Never did much competition coon hunting but for several years, my income for 3 months of the year depended on coon pelts. I definately wanted a cold trailer for coon and sometimes for cats. Cold trailing is desirable for larger game such as coon because of numbers and the fact that you're hunting at night. There may only be a few coon per square mile in some years and when the price is up they get overhunted and difficult to find. You must have a hound who strikes quick and can work an old line to the tree. If a hound didn't cold trail, he'd tree a coon quick but you may never know where the tree is if you didn't have a tracking collar. We called such a hound a "meat hound" but he gave poor sport and a lot of strained ears to find him- sometimes not til the next morning. In years when we had a fair number of bobcats I preferred a hound who would not cold trail. I'd put the hound on what looked to be a good track (we'd ride the back roads looking for tracks made during the night on snow) and if he showed any interest, I'd keep him on lead and let him follow the track to the jump where he'd be let loose. If his interest was weak, we'd go along in the truck to the next track. When cats were scarce I'd turn out a cold trailer and let him work the track as long as necessary to jump the cat. Sometimes the hound wouldn't jump the cat for hours or even never did catch up to him. Now, if we killed 3 or 4 cats in a week or 2 coon per night, I was pretty happy. Some coon and cat chases lasted all night or day and more often than not, we didn't kill a cat. The chase may cover several miles and the outcome was ALWAYS in doubt. A top coon dog is 100 times harder to come by than a top beagle and a good cat dog was 100 times harder to come by than a good coon dog. Now rabbit or hare populations are generally MUCH higher in suitable habitat than either coon or cat. Densities often are hundreds or even thousands per square mile. This calls for a different hound than we use for for coon and cat. Comparing the two is like comparing quarter mile dirt track cars to the Indy 500. The requirements are different.
Yea, I agree with ya Joe about some coldtrailers inability to distinguish the age of the track. I gun hunt exclusively and put up for years with hounds that cold trailed and didnt produce game about half the time. Just because a hound isnt opening doesnt mean he /she isnt working the scent well and in a logical manner to jump the game. I want only to here the hound giving tounge when the track is being driven forward and being progressed. no extra talking in the check area or before the chase. I bet alot of those hounds people have who cold trail also use their mouth wrongly in the check area.
get me a big nose cold trailer anytime over a "hotnose stand around and wait for the rabbit to get up dog". my dogs can and will coldtrail from time to time til they jump the rabbit and i wouldnt want it any other way. sometimes if it werent for a cold trailer, it might be a long day in the field til a hot nose dog tripped over a rabbit. just my opinion, i like a dog that can account for game under all conditions, not just on good running days. of course all dogs have off days, but mine seem to have quite a few more good ones so thats all im concerned about not someones textbook defination of the proper way a beagle should start and run a line.
I dont know about you Blackdirt my hot nose dog are in the briars trying to find a rabbit while those coldtrailors or out in the open babblin around where the rabbit ate all night. But at least you get to here some music.
O.K. just to clear up, I am aware that a rabbit is not a coon and that different style's of running dogs suit each game differently, but thanks to those who pointed this out. I was just saying WHAT I LIKE IS, to hear a dog work, and to hear them work a cold track to get it hot. That impresses me. I don't care if I have a day full of hot runs. I enjoy seeing, or hearing the dogs do what they do best. Work tracks! Again, I don't think the silent cold trailer or open cold trailer are either one faults. Personal preferance. In addition I could see if you lived where the tempature was usually a bit warmer and there was usually a good population of rabbits where you might not want a real cold nose dog. Here where I live for what I like to do I prefer a cold nosed, cold trailing dog that opens when it's working (by the way every cold trailer I've ever seen automatically becomes a hot nosed dog when the track warms up)
Wardog, I interview for the job in your hometown there begining of January. If I get it maybe we can throw our babbelers together and listen to some good rabbit runs.
