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)
REBEL wrote:Hare,snowshoe rabbits are not that hard to catch,i sent two,what i call med speed hounds to Richard Smoker that did not have the speed my hounds have but had hunt close to mine,other words they were rabbit dogs,they caught 5 snowshoe,or so Richard e-mailed me and said,their first day out and never been hunted on anything but cottontail and swampers.
REBEL wrote:my hounds can run in any terrian and conditions
Rebel, I can stand quite a lot of embellishment (especially online), and it's honestly not my style to tell a guy that he's full of crap, but come on.
I guess what gets me the most isn't so much that you typed it, but I'm really insulted that you honestly want us to believe it. Come on.
I rarely run snowshoe but I do run cottontail.
I run almost every day.
I have cought 3 rabbits in the hole time I've been hunting beagles.
I am not a passive beagle owner either.
i know a good dog and where and how to get them.
My dog's are hare breed. From Larsins, Striker, Shaker, Blue Banks,
Siver bullet, and Kingwoods. They are medium fast with what I think is good line controll.
I would love to see and find better dog's than these and I think these pup's are the best pack I have ever owned.
REBEL,
I believe you.
Where are you located at I would someday like to come run some dog's in the wild with you and see the differance between your dog's and mine..
Chris: I'll answer yours as I go through it. Swinging and reaching are two different hound actions which is it you are defending?
Throw all the definitions out the window and the hound that can't get the job doen under all conditions is still faulty.
I don't know what speed your 8 or 9 is but I'll guess it's on the fast side of medium speed as we would define it. If they were fast hounds as we describe it then you'd have runs of short duration as I've said before. Not a darn thing wrong with that that I can see. The speed of your pack within the medium range depends actually on your pack when you head and tail to build it.
Swining is about what the hound does once a check occurs to regain the line. But let me say this. Every time a hound looses contact with the line of scent he runs the risk of loosing his rabbit. the farther he gets away from the line of scent the greater his chance of loosing it. There is no theory involved with it. It's simply a fact that the only time a hound can loose his game is when he looses contact with the line of scent.
Sunday was the first day we've had a crust on the snow since some time in December. Until then the hounds were swimming in powder snow over their backs and rabbits unlike hare won't run in it. Until Sinday we had no running and now we're starting to get some time on them. I beleive you run hare where your at but rabbits are different and won't go in deep powder even if the hounds could get around in it.
Actually I've seen a hound faster then anyhting I've ever owned that was dead accurate. Only one though and she was a true fast hound as we describe it. She was the fastest I've seen and ran 100% of the line.
But lets put it in simpler terms then the percentage of the line thing. Lets just make it which hounds account for the largest percentage of their game. Only a slow hound will be hindered by foot speed alone. Medium speed and fast speed will have no bearing on percentage of game accounted for only their individual abilities will.
John: This year it is all snow. I've run some in the southern states and I know conditions vary there just as they do here. We get it worse in winter but with your heat dryness can be a problem too. Given time to adjust your hounds could run on snow too. Spring when temps are cool and things are wet is when the hounds can ussually fly.
I don't surmise that slower hounds run better then faster hounds when conditons are poor. I surmise that the hound who adjust to the conditons runs better.
There are many factors that determine a hounds foot speed and nose is certainly one of them.
let me jump in here. i guess my definition will be pretty simple compared to most of the others, but here goes: my ideal beagle is one(or a pack) that i can take out and circle 6 or 8 rabbits and harvest as many as i feel i need to every time out without concern for terrain or weather conditions, etc. speed and style and everything else is all personal preference. i want a dog that will produce game consistantly. thats my definition. of course i dont have a perfect pack, but i am satisfied with what i currently have and where my breeding is headed.
Robert, when you say you run every day, do you mean all year too? That would be nice!
I get to run twice a week and only once sometimes, but my dogs run with a friend of mine four or five times a week. We really spend time with the young dogs in the 1000's of acres of bean and corn fields where the moisture is real good in the mornings.
Our dogs catch some most days. Some are half or three quarter grown and some full grown. It is rare for that not to happen.
We kill more out of season by catching than gun hunting in season. I wish that was not so, but, it sure encourages the pups to put out since they see there is a reward at the end.
Try running under what ever is being cultivated in your area after it gets up two-three feet high. Most folks do not think there is anything in those newly planted fields, but they are full of rabbits, just walk out in them until your dogs get used to going in.
Bev: I find defending a faulty hound action disturbing.
I've never said a six foot over run was faulty. Naturally hounds will miss the turn from time to time when driving hard. The difference is some hounds will immediatly come back to the point of loss and some will put their nose down where their feet stop moving. The over run itself is not faulty under those conditions, and you'll not see in any of my posts where i said it was.
Fast and accuratre is uncommon as WE describe fast. I've posted that description several times and it should not need reposting now. Most of the so called fast hounds we see are medium speed as We define it. Or are fast and inaccurate. Note that we don't use the number system for hound speed but rather describe it by how long a rabbit will stay up for them.
Bev: If your bitch is as good as you say AND has more foot speed then my hounds then she might well beat them. But, You have no idea of what speed my hounds run at never having seen them. I'm gonna guess you would put them around a 5 and that would be a bit low. Exactly how fast they'll go depends on the conditions but with you only hearing about their family background I'm quite sure they will be faster then you think.
I have never subscibed to the thinking that you need one hound for this and another for that etc. One good hound, truely good, can handle it all. No need for speciallists when all that's really needed is a top hound.
"A fault is in the eye of the beholder" No wonder you didn't see anything wrong with the posts. the fault isn't in the eye of the beholder but rather in the results of the run. A faulty hound action never changes to a positive hound action based upon who's looking at it. it either is faulty and interfears with the run or it is not faulty and doesn't interfear with the run. If it does not interfear with the run it ain't faulty!
Joe, I figured your hounds to be about a 7 (if we have to assign numbers).
I agree with you on paragraph 2.
I disagree with you on paragraph 3 and I reiterate - you do yourself a disservice by not traveling around a bit and seeing what folks are running these days.
My bitch more than likely will beat your hounds......in your backyard.
I never said folks had to keep different hounds for different things. I said just the opposite. People keep the type of hound that will do well in their terrain, game, climate. I assume you do too. It only makes sense.
A faulty run is in the eye of the beholder, too. Some guys like a hound to drive a rabbit as hard as it can as far as it can and if the race only lasts a few minutes until the rabbit goes to hole or gets snuffed, then they're happy. Some folks actually like a few breakdowns here and there so they can hear who's picking up the majority of the checks. Other folks want non-stop mouth regardless of how the line progresses. Some are happy with a run that lasts only one circle and has a couple of breakdowns and others want 5 circles with no breakdowns. I often read where you say the ideal hound will push a rabbit only hard enough to keep it up and running and "provide good sport". Good sport is also in the eye of the beholder.
Joe,
I believe from what I have read that Bev's female is faster footed than yours because Bev uses a shock collar in training and she keeps her fast dog in an above ground pen.
Blackdirt- I like your definition the best. I think most people know and understand the shortcomings of their dogs, but it is hard to enjoy hunting or just running your dogs if all you do is stand around and worry about the faults they have. The idea of this sport is to enjoy your hounds.
P.S. if this topic keeps going it might rival some of the shock collar discussions on BU board.
Richard Smoker=e-mail=rksmoker@chesco.com///I said Richard e-mail me after i sold him two black headed blue tick females which he took hare hunting and informed me how many hare the blueticks caught-i stated these two hounds where med fast compared to mine but still good rabbit hounds.I have in the past sold pups and young hounds in all the eastern parts of the USA,from Maine to Florida, with great reports on how they ran the native rabbits of that area.Here there are cotton tails and swampers,swampers as large as a small beagle if not larger and in order to run these swampers you must have a hound that can swim,have gears,lots of hunt with no quit and determination, run to catch hounds or else the swamper will go to water-rivers and lakes- and lose the slower and med fast hounds,once the swamper is forced to leave the swamp by constant pressure from the hounds,the swamper will slip and slide in the thick under brush and sooner or later will exhaust the slower hounds and than the swamper will take off cross country or to water leaving the slower exhausted hounds to find another rabbit or try again another day.You want to have all day constant hunting hearing the hounds as if they were running the same rabbit all day but you seldom if ever bag your rabbit??put those slow and med fast hounds in a thick swamp with lots of water and pull up a chair and listen,cause old crafty rabbit is going to play those hounds silly. To me the swamper or cane cutter is the hardest rabbit to run,it is very crafty.
My bloodline started many years ago as bluecap and i selectively breed to my specifications-other bloodlines i am comparing to see if they can compliment my bloodline are==Armando-Branko-Merlin-Hunts Creek Ben-Albert Jackson-Ranger Dan-Mccoy Collins-these are names you may have heard of as individual hounds which relate to various bloodlines.I do have culls same as every breeder but less than most.
boys dont stop now after 40yrs. i am findly learning something l.o.li think you all got some good ideas. and i am sure all of you got some darn good rabbit dogs. no one likes a crazy, back tracken, ghost trailen, dog that cant run a rabbit good enought to injoy the sport of hunten or trialing . if getten beat at a trial or on a rabbit hunt bye a better rabbit dog hurts you that bad then you better get into something else there is always going to been a better trial dog& always going to be abetter rabbit dog. if you cull out the so call faults you all are talken about that better dog will be yours.
This was a great thread, but got a little out of hand, now here is my two cents, what if the fast driving hound that is burning a rabbit,hare comes to check, swings wrong way takes couple min to pick check or snaps back to point of loss and takes couple of seconds to pick up which dog do you want ? Proably the same dog we all want. jim schmidt.
Bev: If your bitch is that good I want to see her.
Ah but keeping hounds for different terrain, game and climate was what I was talking about when I said you only need good ones and not different ones.
Driving a rabbit as hard as they can until the rabbit goes to hole, even in just a short run isn't faulty. maybe your right about people wanting hounds to check but it don't make sense to me. Non stop mouth regardless of how the line progresses is faulty. Your mis quoteing me there Bev. What I actually said was a medium speed hound will keep a rabbit up and moveing on a poor scenting day but won't go so fast as to catch or hole the rabbit too quickly to provide good sport on a good scenting day. That is the definition we use for medium speed of hounds instead of the number system.
John: then that explains it she's cheating! Them electric charged hounds run like the dickens when the juice is put to them. I bet she turns the juice up higher if she goes against a fast hound.
Desert dog Got it!!! Thank you lord someone knows where I'm at.
speed and style and everything else is all personal preference. i want a dog that will produce game consistantly. thats my definition. of course i dont have a perfect pack, but i am satisfied with what i currently have and where my breeding is headed.
l.o.li think you all got some good ideas. and i am sure all of you got some darn good rabbit dogs. no one likes a crazy, back tracken, ghost trailen, dog that cant run a rabbit good enought to injoy the sport of hunten or trialing . if getten beat at a trial or on a rabbit hunt bye a better rabbit dog hurts you that bad then you better get into something else there is always going to been a better trial dog& always going to be abetter rabbit dog. if you cull out the so call faults you all are talken about that better dog will be yours.