Originally Posted by timbercruiser

We hunted with dogs for close to 30 years until it got too expensive to have enough contiguous land to hunt without running all over other hunters.
The breed I liked best were blueticks. Easier to handle IMHO, and usually smarter. Best pack I've ever seen was catahoula crossed with Australian shepard. Owner could stop on a road and whistle to the pack and they immediately stopped running and came to the truck. It's most important to train your dogs. It seemed that the majority of the beagles I saw were either rabbit dogs or would run each other.