COLDTRAILIN

Steve C. · Post by **Steve C.** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 2:41 pm

One thing I've learned in the past 33 years of rabbit hunting is that those tracks make mighty thin soup.

blackdirt beagles · Post by **blackdirt beagles** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 3:02 pm

beaglebill - your not too far away, so i'll give you a standing invite to come anytime to see my dogs run. they might coldtrail, or they might not. depends on the conditions, but one thing for sure, they wont be standing in the path, they will be in the thick. ive got a young male that i would bet first strike on ANYTIME, hes a go getter. dont take my posts the wrong way, i wasnt putting down hotnose dogs, just saying i prefer ones that ARE ABLE to coltrail when needed. but i wouldnt want my dogs to pick a coldtrail over a hot one either. all im saying is that on some days, for whatever reason, if you dont have a dog that can coldtrail, then your not gonna see a lot of rabbits. hope you have a great season

no matter what type of beagle you prefer.

WELLS WOODS · Post by **WELLS WOODS** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 4:14 pm

From my experience, most dogs that cold trail a lot just don't have enough brains to know when the rabbit is up. True mouthed dogs will trail old scent up silent until the rabbit is jumped, and most of the time show more nose when the rabbit is up than the cold trailers. Believe me, I know there are few hounds that know exactly when and where to bark; no dog is perfect, but the good ones are usually making forward progress on a hot line when they open.

beaglebill · Post by **beaglebill** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 5:10 pm

Ill just take you up on that invite if i can bring Redtick with me.lol I wasnt trying to put your dogs down or anyone elses. I think i was tryin to say that usually that is where the rabbits will lay up . In the heavy stuff that is not out in the open. At least in the habitat we hunt in. I came up your way showin quarter horses back several years ago. This area is getting hard to find rabbits. One of the fellows from this area has killed over 300 every year for the past 2 says he is havin an off year.lol

blackdirt beagles · Post by **blackdirt beagles** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 9:28 pm

hey beaglebill - id love to run with you, but we'll leave the other "riff raff" at home

. sometimes on the outskirts of timber where the rabbit went in there will be a cold trail and that will lead to where he is laid up. thats what i mean by coldtrailing. might be a 20 yard trail or 100 yards but it goes to the rabbit and most of the time we can jump them, not always of course, but a high percentage. i dont mean a dog in the middle of a picked field barking and running like a fool and never producing.

laal · Post by **laal** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 12:19 am

I want the dog that works a cold trail to keep its mouth shut untill it jumps the rabbit. Not a big deal if it opens every once and a while to let the other dogs know it has scent (it is still a fault), but if it opens everytime it smells the old line it is telling the other dogs it has a rabbit and it dosn't. It will have a rabbit when the line is hot and the rabbit is up. If it opens before the rabbit is up it is telling the other dogs a lie. That is a fault.

My opinion.

g. isom · Post by **g. isom** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 1:34 am

I don't understand why some of you guys think that if a dog doesn't open on a cold trail(rabbit not jumped) that he is a hot-nosed dog. I have dogs that can run in any weather conditions and not bark on a cold trail. A dog that barks before the rabbit is jumped is not necesarily a cold nosed dog either. I've seen hot-nosed dogs also open before the rabbit is jumped. I think that those dogs that bark before the rabbit is jumped just don't have the brains to realize that the rabbit is not jumped. Some of the great trial dogs from the north that have cold noses don't bark until the rabbit is jumped and i'll bet they can drive a rabbit better than any dog.In my opinion,a dog that opens before the rabbit is jumped has a fault.This doesn't mean that its not a good dog,it just has a fault.

FullCry · Post by **FullCry** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 6:18 pm

In my opinion a good rabbit dog that barks before the rabbit is up is saying I smell you and before long I'm going to jump you brer rabbit.I am not talking about a babling,coldtrailing idiot that will never jump a rabbit either but a dog that consistantly jumps rabbits and my opinion is this is not a fault.Now check this out.........the dog that doesn't bark until the rabbit is up is trying to catch the rabbit in the bed.......same with a silent trailing coon dog.They are all trying to catch the game on the ground to satisfy themself.If this is the case then they are not working for the better of the pack and the hunter as a team player should.To this type dog that tracks and runs semi-silent or silent.......its me,me,me,........I want to satisfy me.I will catch this bunny before he leaves his form and show everybody else how good I am......for i can catch rabbits I'm soooooooo fast.This is the same with a silent trailing coondog that trees many coons........they want to catch that coon on the ground so they be quiet to try and sneek up on him..........and I've seen a dog like this catch many on the ground to..........she was good at it........one heck of a tree dog to but she just wanted to catch him on the ground and end it all before the tree.If we were lucky she'd bark one time on the strike.I hear of these guys on this site talking about beagles catching rabbits........now they are either super fast or they are doing this too.........they are sneeking up on those rabbits and either catching them in the bed or catching them when they squat later by silent trailing.Anyway I reallly can't speak to much because my sorry ol pack of grade dogs ran a coyote yesterday of which i shocked four of them in the process then when i cast them again they ran a dang red fox...........so I may just get away from the beagles and buy me a pair of foxhound pups so if mine runem at least they'll run em right.
Take care all,FullCry

g. isom · Post by **g. isom** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 6:29 pm

That is about the most ridiculous statement i have ever heard.Because a dog don't bark on a cold trail doesn't mean it is trying to sneak upon a rabbit.

kjohns · Post by **kjohns** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 7:00 pm

I think the folks that are talking about cold trailing dogs being babbling idiots have never seen a good cold trailer work. A dog barking around on a path in all different directions where the rabbit was eating the night before is a babbling idiot. He isn't making forward progress.

Joe, this dog may be being used as a specialist. But I hunted with this dog solo for 2 years and killed plenty of rabbits. He has no problem running a rabbit on his own. And after running with him for 5 years or so, I'd say he does have a superior nose to most hounds. He is the reason I'm on this board now. He is the one that got me hooked on beagling. You are right that a lot of times guys don't give the dogs enough credit. But I don't think you give the dogs enough credit in some cases. The other dogs in my pack don't ignore him because they think he's just being a babbler. They ignore him because they know darn well by the his tounge when he gets the rabbit up and when he is cold trailing to the sitting rabbit.

The dog in my avatar is my male. He will never be for sale. He will not cold trail. He absolutely will not open and run a track unless the rabbit is up and moving. In the deepest of snow and ice, he'll tear brush pile after brush pile apart looking for a rabbit. But the cold trailer will work a cold line to the right brush pile. The one with the rabbit in it, without having to go through 10 piles to find one.

By the way Joe, do you live where there are swampers or hare?

blackdirt beagles · Post by **blackdirt beagles** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 7:04 pm

very good posts FULLCRY and KJOHNS.

laal · Post by **laal** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 8:59 pm

The dogs I have seen catch rabbits were med speed dogs. There is no way you could call them fast dogs. The rabbits were caught because they could not run any more. If a rabbit will stay up and not go to a hole for 2 hours the pack I run will catch it, (most of the time) These dogs have very few checks and keep constant pressure on the rabbit, if we watch close and work fast we can catch our dogs off the rabbit before they catch the rabbit.

backyard beagler · Post by **backyard beagler** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 11:01 pm

this seems to be going no where fast, occasionaly my dogs will pop off a few and sometimes alot EARLY in the morning and I hate it but after they jump a rabbit and get a nose full of hot scent I useally don't hear another peep out of them until one is up and running and I don't want to hear anything out of them because I think that is were the brains come in they realize the scent they are smelling is not runnable but it may be workable so therefore they work/track/trail whatever you call it to jump a rabbit and once its up they let you know it and as far as trying to sneak up on a rabbit I would have to agree with the other guy that is about the dumbest thing I have ever read, more than likely from what I have seen out of most true beagles not barking is far from your everyday problems you are probaly talking about beagles that has some fiest or some other blood in them they run silent with a bark every now and then, I have never had the problems of my dogs catching rabbits we either have smarter rabbits they go in a hole or slower dogs, we have trouble killing rabbits and we have guns we shore don't expect the dogs to catch'em.

laal · Post by **laal** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 12:15 am

I run my dogs 12 mths a year. I only take a gun when season is in, I don't think dogs catching rabbits is a problem. most rabbits will go in a hole before it gets caught, and like I said speed don't catch rabbits, but constant pressure will. I don't think rabbits from different parts of the U.S.A. are any smarter than other rabbits. Smooth running dogs that are working with each other will run a rabbit until it locks up. I have seen it happen many times. My dogs will pop off too, and I don't like it either.

Joe West · Post by **Joe West** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 6:20 am

Fullcry: We have totally different takes on this. The hound who does not open until the rabbit is up is just being honest. He's saying I have a rabbit up. The hound who cold trails isn't saying he has the rabbit up he's saying there used to be a rabbit here. But not opening until the game is up is not the same as a hound who is too tight mouthed and does not proclaim his foreward progress on the trail. The vast majority of the rabbits I've seen caught were run till stiff, exhaustion. It is has been a rare occurance for the hounds I run with to catch their rabbit at full stride. It can happen if conditions are right and the rabbit makes a mistake and gets out into the open pines or field but most often a caught rabbit is just run till he can't go any more. INcidentally all of the good hounds I have ever ran with want to catch their rabbit but don't resort to cheating to do so.

kjohns: You must understand that when speaking of your hound I am not saying he is not every bit as good as you say he is but I am mearly pointing up his fault that you have described. They all have faults and this seems to be the one for that hound. My point about him was that by your own admission he would take 20 minutes to get his rabbit up and at times the other hounds would have one going before he got his start. Then when that rabbit was accounted for he goes back to it. The point is if you were running him solo you would have to wait until he trailed his rabbit up when clearly that is not neccissary as proven by the fact that the other hounds get a start before he trails his rabbit up. I am well aware that hounds will ignore a cold trailer until he sounds right once they have been fooled often enough.

There are pockets of hare here around the house and we hunt them in the Adirondacks in winter where they are more abundant..

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COLDTRAILIN

COLD TRAILING

barking before the rabbit is up