Coonhounds what's your favorite
 

What your guys favorite coonhounds and why. And some stories about your dogs would be cool.

The dogs are best in the world.

Treeing Walker Coonhounds, followed by Blue Tick's. My favorite coon DOG breed is Jack Russel Terrier, but you asked about coonhounds, not coon dogs.

There's not enough server space in the world for me to start telling our coon hunting stories! Seems like no matter how many times we go out, something new and exciting is bound to happen. When I was in middle school through college, and until I moved a couple years after college, we'd go out 3-4 nights a week all through season. I don't have dogs of my own right now at the house, but my cousins, BIL/Sister, and dad still own/raise/hunt hounds, so I get back home a bunch and make it out with the dogs quite a bit during season.

I'm terrible about taking pictures, just never think to do it, but here are a few I do have online from over the years.

My wife took a pic when we got back last winter after a night my dad, BIL, and a old rodeo buddy went out:



A pile of carcasses and pelts taken over our Walker Hounds or by our Jack's, about a months worth of hunts:



Hero pic with our Jack's and Patterdales after a good day pushing coons out of old barn/grainery foundations:



Here's a pic after my son's first coon hunting trip this winter over a pair of my BIL's dogs:

hey thinks for the info and looks like some good dogs. I want to start coon hunting or maybe coyote and boar. So I am looking into the breeds and was thinking about getting some walkers when I can get the money and I finish school. I am going to start college in a year. so buy the time that I start and finish college I hope to get some hounds and some exprence with hunting with them. Do you have any experience with Plott hounds?Do you know any breeders in Missouri or Arkansas?Do the Jacks catch or tree the coons?Thinks for the infomation.

I generally recommend against new hound hunters buying new/young/green hounds. You'll be learning how to hunt and learning how to train hounds, so plain and simple - you will be a crappy teacher for a new/young/green hound.

Everyone wants a pup to start out with and learn together, but it generally doesn't work out well, and the dog is the one which suffers the most to have an inexperienced trainer.

Find a local to hunt with, learn how to hunt before you ever consider buying a dog. Then either buy a proven dog, or buy a pup and ONLY hunt him with your local guy's proven dogs. Dogs learn from eachother 100 times faster and 100 times better from other dogs than they ever will from a human. Dogs don't learn well from trainers who don't know how to train - remember that, at admit that about yourself before you ruin a potentially good dog (or 2, or 10).

I've hunted with more, but I've only owned exactly two Plotts. One was meant for hunting, relatively disappointing as a coon hound, which is why I don't have him any more. The other was a stray which showed up at the ranch, he made a better cattle dog than he ever did a coonhound. I know guys who do well with Plotts as boarhounds, but I've never seen one hunt fur like a proper coonhound. I would recommend against them for coon hunting.

I would recommend AGAINST trying to have your dogs hunt multiple species. A master of all is a master of none, and it's hard for a dog to understand whether he's hunting one thing today, or another tomorrow.

[QUOTE=Kai;4258991]Do you know any breeders in Missouri or Arkansas?

Not any more, but they're pretty easy to find.

Jack's aren't a 1 for 1 replacement for hounds, they're a completely different tool. It's kinda like a rifle compared to a handgun in how they hunt and kill.

It's not their instinct to track and tree coons and they don't have the nose for tracking which hounds have, but they will learn to do track and tree as they hunt with the hounds. Since their short little legs can't keep up with the longer legged hounds on the run, they tend to walk along with us and hunt at a shorter range than the hounds.

Terrier instinct (bred-in) is to go to ground and kill furry stuff, so they tend to be a little less selective for species at first than hounds, and they're more prone to run off and kill wood rats and opossums in the middle of a hunt than the hounds. But when the hounds put a coon in a hole in a creek bank, the hounds stay outside and bay, while the Jacks run in after it.

Where they really shine is during daytime hunting. They're bred to fit where hounds can't, like in holes in banks or under old barn foundations. The picture taken on the tailgate with our Jack's were all killed by the jacks during the day under a grainery and barn foundations at a few abandoned farmsteads I own. Any day after a big nightfall snow, we'll hit old farmsteads and run coons out from under the buildings. We've pulled coons out of the attics in abandoned homes too - stick the Jack's up into the attic and they'll bring them down, either dragging them dead, or with the coon chasing them, mad as he11.

Their little jaws are high pressure and their teeth a lot smaller/pointier than that of a hound. A couple Jack's killing a coon will perforate the pelt like crazy if you don't get them off of it pretty quickly. They're more apt to get drowned by a coon in deep water than a hound dog (got wet more than once saving my dogs from being drowned), and they're a lot more agile in the fight - as well as a lot less cautious. Most hounds will surround a coon and bay until it trees, or wait until a few of them can get a quick stretch together, but jack's will usually bail in on it whether they're alone or not. Odd as it sounds, the jacks are more prone to kill one alone too, since they're more agile.

It's a totally different hunt when using them alone, but when using them together, it's highly efficient.

[QUOTE=Nomercy448;4259245]I generally recommend against new hound hunters buying new/young/green hounds. You'll be learning how to hunt and learning how to train hounds, so plain and simple - you will be a crappy teacher for a new/young/green hound.

Everyone wants a pup to start out with and learn together, but it generally doesn't work out well, and the dog is the one which suffers the most to have an inexperienced trainer.

Find a local to hunt with, learn how to hunt before you ever consider buying a dog. Then either buy a proven dog, or buy a pup and ONLY hunt him with your local guy's proven dogs. Dogs learn from eachother 100 times faster and 100 times better from other dogs than they ever will from a human. Dogs don't learn well from trainers who don't know how to train - remember that, at admit that about yourself before you ruin a potentially good dog (or 2, or 10).



I've hunted with more, but I've only owned exactly two Plotts. One was meant for hunting, relatively disappointing as a coon hound, which is why I don't have him any more. The other was a stray which showed up at the ranch, he made a better cattle dog than he ever did a coonhound. I know guys who do well with Plotts as boarhounds, but I've never seen one hunt fur like a proper coonhound. I would recommend against them for coon hunting.



I would recommend AGAINST trying to have your dogs hunt multiple species. A master of all is a master of none, and it's hard for a dog to understand whether he's hunting one thing today, or another tomorrow.


Thanks for the info I plan to get some experience hunting with the dogs and then after I get one train it with experienced dogs or I would get an experienced dog. I would like a breed thats good at both coons and bigger game. But I would use the dogs for one or the other and not both.

Thanks for telling me how you used the Jacks I was curious how you used them.

My favorite is blue ticks though I've never owned any coon hounds I've run w a bunch. I just love the big bawl mouth on em.
Walkers as great as they can be seem more trashy though it could only be the strains ive run with. One minute running a bear, next a coon, rabbit, moose, deer, etc. I've only only owned beagles for hounds n if they weren't straight theyd live elsewhere. Not cursing anyone's favorite just explaining why blue ticks to me trump walkers which are a second fav to me.

what are some of your experience with the blue ticks. Like hunting stories or just some common things you have seen hunting with them.

Never owned a blue tick but did most of my hunting with a Redbone - have hunted in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia - the hunts in Virginia were done a lot in the swamps and you needed to have hip boots because of the snakes. I went to a lot of night hunts, never entered my dog but liked to see the treeing contests, and dog shows. There was always a few dogs (if they resembled a coon dog) that guys had picked up at their local dog shelters and brought to the event and sold as first class coonhounds - the BS was always in great quantity and I heard that it was not uncommon for a hunter to mark another hunter's dog during the night hunt, Some of my fondest memories were of chasing the dogs and hoping they were not treeing a slick tree.

When I was growing up in Indiana in the early 50s we had a great male Bluetick and a female Black/Tan that Dad ran a lot and made quite a bit of pocket money when pelts were going at pretty good prices.