Run to catch

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Well,a sign of the times - at least around here it seems.
Went to run yesterday morning and had brought just my Queen dog for a little solo time.
There's been a place that is in the town limits,behind an industrial park of about 15-20 acres.I was introduced to it 8 years ago by one of the cops in town who used to like to go rabbit hunting with me.
It was perfect. Part open field,some woods, lots of brier thickets,creek running along one side of it. And the biggest plus was no hunting in the town limits and I don't think anybody else knew about it .At least in 8 years I never met anybody back in there running.
It was a great place to solo a dog.I never took more than 2 dogs in there at a time to run as my pack could push them hard enough to drive them out in to areas I didn't want them going.
Hadn't been there this Spring and was completely bummed to find the entire piece was GONE ! At least in terms of a place to run. Several big bulldozers were leveling it and trucks hauling away debris and fires consuming the brush piles.I guess they are further developing the site for more industry.
Another one bites the dust.

Lucky to have an 800 acre W.M.A. 12 miles from the house to run on. And even luckier this morning as I took all 4 of the girls and had it all to myself.
And yes, they burned em up !

[Beagle Huntsman]

Sounds like you are being crowded out, Shady Grove. Time to move to Kansas.

[Swampman]

Sorry to hear Dana.
I've lost some good spots over the years to subdivisions.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Beagle Huntsman
Ya, it does at times feel like I'm being squeezed as to places where I can turn out a pack and have good running without conflicts.Don't want it to sound like I've got nowhere to run as that's not really the case.
What frustrates me is the inability to find private land due to people's fear of liability issues having you on their property,the increase of exclusive deer leases,the fact that the Tn. deer season opens the 3'rd week of August and runs until the 1'st week of January and now spring turkey season runs from the end of March until the middle of May=6 weeks. a lot of competition for a rabbit hunter with hounds to find places where others aren't competing for the same areas.
I know that a lot of my frustration comes from the fact that I'm old enough to have grown up at a time when posted properties were virtually unheard of and we could hunt anywhere.I also lived in New Hampshire where the population is not nearly so dense and it was easy to have spots to coon hunt and hare hunt.
I live out in the country here in Tn. but what you find here is the popular thing is to buy 5 acre or 10 acre pieces and build. So yes there might be cover to hunt but they are starting to cover up a lot of what used to be huntable land.Still has game but it's a struggle to hunt or run it.Then we have the Smoky Mountains -- good for deer,bear,turkey and hogs but not much for rabbit hunting.
I've heard that Kansas is a great place for a beagler but my family are here and at this stage of life I'm not picking up everything to move for the dogs.
Rowdy. Sub-divisions are the scourge of this area. Farmers quit farming and next thing you know those couple hundred acres are covered in 5 acres "estates". Sheesh. Can't really blame folks though - that's their dream.
I'm fortunate though in that I still have friends that live in the north country and get to go up and hare hunt with them for a couple of weeks in the Fall.
Got a friend in middle Tn. that has some great connections and a lot of private land to hunt that I get to hunt with occasionally.My son's wife has some kin folk that have about 500 acres that I get an invite to hunt once or twice a season and last year my son and I drove 7 hours down in to the Mississippi Delta for a week of hunting the swampers.
There are still places you can go and have some good hunting but yes i feel the squeeze as I'm sure many of you houndsmen do.AND I HATE IT !
The penalty of getting old and remembering "how it used to be"
What's the term we hear all the time now? "The new reality or the new normal"?

[Beagle Huntsman]

Unfortunately for many of us, it is the new normal. Today is April 30, which in Ohio is the last day to run hounds on public land until September 1. I had a good day, running my pack of hounds for nearly 5 hours of almost constant action on public land. Starting tomorrow, my options are severely limited, like you say, and for the same reasons you gave.

I have just finished reading a book entitled "A Life with Gentleman Bob and a Few of His Kinfolk" by Michael Widner. This fellow is a retired biologist and lifetime quail hunter from Arkansas. Very good book if you have any interest in quail at all (available on Amazon for about $10). Here is a some of what he said on page 268:

"The concept of knocking on doors or making friends with landowners in order to gain permission to hunt is an old tradition, but in a place like today's Faulkner County (Arkansas) landscape, one is simply not going to put together a very long bird hunt on private land in most cases by doing so. …Unless one knows a landowner or two with a fairly significant acreage and some relatively good bird habitat, putting together a decent bird hunt on private land is probably going to be very difficult."

"Deer hunters may sit in the same tree stand in a small woodlot all season, but I normally cover a good part of several hundred acres on a walk of several miles when I bird hunt. Try putting that together in many of the counties of Arkansas, particularly the more populated ones."

He goes on..."The days of my youth, when one could leave the house and make a four-hour hunt over 3-4 miles with little or no interference from landowner due to posted land or not even knowing who landowners are is over for the most part in most of the more settled areas of Arkansas."

Mr. Widner describes his more recent quail hunting to be driving to a small area, hunting it, then loading up and driving to the next small area, which is very different from the hunting in the 1970s and 80s (his youth) described above. Rabbit hunting is getting to be the same way in many areas of the country, especially if you attempt to hunt private land. I am sure I walked several miles today.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

I've always enjoyed starting young dogs and watching it when everything starts coming together for them.Some days they shine and other days they struggle.
But I've got to say that I really enjoy watching a veteran hound with lots of age and experience behind them ply their craft.
This morning I took my two oldest dogs out for some running. Tess the tri 'color is eight and Josie Blue soon to be seven. I've had both these dogs as pups and they've run together their whole lives.Either dog can do it solo but I've really been appreciating how good they run as a brace.
These older dogs get really rabbit wise and there's not much that fools then anymore.Most times these two can run a rabbit as long as he wants to run and they both can still push pretty hard.
My friend Bob in New Hampshire has Daisy who is a litter mate to Tess' mother.This winter at twelve years old Bob hunted her on hare with two -- year old females that are out of Josie and she showed them the way.Bob said she can't go all day but still put 10-12 miles on several occasions. Bob said Daisy still was the dog that usually jumped the hare.
My friend harechaser had a male named Magic who was one heck of a hound. In 2003 a group of us had rented a cabin in northern New Hampshire up along the Canadian border.First morning we turned out nine hounds. The oldest being Magic at twelve and the other eight less than half his age. A hare was jumped and we all agreed nobody would shoot until they'd run at least an hour.
We saw the hare cross the gravel road several times and were enjoying a race in full cry.Magic led that pack for that hour until Mike shot the hare.
Dan said "that's enough old man " and put him in the box.
What's been your experiences running senior hounds?

[warddog]

Well,a sign of the times - at least around here it seems.
Went to run yesterday morning and had brought just my Queen dog for a little solo time.
There's been a place that is in the town limits,behind an industrial park of about 15-20 acres.I was introduced to it 8 years ago by one of the cops in town who used to like to go rabbit hunting with me.
It was perfect. Part open field,some woods, lots of brier thickets,creek running along one side of it. And the biggest plus was no hunting in the town limits and I don't think anybody else knew about it .At least in 8 years I never met anybody back in there running.
It was a great place to solo a dog.I never took more than 2 dogs in there at a time to run as my pack could push them hard enough to drive them out in to areas I didn't want them going.
Hadn't been there this Spring and was completely bummed to find the entire piece was GONE ! At least in terms of a place to run. Several big bulldozers were leveling it and trucks hauling away debris and fires consuming the brush piles.I guess they are further developing the site for more industry.
Another one bites the dust.

Lucky to have an 800 acre W.M.A. 12 miles from the house to run on. And even luckier this morning as I took all 4 of the girls and had it all to myself.
And yes, they burned em up !

Sounds Exactly like my post on rabbit hunting unknown dogs. I think my days of having pups may be over as the only two dogs I have left in my kennel are older females that I failed to get pups off of due to this very lack of hunting grounds and game.

[Beagle Huntsman]

Love those old hounds! Ages 8 and 7 would be right in their prime for me and able to go long hours, and doing a large portion of the work. Mine usually run up well until about 10-12. The ones who retire earliest usually have lost hearing and cannot locate the pack, so that forces them out. If the hearing stays good, they usually can keep up well until 11 or 12. The oldest hound in my pack now is 10. His hearing seems good, so he will probably go another year or two until he has trouble keeping up, then be retired. By then, he should be running with his grandpuppies.

It's important to keep bringing on young hounds regularly. I try to start a few each year. I have 3 females to be added to the pack this year, and already have a male puppy for next year, and hope to have more. In 2025-2029, those will be my best hounds. It is very easy for a line to get away from you if you aren't careful about this.

[main event`s beagles]

i would love to have some of that old blood you have tim

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Caught a break here in east Tn. this past week with some nice cool mornings in the high 50's -- at least cool for us mid June. Ran the dogs every morning this week.
Took 8 year old Tess and her 3 year old daughter Queen out today. They were working a brier thicket when a doe got up right in front of them and bounded off.We continued to hunt on and the dogs jumped a rabbit about 100 yards past where the doe had gotten up. The rabbit ran back to that thicket and began to circle.
Suddenly a fawn began to bleat loudly and here comes the doe across the open area and went right in and starting chasing my dogs.Both dogs were bogger barking and screaming at her. I started hollering and they both came out looking pretty spooked and i saw the doe go out the backside.
Have seen this happen a couple of times before. Tess and Queen never had and they took a while before they went back to hunting and got another rabbit up.
Have had coyotes come in on the dogs at times and have had two dogs jumped by them but you hardly expect a deer to do it.

[Beagle Huntsman]

I remember a doe chasing one of my young hounds years ago, before we had shock collars, etc. In those days, we had to run down hounds that left on deer, and I can well remember some exhausting cross country runs I had to do. But that hound who was chased by the doe never wanted anything to do with deer the rest of her life! She had met a monster in the woods.

[TRK]

I have a female that is a year and a half old that got chased by deer last summer and has never run a deer. When I was starting her the does around my house were very aggressive protecting their fawns. They got after her a couple of times and she wants nothing to do with them. I was soloing her one time and I had to chase one doe away three times. It wouldn't leave just kept circling around trying to get to the dog and wouldn't pay much attention to me until I got really close to it. I have never heard of a deer actually injuring a dog but it seems like it could happen.

[allniter]

years ago we toke a few --coon hounds --up to WISCONSIN -to a friends home MR JIM WHEATEN --he had a big pet doe in the barn lot with a small metal dog house --after a couple days in the barn lot every dog that was in there NEVER RAN another deer --they were BROKE from deer for life

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Caught a break this morning.
Raining steady and only 72 degrees and the girls were burning em up. I'll tell you,I'd rather stand out in the fields in a pouring rain getting soaked and listen to em hammer than to beat myself and the dogs up when it's hot,humid and in the 80's !
Only issue was that the conditions were so good that the dogs couldn't lose him and an hour plus at that pace was more than he could stand -- another one bites the dust and I've got to order some more tape worm pills.

[Aubrey Holcombe]

Dana them Tape worm pill are Costly also. Good to have some rain here at rabbit town, USA FIRST RAIN WE HAVE HAD, FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE

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