Shuuting Off Scent

[gwyoung]

rackhntr, Are your hounds hot nosed, leave the check type, as this could explain it, as I understand. I don't know why they couldn't find it right away though or why they even paused. Perhaps someone else can explain it ! You know this doesn't really happen don't you!

[Casey Harner]

Why let others define who you are, it's your given right to be who you wantto be. I feel like I am a houndsmen, I could give two #%{)& if someone else thinks other wise. Heck I was told I was a good waste of air that another houndsmen could breathe. Oh well I still in hounds and still running.


Back to the topic at hand. I've seen where dogs can't take a scent to the other side of the road. I don't have the
Answer why it happens, I just know it does. Anything is possible in the animal kingdom. They were created to evade us hunters, and was equipped with hidden mechanisms.

[gwyoung]

casey, Do you believe that all dog people and rabbit hunters are houndsmen? Not trying to start anything just wondering what your definition of houndsmen is, if it is not everyone that owns a hound then you are setting parameters the same as I do. My parameters may be different than yours but you would still be setting them and excluding some the same as I. would you then be seen as defining others? Houndsmen, has meant for years a person who is well versed and well beyond the basics, considering hounds and their quarry. Would you now change that definition to mean anyone that owns a hound regardless of their knowledge? or are there some who are not houndsmen who own hounds and run them? Once again, not trying to start anything you have just raised an interesting point with me. just getting some others opinion of what a houndsmen is to them. Thanks.

[Casey Harner]

casey, Do you believe that all dog people and rabbit hunters are houndsmen? Not trying to start anything just wondering what your definition of houndsmen is, if it is not everyone that owns a hound then you are setting parameters the same as I do. My parameters may be different than yours but you would still be setting them and excluding some the same as I. would you then be seen as defining others? Houndsmen, has meant for years a person who is well versed and well beyond the basics, considering hounds and their quarry. Would you now change that definition to mean anyone that owns a hound regardless of their knowledge? or are there some who are not houndsmen who own hounds and run them? Once again, not trying to start anything you have just raised an interesting point with me. just getting some others opinion of what a houndsmen is to them. Thanks.

A honest person that enjoys the sound of a hound, whose willing to help someone out on a dog or to take a child hunting to give them the same opportunity to enjoy what we love to do.

[Norshore]

rackhntr, Are your hounds hot nosed, leave the check type, as this could explain it, as I understand. I don't know why they couldn't find it right away though or why they even paused. Perhaps someone else can explain it ! You know this doesn't really happen don't you!

I think I know why they couldn't find it.

[gwyoung]

Casey, Traditionally, a houndsman, has meant someone with a great deal of knowledge , doesn't have to be kind , helpful, courteous, or giving. This is still what houndsman means to me, KNOWLEDGE!!. I think I would like your houndsman better than mine though.

[brad stewart]

Lol to me its someone who when they wake up there thinking bout running when they goto bed and someone who is always trying to find away to better the breed and like casey said also someone willing to pass there knowledge down to the younger generation to keep the traditions going if it wasnt for my father my grandfather and prutty much all my family I would have never learned bout this wonderful sport. Know that im married and got a family I am enjoying this great tradition with my son and his papa lol I hope I can be have the father to him as my dad was to me to all the fathers that keep this great sport going merry Christmas

[Shady Grove Beagles]

Ive been running hounds on most all game chaseable now for 50 years and I can honestly say I have no idea why it happens.I only know that it does.
Hunted coondogs hard for 21 years.Can't begin to tell you how many times we'd have a coon run across the road.Dump out on him and the dogs couldn't take the track.Instead of dumping them right on the track we learned to walk them down into the woods a hundred feet or so on an angle and they'd hit the track and be gone??? Why couldn't they hit it between the edge of the road and there??
Was bear hunting and had a bear run right across in front of the truck in the logging road we were on.Dumped out the strike dog to line him out and he couldn't get it straightened out.This is the same dog that can strike a bear bedded 200 yards up on the side of a ridge from the back of the truck at 25 miles an hour going down the road.Dumped several others out and they finally could line it out and go after reaching out quite a ways??
Was cat hunting in a big swamp in Vermont, with a couple of feet of snow.Had two hounds on a big cat and they had put him around the swamp several times.Willard Ware and I were standing together listening and all of a sudden I caught a movement and turned quickly.It was the cat sneaking behind us.When I moved it lept over backwards and was gone that quick. When the hounds arrived minutes later they couldn't take the track.Worked that check for 1/2 an hour till the snow was all tracked up.We had to walk them out several hunded yards before they picked it up and the race was on again.Why couldn't they lift that track where we startled it?? They'd already been running it steady for almost 2 hours??
Have had more races than I could ever count where the hare or cottontail has run right up to within feet of me .Realized it and exploded out of there! Here comes the pack driving hard and...............can't smell or open on a scent.They work it and work it without a bark.The type of dogs I keep then will reach out and often will hit it out a ways.After not being able to lift the line from where I startled it??
As I said,I don't know why it happens.Just know that it does.
Have read/heard about this topic my whole houndogging life.Always interesting.
Good post Wardog.

[BCBeagles]

A few of the above answers come from keeping it real....not Internet champs, such as myself....lol

Many are wealthy with useless information.....lol. I take shady and ward dog for the truth.......no lols, , .....
It just happens. Spend time in the brush pay attention, then say it doesn't to my dogs! That is what is laughable!!

Mine fail....there I admitted it.......continue.

Good running to all....and may rabbits never spook or be fired upon to give you a reality check that they are just dogs and can all come up short.....

[Parker7]

This is crazy I was running today and had a rabbit lay out a smoke screen it was some James Bond sh** . lol lol lol I read every post on here and have for a couple of years now and this whole scent off thing just cracks me up. Sorry guys I'm just not a believer.

[gun runner]

This a good pice, I really does make me wonder what happens when that rabbit gets shot at or comes out next to a dog or human. It seem like something does happen to the sent i dont know what. But i have notice that if rabbit never comes arounds humans and stay out in front of the dogs, the chase is clean. beside the truns. But u would think they would have some kind of defence because they are on the bottom of the food chain and dam near everything will eat a rabbit.

[pilotknob]

I'm in the NO off switch camp.Most dogs I've been around can't smell SH** for a ways after they run up on a line where a rabbit has been shot at.How many times have you seen them not be able to take the line to a dead one that they were running the fire out of.Different patches of ground holds scent differently.I can think of several places that I run that if a rabbit goes thru there the dogs will have trouble almost every time.They have to slow down and grub it for a ways.Then it's fine again.The ground all looks the same.If a guy is going to make excuses like rabbits with off switches for his hounds.Why not rabbits were abducted by aliens? My dogs will loose one from time to time.No need to make up excuses though.They're just dogs.

[hlane]

I have seen everthing wardog described and got pics of the fawn too ! i coonhunted for 27yrs and seen what Shady Grove said which leads me to belive somthing
happens to a critters sent when it gets spooked ! what it is who knows ? and i agree a houndsmen is someone who lives and breathes it ! and shares it with
a young hunter or a friend. i feel fortunate to have grown up in a coonhunting family .we always had beagles to but coondogs were our priority back then. got no
time for that these days so im back to beagles ! my first dog of my own!!!!

[adirondackjoe]

i still say its the gun power. no one agrees with me? i'd ask joeyman but he never seems to miss.

[pilotknob]

i still say its the gun power. no one agrees with me? i'd ask joeyman but he never seems to miss.

I'm in agreement with you Joe. Been missing so much my dogs think a gun going off is the same thing as Tally-Ho.I've been on a bad shooting streak here lately.