FirstBow

Thanks 3Ddepression.
I have ask a fewof runners.
I think beginning to see the thrill.
You said tradition....maybe thats something to add in to help get it.
I have to say that when I do here the dogs coming I get antsy.
A tid bit excited I say. Then I switch off that on think dag that one could have been right there ready to peak his head out the the same sound I here he does too, and awwwaaaaaay he goes.
I can say I have popped one from the workof the dogs and later on Isorta felt kinda guilty for doing that.
So I think I sorta get it alittle.
The sound of the hound.......
The racing heart beat.........( goes both ways)
The anticapation.........( goes both ways)
The drop shot................( goes both ways)
The feeling of a well trained K-9 at work,
I understand that ( 3 St. Bernards, Pascal, 3J andZeus)
The fairchase is what I having a hard time understanding, thats what I look for in a good hunt.
Thanks for all the in put and all..........

Oh, one more thing
I had a dog hunter tell me this which I did not like but he was truthful, about other stuff also.
That before a big planned hunt that they would cut back on feeding for a week before the hunt to make the dog hunt harder, sorta like hunting for hisfor food.
I had a hard time swallowing those thoughts I tell you what.
Thanks Again,
FirstBow

cutter81

Here's my 2 cents. I mostly still hunt, but on occasion I join go with a buddy to a hunting club that dog hunts on Saturdays. I am like FirstBow. I hate seeing dogs that look sick and skinny. At thes club the dogs are very well cared for. The hunt itself is very exciting. They gather at sun-upo and discuss the drive. They all go to their standing locations and radio in when then are set-up. Then other's will turn the dogs loose. When the dogs get to the standers the standers do their best to catch the dogs, and they go set-up another drive. Dog hunting is a tradition here in the south, and I really enjoy the 2-3 times a year that I go. For all those that say it's not fair try shooting a running deer that is weaving in and out of a hardwoods bottom. I think he has the advantage.

FirstBow

Cutter81,
You gotta better chance with a shotgun b'tweenst dem trees dude.

SWOSUMike

FirstBow,
I will try to answer your question logically and from an objective standpoint. I do not see why you question the fair chase of it? If it is unfair to let dogs run a deer to you, then it is also unfair to use a treestand, high powered rifles, modern archery equipment, camoflauge or anything else that could even remotely give you an advantage. Same goes for scents, calls, blinds, bait and so on. I don't see how using a dog is any more advantage over a deer than climbing up a tree where they cannot see you. Now, I use treestands and all the equipment I just mentioned, but the point I'm trying to make is that if any one single method is unfair chase, than so is every other method used to gain an advantage. I may be going out on a limb, but I don't understand, on some levels, where fairness comes into play in hunting. You go into the woods with a weapon and a sense of reason that animals don't have, and you use your skills to outsmart and harvest an animal. It is an ancient way of life, and even though it has developed into sport because of modern amenities, the object, along with being able to simply enjoy the sport and teach lessons to our youth, is still the same - to at least try to kill something for food, and now also for sport. If "fairness" were an issue, you could make a logical arguement against any method of take. You could also make a logicalcounterarguement.

Here is another way of looking at it. How is allowing a birddog that has an extremely sensitive, keen, and focused nose developed from decades of careful breeding to pinpoint the exact location of a covey of quail so that a person can shoot them any more "ethical" or "fair," as you suggest, than letting a couple good hounds run a section of woods in hopes that a deer may spook? There's no difference. In fact, getting the quail might be easier and therefore subject to a "fairness" arguement. Their both legal methods in their respective areas and have the same concept, which is to enjoy the work of a good dog and perhaps reap a harvest as a result. If using a dog to chase big game is wrong, then using a mouth call to draw in a tom turkey is wrong. Fairness is not an issue. Some methods of hunt just have more advantages over the other (such as rifles over bows), but that does not mean any of them are "unfair." Some methods of hunt may be less fair than others in that it is easier to get the animal in the game bag, but it doesn't make them wrong. You got a better chance of getting a duck over a pond than you do in the desert, but that doesn't mean it is unfair chase if you get right on a pond and sit in a duck's living room. If you had to be more "fair" and give the duck a better chance, you better hunt the desert. Are you starting to catch my drift?

Story: A few weeks back I was deer hunting when I heard a rifle crack several hundred yards off. A few minutes later a buck came through that had been pushed my way because of the other hunter. I did not get a shot but would have taken one if it was presented. Would it have been unfair because something, albeit a hunter, pushed him my way? Of course not. The deer came into my shooting lane by means of circumstance and was fair game. But a hunter several hundred yards off that pushed a deer my way would technically be no different than a dog pushing it to me.

These are just a few thoughts for you to consider since I know you are trying to see this in the light that dog hunters see it in. Now personally, I hunt squirrels and birds with dogs because I like hunting and I like dogs. Put them together, no matter what game you are pursuing, and you've got a winning hobby in my book. It's about enjoying the work of a good dog, bred for an ancient purpose - hunting. Dogs were likely a necessity for hunters back during a time when you couldn't get your burgers at McDonald's. Some pioneers depended on their dogs for hunting, herding, protection and so on. It's a tradition that has been carried on to become sport. Just like bowhunting, it might be a little more primitive and something that used to be necessity, but we've found a way to carry both of these on to become hobbies. I hope this has shed some light for you.

3Ddepression

Hmm sounds bad with not feeding the dogs. Thats the bad side of traditions I Think. It takes energy to run and to think and a hunting dog does both. No mystery there but running with a full stomach isnt to good either. In general if I hunt a full day he still does get a normal feed but thats because I have 1,5 hour drive to the hunting grounds. Then during the dayhe gets some of my sandwich (but dont tell anyone). The whole preseason I gradually change to more energycontaining food than for the rest of the year.

And for the fair part... thedeer probably doesnt think any way we hunt is fair. With forresting being more of agriculture than wilderness there are often large areas of thickets that is impossible to drive deer out of. They just circle within and do not come out even with dogs involved.

FirstBow

Well now , SWOSUMike, thanks for you in put, You have shed alittle light on the subject for me.
Easy there on the fair chase thing there. To me fair chase and fair hunt is about the same thing.
Me,
I scout for my deer. I find their bedding areas. I find their feeding areas, watering holes, play ground. Some of what I use now I learned here on this website.
Bow Season ....I'll hunt from the ground 90% of the time, you know,up close and personal. I can just feel, smell and hearbetter than in a stand.
I find the trails that intersect and determine travel habits. All of this can be done in about two or three days of scouting.
As far as fair with camo...........I say cover and concealment. The deer use brush, trees, thicketts and other deers scentto conceal themselves andwe can't go naked.
Scents...... I do wash my BDU'sin a scent free detergent just as all my clothes, during bow season I use dirt, mud, cow patty, bean dust, pine sap/needles, if thats what in the area I'm in. Why introduce something not natural from that specific area?When the rut comes in, I make my own scrapes with my urine.

4 wheelers, 4 wheel drive trucksand such......don't own one. Tried callthing, not for me.
I drag my killout on my back or use a drag,(for now), alwayshave and I'm 44.
I use all I can from my kills, bones for my dogs,including some ofthe pelts
The hunt for me is this: NATURE at her best. Whether its the scouting, the smell, the wind, rain, snow, sun, theskeeters, bugs and varmitsthe sounds and smellsof everything being used to my advantage just as the deer would listen, smell and use the wind etc. also to his/her advantage.
Except them darn skeeters, they just had to be added 'cause they matter.[&:]

I have tracked a wounded deer that I made a bad shot on for about 6 hrs. at night.
At times I had to get on my hands and knees struggling to find blood, hairs ortracks.
Went back to the orginal spot and started over making circles until I found her. She was a tough one I tell you what. No dogs, hounds or help. Just me. To be down right honest about it I actually smelled her before Ifound her. Low gut shot with a bow.Clean thru.

I understand the work put inwith a dog for sport, and manners, obiedence. That is great feeling watching them demonstrate what they have been taught and do it well. Especially in front of people and in control
.
As far as the rifle thing, its one shot one kill. Most of the time. You shoot twice here and don't drag something out you lose a 3" notch out of your under shirt.I gotta a few notches myself.

I use a shotgun late season when the pressure is own and get deep in the thicketts. I don't use a shotgun at a hundred yards or more, pump threefour fiverounds of buck shotwith a hope of hitting something running across a field. Thats what I see here. Pull off the side off the road get out of the truck hop across the ditch and go to blasting, with acollar locaterand radiostrapped to my side.

I sortaget the hunt that had been posted before by Cutter81. You set upfor the hunt, put people in the woods, in standsand run the deer and dogsto you, you know who is where,ok. Control is what I hear there. I might would enjoy a controled hunt don't know never been on one. So I just guess and apply what I hear, readand see.

I try to use and learnas much of nature as I can when I huntand enjoy it, kill or not.
The more I hunt the more I learn and some I learn over and over and over and still forget.

3Ddepression its thick around here to. As far as them circling back I have seen deer come out behind the dogs after they havepass thru,going right where the dogs just came from. I thought that was down right funny[8D]too slick........have also seenhim run thru afewdoes to cover his scent and watched the dogs pick up on the does and here they go, scattered.

3Ddepression

Firstbow, I agree with you on the importance of thefair hunt issue but simply put, I draw the line elsewhere than you. The dog part brings me so much more pleasure that I like to have it. And as you yourself described with the clever buck in the thickets its not a guaranteed success butching. We often come up empty handed. No bucks at home, they went beside us, didnt provide a shot, fooled the dogs or whatever else that can happen and what makes hunting the charming experience that it is. It just struck me that maybe the social part in drive hunts can be another bigplus factor.

It is a heck of nuissance when the hunt rattles away to a car chase and everybody is babbling in the radio about changing positions to here and there. Been to such hunts and hate it.Never works and is just a major disturbance in nature. Not at all what I advocate. Just not fun, fair or responsible to neighbors or game.

And the rifle thing. There is no sport in making difficult shots. One shot is still whatisrequired. The weapon of choicewould be a drilling.

I can feel much safer when hunting with a tracker dog availble. If the bad shot occurs, and sooner or later it will, the dog will make it easier to shorten the deers suffering. Not many hunters will be as devoted as you on this.

Lanse couche couche

There is no tradition of using dogs for deer where i grew up in Illinois, but i have family in Louisiana that do it. As a rule, they aren't much more successful than someone sitting in a stand. So, I don't know that there is always an unfair advantage. In fact, unless someoneonly goes after deer in a loincloth and with a spear, I think that the whole concept ofunfair advantage is a slippery slope. I am glad, however, that some folk's concerns about dog hunting have been addressed, at least in part. I have come across moresome criticismtoward people who hunt with dogs that i find a bit disturbing. I was told by another poster that people are "dirt bags" if they hunt with dogs under circumstances where they might cross (even unintentionally) on toland where you don't have permission to hunt. If that's true,then I've known few coonhunters and even beagle hunterswho haven't committed some form of tresspass.Hell, if you walk your poodle down the sidewalk with a 5 foot leash, you are likely allowing it to, at least technically, tresspass in people's yards. I think that people have a right to their opinion, its just sad when you see hunters arguing amongst themselves because they don't like a particular style of hunting, often because they don't well understand it. However, threads like this are a good way toclear some things up. On a different note, I don't think that starving a dog will make it a better hunter.It will certainly give it less energy for a sustained run.

FirstBow

I tell you this its hard to argue something you know nothing about.
I'm trying to get the feel of things on deer hunting with dogs.
I suppose that I can say that a controled hunt would be intresting.
But you also need to here what I'm saying. All I have ever seen is what I haveseen in Eastern NC.Some of the hunt clubs are crazy man. Its nothing to 10 pickups in afive milestretch just pull off the side of the road. pull off and drive away about1/4 mile pull off.
Its crazy to me.
I know that all dog hunters are not the same asall trackers are not the same.
There are bad apples in every bunch I suppose.
The gathering of a largegroup for a good hunt could be a factor.
I know its fun when a couple of us go on a trip for a hunt. Seems to be awager most of the time, or competionyou might say.
All of this has help me see things alittle better. I tell you what, I have not had much understanding or patience for doggers. But I sorta feeling that its fun and benefical for the gossip group[8D]. Just kiddin'.
It would probably be a treat to try one some day. That is if itsdone like what I have read about, prep, set out, turn out. May be a thrill in there somewhere

Lanse couche couche

First bow,

Thanks for trying to think things thru and listen todog hunters'opinions. Some of the large-scale dog hunts can seem chaotic, if your frame of reference is sitting in a deer stand (and nothings wrong with that, i do it). When i was growing up in Illinois, similar hunts occurred for coyotes. Some people loved them, others hated them. But they did keep the coyotes thinned down.