cold trailing

[New York Hillbilly]

Chris,
I'm with you, we will have to agree to disagree with some of the others on this topic. We seem to have similar experiences with running in snow. Ask ole BJK how my hounds do on snow! In the 2000 North East Regional in Jersey the weather went from hi 70's on Saturday with spotty running for all the hounds in my casts to 30's on Sunday and about 5inches of wet ,heavy snow. The only thing with a bigger smile than me and my son Eric that morning was on the faces of my hounds. They were smokin! My bitch too a third place and my male took first and he championed out. Oh gimme that snow!!! I think I shot you an E-mail some time back on your site Chris. Your one bitch looks just like my Lisa! I'm sure will talk more in the future.

[Joe West]

Chris: sounds like your talking about ice and not snow but regardless I'm trying to send you an e-mail with photo and ped of a stallion that may fit your bill as far as being able to handle cold weather running goes and you size requirement. My server keeps bumping my e-mail off but I'll get it to you as soon as I can. If your interested in what you see when you receive the e-mail we'll get into more detail on your bitch and this stallion.

[Chris]

Joe,
Haven't received anything from you. I'll try sending you and e-mail and you can reply to it -- maybe that'll work.

[Chris]

Oops, I don't see your e-mail listed on your profile. I'll send you a private message instead. If that doesn't work, you can try mailing me at any of these e-mail addresses.

mail@milleroutdoors.com
mail@huntingboards.com
miller27@metrocast.net
iplaygolf4@hotmail.com
mail@rabbithuntingonline.com
mail@snowshoeharehunting.com

If you can't get through on those, let me know, I have more.

[Guest]

The problem isn't on your end it's with the server on my end. When I get a chance to contact the company to sort out the problem I'll get the e-mail to you.

[Chris]

OK.

[guest]

Cold trialing and mouthyness doesn't mean the hound has more nose; it mearly means the hound is faulty. There are many hounds who have very powerful noses who don't cold trial and use their voice correctly.

You are totally wrong!

[Guest]

If I'm wrong then there is not a hound in the country who can run a rabbit year round and is not a sorry s.o.b. Imagine if no hound was capable of useing his voice correctly. What would be the point of beagling?


Joe West

The board won't except my user name above

[kjohns]

But if the dog consistently comes up with the rabbit why would you consider it a fault that he/she can smell rabbit where no other dog can? That doesn't make sense to me. Your calling a dog with a superior nose faulty.

[S.R. Patch]

IMHO, it's nothing against the superior nose, it's having the brains to keep your mouth shut till the jump and not enterfere with the other hounds work, at the jump is when the chase starts. I personally, have no desire to "hear"(the happy tail & intensity of work is all I need to see) how long a hound can cold trail up to the start. I guess if a hound could consistently produce game every time off a long cold trail, it would only matter what you personally could put up with, but the other hounds would keep getting pulled back by him or the ones with brains may come to ignore this one. I want a hound to cut through the cold trail of the night with his mouth shut, and only proclaim when the start is made. Hope everyone has the hound that pleases them...Patch

[kjohns]

I agree everyone should run what they like and to each their own.

That said let me give an example. I and a friend run our 4 dogs together quite a bit. He has an older male who I would consider an excellent all around dog. He also has a 14 month old female and I have her sister. Both are running pretty good but not quite finished yet. I also have a 5 year old male. His older male (13) is a known cold trailer, but given enough time will eventually work the rabbit up 95% of the time. While I admit I sometimes get bored waiting, this comes in darn handy on a tough day. My 5 year old male needs a hotter trail to open and he does just what you said, he'll ignore the older male, but only when he's cold trailing. Once he gets the rabbit going and is opening good my male will hark in. Until then my male will continue to hunt on his own. Now the good part is, if my male strikes while the older male is cold trailing, the older male will come and hark in and off they go. Between the 2 of them they know where there best odds are. They make a good team especially on a bad scenting day.

[Joe West]

A common misconception is that the cold trailer has a superior nose. Fact is the other hounds can smell the old line too but don't open on it because they know it is an old line. The cold trialer for one reason or another can't tell the difference between an old line and a new one or they don't care. Intelligence is only one of the causes of cold trialing there are scenting problems in others where they are just incapable of distinguishing between old and new scent. There are sometimes other signs that these hounds will show which may give an indication of where they are lacking. I've often thought that some cold trialers had a disconnect between their nose and their brain that doesn't allow them to process the information their nose is sending their brain correctly. For these hounds they will show signs of backtracking, running other small game etc. because of their inability to process the scenting information. The stupid hound will show his fault in many ways. Fact is we no very little about exactly how hounds are able to do what they do primarily because we are incapable of doing it. The best that we can do is observe the hounds abilities and then useing our common scense as a guide try to determine what is what. Now useing my common scense I have determined that if I were to take that cold trialer out solo I'd be sitting around listening to him open on nothing for a good part of the hunt wasteing time that he could have spent looking for a viable line or hot rabbit. I also know that this cold trialer will show his fault later when he actually does have a rabbit up and going in other ways that will interfear with the hunt. Take that cold trialer out solo during different times of the year and see how he does.

[Redtick]

I would guess that if folks had to do alot of hunting on snow and ice, more folks would hunt cold trailers. Places like Northern Michigan, the only rabbits you could get would be to a dog that has a nose and the brains to use it. I hunt dogs that have the track up running here in Illinois. When it is bitter cold, my dogs are just jump dogs but truthfully, I don't hunt under those conditions. But, I do know about cold trailers, one of my strain of English Coonhounds have some of the coldest noses to be found anywhere. Bear and lion hunters love them and they are superior coondogs under rough conditions. If I lived where the only trails that could be run were by beagles with a cold nose, that is the kind of beagles I would own. With this being said, beagles that just get out and waller a track without moving it are not cold nosed and don't have the brains to move a track.

[Chris]

Here's my experience...
In lousy conditions there are 2 types of dogs -- those that can smell the line and run the rabbit to your gun, and those that can't (or don't want to because the track doesn't smell enough for them to think it's jumped). Of the type that can, nearly always they're the ones who start barking early on nearly every rabbit the pack starts -- even on good going. There IS a difference between 'cold trailing' and 'cold nosed' -- it's defined by results. Is there a rabbit coming or not? Of course there are dumb cold trailers that screw off a lot; they should be shot. In my experience, the vast majority of hounds that can keep a rabbit going on lousy conditions (near zero temp., old snow, ice, etc.) also do some cold trailing or they're a little mouthy. I think it's foolish to think that a dog can ALWAYS tell when the rabbit is up -- does the smell of the track change or does it just intensify? ON LOUSY SCENTING DAYS, the smell can't change that much because a hot nosed (majority of beagles) just can't run a rabbit for very long and don't (can't) consistently open. So, it must be that the smell simply intensifies and the average dog's (read average nose) brain just never gets enough to make him bark. A rabbit dog MUST bark for him to be an asset to you in the woods, so if you're running consistently in conditions that are poor (cold winter), then you're not going to be very happy with the hot-nosed FC down the street, no matter how well he does after a light rain in June. Just my observations.

You can see in another thread that I'm looking for a stud dog that might prove my above observations wrong. I'd like to breed to a dog that can CONSISTENTLY run (not pound, just keep one going) on old snow or ice and doesn't come with some sort of baggage (ie. cold trail or mouthy). I really hope they exist. We'll see.

[jon cornett]

I STARTED THIS TOPIC TO FIND OUT HOW MANY FOLKS OUT THERE LIKED OR DISLIKED COLDTRAILERS. ITS OBVIOUS THERE ARE MANY VIEWS ON THIS TOPIC. I SEE JOE WHERE YOUR COMING FROM ON THE BRAINS PART. MY OLD MALE DOES COLDTRAIL ON CERTAIN DAYS. I WOULD SAY HE CAN FIND THE RABBIT 75% OF THE TIME. BUT ITS THE OTHER 25% THAT DRIVES ME NUTS. THERE ARE DAYS OR TIMES WHEN I WILL PULL THEM OFF THE TRACK JUST BECUASE OF THE TIME ITS TAKING WITH NO JUMP, OR THE COVER THERE MISSING. TO BE HONEST IM GETTING WHERE I HATE IT. DONT GET ME WRONG, I KILL RABBITS OVER MY DOGS BUT IM GETTING WHERE I JUST HATE THE COLDTRAILING. THE COLDTRAILING THAT LEADS TO NOTHING AND WASTES TIME. MY TWO FEMALES OUT OF MY OLD MALE COLDTRAILS SOME, BUT NOT TO THE POINT THAT HE DOES. IM TAKING NOTES THIS YEAR AND SO FAR THEY (TWO FEMALES) HAVE COLDTRAILED THREE TIMES BY THEMSELVES TO A QUICK JUMP. FOUR TIMES ALREADY WITH THE OLD MALE I HAVE PULLED HIM AND THEM OFF FOR LACK OF A JUMP. ALOT OF TIMES HE STARTS THE OLD TRACK BY HIMSELF. NEEDLESS TO SAY IM NOT GOING TO BREED TO HIM ANYMORE BECAUSE OF THIS. I LOVE THIS DOG TO DEATH, NOT THE COLDTRAILING, BUT HIS DESIRE, TRACK RUNNING ABILITY AND TRASH FREE. BUT I THINK ITS TIME TO MOVE ON AND GET INTO A BLOODLINE WITH TREMENDOUS HUNT AND DOESNT COLDTRAIL, IF THERE IS SUCH A BLOODLINE. THINKING ABOUT GETTING INTO SOME BLACKCREEK/WIERCREEK. ANY COMMENTS APPRECIATED. JON C.