Stonewall308

How often "ocassion" really is would depend on the size of the piece of land, the adequacy of any fence, and the point on the landwhere you release the dogs.

I would agree with you that less than 5 times in 10 years is a good track record. Many others, especially people who hunt deer with dogs, are lucky if its less than 10 times in 1 year. If you are concerned about the sport of hunting with dogs and hunting in general, this should cause you as much irritation as it does others.

vahoundsman

stonewall may i ask what state you live in?
are deer dogs a problem where you live?

Stonewall308

Deer dogs are a problem in Southern VA where my grandparents live.

Graves

well id say get permission to run dogs on everybody's land and come to an arement with soem of hte people that you are runnin hounds and if they go on their proerpty youll have permission to go get em off and take the coon. i havea mt cur and im still gettin permission to run him on diffent peoples land around here

Lanse couche couche

You all really need to take what Betterbirddog says with a grain of salt. He has proven in the past to be grossly ignorant of his own state laws regarding the circumstances where someone can shoot dogs. Also, anyone that is gonna go running out into the woods in the dark and start spraying lead at running coonhounds that are posing a threat to nothing but the coon they are chasing probably has no business owning a gun.

But, back to the topic. I grew up running coonhounds in southeastern Illinois. At that time there was very little posted land and the common assumption was that unless you saw a posted sign it was okay to be there. We sometimes crossed half a dozen boundary lines in the course of a nite with no problems. But times have changed. Properties have become smaller and you have more people moving out into the country who simply dont want dogs or hunters on their property. When I was growing up, if someone heard dogs howling way off in the distance at nite, it was just part of local life. Nowdays folks are calling the police. So, I simply stopped running coons with hounds because it is too much of a bother.

We do have quite a few coyote hunters in the area. Like someone else discussed, they are pretty good about asking all the landowners in a large area for permission. As a result of putting in that effort, they have large areas where they can run hounds with no problems. Also, in Illinois, it is not illegal for a coyote hound to run across posted ground, but the hunter cannot go retrieve them. I think that if a coonhunter puts in the effort, they too can probably figure out ways to get permission to run hoounds on a series of tracts of land and largely avoid problems.

Of course the ultimate irony is that you get lots of folks that throw a temper tantrum at the thought of coon hounds or coyote hounds on their land. But the same people will turn around and complain when the coons are eating up their sweet corn or the coyotes are killing their pets and livestock.

I own land in two counties in Illinois and whether or not some coonhunters dog runs across my property or trees up in it is WAY down on my list of worries. In most cases, considering all the usual noise from local yard dogs barking, coyotes howling, and the sounds of heaters and appliances running in a house, you would have to have a whole pack of hounds with the coon treed up iright in your backyard to even know that the coonhunters are around.

wihunter1388

chickenrunn...when i first started coonhunting i had less than 200 acres to hunt as time progressed i started talking to different land owners, left the box in the back of the truck and other land owners asked me to go on there land and get rid of the coons. You still will get the answer no they chase away there deer but cant do nothing about it. Almost everyone in my area knows that i go out hunting and try to keep them on the land i can hunt and if im gona hunt near a house do it early enough so they can sleep at a decent hour by either hearing my dogs or having a dog in the yard that will bark while im ou there. But most times when i go out on land im not suppose to be on and dogs are treed ill keep my light off and grab them quick. I know thats not what your suppose to do but with a couple wolf sightings and yote packs in the area i will not take the chance ill take the fine before losing a dog.