UKC Forums - Coon vs circle trees

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Posted by pamjohnson on 09-29-2020 02:21 PM:

Coon vs circle trees

I have noticed a very favorable trend in less slick treeing and more coon treed in all breeds , hunts etc
I'm curious what everyone thinks the reason may be for this trend? Breeding, training, thermal imagery, hunt rules?

Posted by nextcoonhunters on 09-29-2020 03:12 PM:

85% or more

JMO
If you have a dog that around here year round you see 85% or more of the coons it trees, it's not working old cold tracks. It's looking for a coon not a track. Moving quickly usually tighter on the ground and popping up a coon. We have brush piles, field tiles, holes in the ground and den trees down every ditch. So if the old bandits know you're coming they have plenty of opportunities to hide. Kittens and young ones ain't smart yet, but it doesn't take long. Accurateness is a must for most hunters. Yes there's some that think that coons hiding up that corn stock or toothpick, but most know the truth. And the way some dogs range out most ain't walking miles a night to slick trees or that dog will be....
Difference in a slick and a circle, Ukc says the dog gets the benefit of the doubt. But after a few you begin to see the truth. If you're packing a hound that you NEVER see a coon above but it could always be there, either gets you're eyes checked or get a coondog. No dog is so unlucky that every coon makes it home. Some will and do but not everyone. About 20 years ago me and my dad hunted with a dog looking to buy it. First night was rough but the dog run some tracks and treed 3 dens. Nice long tracks come on the tree right and stayed. All and all looked good. We hunted with that dog 4 different nights always the same thing. Dad climbed 2 of the trees the last night. Nothing but an empty hole in those trees. Last time I ran into that guy he still thought the world in all of that cold nosed hound. My opinion of that back track dog ain't changed either. Again no dog is that unlucky.

Posted by shadinc on 09-29-2020 04:32 PM:

I think it's somewhere between 99% and 100% breeding. I read on here all the time about dogs crossing a 200 yard field and treeing a coon. And then another dog can't tell when a coon is 30 feet over his head? A slick treeing dog is a stationary babbler.

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Posted by OLD TIMER on 09-29-2020 07:16 PM:

It's taken some time BUT---

I think I have the start to a winner. I have been working on a hound that will open when he hears another hound and gets with it when it trees. Now with so many being bred/or broke NOT TO TREE with another, it leaves and mine stays. Been putting a lot of time in him making sure there is a coon in the tree when he stays. With the new rule I can just keep turning loose. I have also been working for him to play dead if there's a dog fight at the tree. Pretty hard for a judge to scratch a dead dog??? He's getting that down but we need to get him to find the truck after I take his collar off and we walk away.

If the first statement is true and there's getting to be less slicks, this will be even better for me.

I have seen the breeding change to fit the scorecard for the last 50/60 years. I'm just working it from a little different side.

Have fun and be safe

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Posted by shadinc on 09-29-2020 07:21 PM:

Old Timer, I think you're on the right track. You're taking "training to the rules" to a new level.

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Posted by stevwallace on 09-29-2020 08:25 PM:

Wow.. Old Timer I think you are working on the next World Champion.

Posted by TylerOSU on 09-29-2020 08:37 PM:

IMO

I haven't been in the game as long as others. I haven't seen those dogs from the 70's-early 2000's. But what I know is today's dogs are much much better than they used to be. In the Timothy Ball era there wasn't "nice" dogs around every corner. There were still scorchers but most were below average. Today id give the dogs a grade of a B. In these casts nearly every dog can tree a coon on its own at any given time. With the being said I think dogs "run" coons now not "trail" them up. Those hot nosed ambush dogs maybe aren't ambush dogs after all? Maybe they can just run a track so well others think they are? Back to the post I think that's the argument here. Dogs today are quicker, like stated before coons don't have as much time to hide or find a spot to disappear. I happen to own a dog that makes maybe 8-10 den trees the whole year. I promise you she will have them inside when she does. Every time I walk into the tree I expect to see eyes!

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Posted by stevwallace on 09-29-2020 08:57 PM:

In 70's here (East Tennessee) there were few coons here. We made trips to Georgia. Now got 10 to 12 in back yard. No way to compare the dog had then to dog have now. Easy to see how old track your dog will run ..turn cage coon loose give it a hour and see what happens. Give it two hours with track starting in open field ( mark coon so you will know dog didn't switch tracks) then get ready to see what you got.

Posted by yadkinriver on 09-29-2020 09:01 PM:

Tyler you are right. The dogs from the 70's till the late 90's that were coondogs were track running accurate dogs. Then came along a top reproducer that you could breed to a billygoat and get tree dogs. trailing type dogs that loved to tree. Pet one up treeing as a pup and you had a green eyed treeing machine that didn't even need a coon to show off. Money hunters fell in love with them during the summer because they made trees, not necessarily eyes. He even had a son just like him or even more so. People even doubled up on these top treedog reproducers and got more tree and trailing. Been around twenty years now and this blood is getting watered down some and some track is starting to show back up. Hopefully people will keep breeding track back into the dogs so they can finally get back to the end of the track.

Posted by TylerOSU on 09-29-2020 09:07 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by yadkinriver
Tyler you are right. The dogs from the 70's till the late 90's that were coondogs were track running accurate dogs. Then came along a top reproducer that you could breed to a billygoat and get tree dogs. trailing type dogs that loved to tree. Pet one up treeing as a pup and you had a green eyed treeing machine that didn't even need a coon to show off. Money hunters fell in love with them during the summer because they made trees, not necessarily eyes. He even had a son just like him or even more so. People even doubled up on these top treedog reproducers and got more tree and trailing. Been around twenty years now and this blood is getting watered down some and some track is starting to show back up. Hopefully people will keep breeding track back into the dogs so they can finally get back to the end of the track.

I've heard too many stories of people building fires and loved listening to the hounds run a track down the holler and an hour later get treed. If mine trails for an hour today I want to shoot it...

Posted by stevwallace on 09-29-2020 09:19 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by TylerOSU
I've heard too many stories of people building fires and loved listening to the hounds run a track down the holler and an hour later get treed. If mine trails for an hour today I want to shoot it...

I agree with that ...those dogs that run track at 12 miles per hour would have gone a good ways by then

Posted by yadkinriver on 09-29-2020 09:48 PM:

Those were not Walkers! Well maybe not walkers. We used to have a little fox trouble with them. If we got after a fox then a fire was possible lol.

Posted by T Felderman on 09-29-2020 10:00 PM:

More coon in every part of the country today than years ago. No reason to have a trailer, just need one to hunt harder, faster and quicker.

Not saying that's good or bad. Just an observation.

Posted by Preacher Tom on 09-29-2020 11:46 PM:

Tyler I hunted a lot in the 60's and 70's and I heard the old timers talk about building fires but I never saw it happen. Shoot we were too busy driving section lines trying to stay up with or get ahead of them. Now they weren't always running a coon but we had dogs back then that could make a track move. We did have a little trouble getting most of them to tree good. The difference I see today is that these dogs will tree a lot hot coons, lay up coons but some of them do struggle on a truly cold track and a lot will go on and find something better and I don't fault them for that. Just how I see it after more than 60 years following these hounds.

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Posted by shadinc on 09-29-2020 11:54 PM:

I remember building lots of fires. In 1980 I bought a 2 year old dog out of Finley River Banjo. I haven't built a fire since.

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Posted by pamjohnson on 09-30-2020 01:08 AM:

I have always felt that training has a lot to do with accuracy. My reason for this is because the same fellows that have accurate dogs always have accurate dogs and the same fellows that have slick treers generally always has slick trees. Now i do agree breeding certainly plays a role but regardless of breeding the fellow holding the leash plays a big role in the end result. I have seen it time and time again.

I also think the hunting rules are also making a big difference. As these dogs are rewarded for being alone and thinking for themselves instead of just packing up and treeing together. When they are alone there more likely to have the coon and they better because if there alone there more acceptable to take on minus points.

Posted by OLD TIMER on 09-30-2020 01:18 AM:

I see that---

some of you are from Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas where I'm guessing you don't hunt on frozen ground, I am not talking temps below 32 degrees, but ground you can't get a shovel in because the top 6 inches are as hard as a rock. Temps in November of 0 to 20 degrees and frost covering the grass.

I'm not to sure that your 30 MPH "track" dog would really look to good up here. And WHERE do you guys come up with this BS that the hounds of the 60's and 70's were not tree hounds??? My first Bluetick in 1956 treed 5 hours one night before I could get to her. My first Reg. Redbone treed until you got to him in the 60's, never left a tree. And a son of that first female and a Reg Bluetick out of Dean's first stock treed all night on an island until I got them off at 7 AM. So you can blow all the smoke you want about "better tree dogs today" but I don't buy that.
I'm not sure what color you are hunting, but I know there were some darn nice Walkers in that time that were good tree hounds, Blues and I know of a couple strains of Reds that still haven't lost their ability to tree in style.
As Coach Lou Holtz once said, "I've been 30-40 and 50 already, you haven't been 70 yet"

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Posted by Dave Richards on 09-30-2020 04:26 AM:

Re: I see that---

quote:
Originally posted by OLD TIMER
some of you are from Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas where I'm guessing you don't hunt on frozen ground, I am not talking temps below 32 degrees, but ground you can't get a shovel in because the top 6 inches are as hard as a rock. Temps in November of 0 to 20 degrees and frost covering the grass.

I'm not to sure that your 30 MPH "track" dog would really look to good up here. And WHERE do you guys come up with this BS that the hounds of the 60's and 70's were not tree hounds??? My first Bluetick in 1956 treed 5 hours one night before I could get to her. My first Reg. Redbone treed until you got to him in the 60's, never left a tree. And a son of that first female and a Reg Bluetick out of Dean's first stock treed all night on an island until I got them off at 7 AM. So you can blow all the smoke you want about "better tree dogs today" but I don't buy that.
I'm not sure what color you are hunting, but I know there were some darn nice Walkers in that time that were good tree hounds, Blues and I know of a couple strains of Reds that still haven't lost their ability to tree in style.
As Coach Lou Holtz once said, "I've been 30-40 and 50 already, you haven't been 70 yet"

X2. Dave

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Posted by Redneck Mafia on 09-30-2020 06:33 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by yadkinriver
Those were not Walkers! Well maybe not walkers. We used to have a little fox trouble with them. If we got after a fox then a fire was possible lol.

They were redbones that Cheyenne hunted with.There were no roads to drive around on and they would hunt from dusk till daylight walking those hills when dogs got treed. This would have been in the 70's and into the early 80's. People would come from all over to hunt with these dogs. He says he can't ever remember them slick treeing it just quite often took them awhile to get treed, hence the need for a fire. They carried an axe for chopping into dens and the kids climbed the trees to knock out the coons that were on the outside the dogs did the rest. They were poor people from the Buffalo hills of SW Mo and hides were high. He still loves those hills and until he fell out of a tree in his 30's never carried a rifle hunting. At the time as a kid he thought those campfire dogs with that accuracy and would get treed were the best around as I'm sure many of you at the time with those memories did. Dogs have evolved as have the men hunting them. Those hills and the tracks in them are still the same and there are still very few roads but we no longer need a fire and a pack of dogs to tree them. As for hunting the frozen tundra the man has hunted I would estimate nearly 5 night a week for 40 some years and I remember many times he would put baby crew socks on the dogs to go out in the ice.
The 80's evolution of more independence, added tree power and the competition hunts really coming into it's height imo changed the way coonhunters thought. The technology of the last decade brought to light a lot more information on what a dog is actually doing in the woods where you at one time gave a dog the benefit of the doubt you no longer do. Where you once just wanted a dog that treed coons you now want it all in one package. Accuracy, speed, mouth, handle, independence and complete indifference to all going on around him.
Fyi he discovered walkers too lol more as a rebellion against those reds, the blues of his hunting buddies and his brothers English dogs though he will tell you there were some really nice ones in the group even by his standards today. I know personally he has been following the exact kind of dog he has today for at least 28 years. He likes coons in the trees and not take all night to get it done with independence before it was even a thing (his dad hated his dogs lol)

The answer to your question evolution through breeding for specific traits. The beginning meat dogs to run wild game and tree quarry, when Harry met Sally but basically mutts who hunted. Next select breeding that began breeds defined by color, a set back for the first (also why some breeds were slower in progression, to much for "standards" not enough for hunting traits). Over compensation to get the tree power back (lost accuracy and track). The reality of this and then getting back to select breeding for it. Other breeds are now looking for the speed that others have gained is happening today. Losing over saturation of a small group of advertised studs has helped disburse bloodlines that though they may share common bloodlines have made a "soup" that has put more balance overall. All this is why imho is why it is not hard to find a dog that can consistently tree a coon by itself. The search may still continue for many on the all the eggs in one basket. Now then if you can put many of these pups and tech of today in those hands of the coonhunters of yesteryear what could you achieve? Knowledge attached to worn out boots, most those dogs that are the package deal got their start with them.

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Posted by Bruce m. Conkey on 09-30-2020 01:01 PM:

Enjoying this post.

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Posted by Kler Kry on 09-30-2020 01:50 PM:

Dog Faults

When I started hunting in the 60's if you had a false treer, back tracker, aggressive tree dog or a dog that wouldn't stay treed no one would hunt with you for fear of ruining their good dog. Hunters didn't want to take time to correct your dog if they picked up a bad habit from yours. No shocking collars made it more difficult.
If you point a finger you have three pointing at the problem as we have accepted the problems and thus are part of the cause.
Dogs are faster and quicker, but in order for most dogs to be faster they must run hotter tracks.
There NEVER has been many cold nosed dogs with the ability to be FAST. Just my opinion, Ken Risley

Posted by pamjohnson on 09-30-2020 02:09 PM:

Some of the new technology has changed the game an awful lot like shocking and tracking collars. Wow what a difference in the dogs and hunting. I feel like thermal imaging may be our sports next big change. If it is,I also think accuracy will be more important than ever in the history of our sport.

Posted by novicane65 on 09-30-2020 02:40 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by T Felderman
More coon in every part of the country today than years ago. No reason to have a trailer, just need one to hunt harder, faster and quicker.

Not saying that's good or bad. Just an observation.

I guess my part of the country is different then. Because our coon population isn't what it used to be. Our farmers have quit farming and so the crops aren't here, in which case the coons have died off a bunch. And we had diseases run through also. But going back before 1990 or so we had a great coon population. Now talking to "old timers" about the dogs of yesteryear, the guys recall the "good" very well and don't remember the bad as well though. Now days the dogs do run tracks that are hotter in general I'd say. But if cold nosed dogs is what you want with today's dogs you can find it. You can also find very similar dogs of yesteryear to hunt, thanks to technology like the internet. There's plenty of junk out there still, but there's also some great all in 1 package types too. Its all in what you as a hunter wants to hunt.

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Posted by TylerOSU on 09-30-2020 03:41 PM:

The only argument I have and have had is that today we have more technology then we've ever had. We literally know a dogs every move, every chromosome, everything about them. IF dogs were in fact better 30-40 years ago then y'all have FAILED in breeding them. Makes 0 sense to me. I get there are 1000 different traits we are breeding for and factors that effect it, but overall hounds should be better. I feel like they are today, anymore you rarely draw a dog that cant at least tree a coon...

Posted by Dave Richards on 09-30-2020 04:19 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by TylerOSU
The only argument I have and have had is that today we have more technology then we've ever had. We literally know a dogs every move, every chromosome, everything about them. IF dogs were in fact better 30-40 years ago then y'all have FAILED in breeding them. Makes 0 sense to me. I get there are 1000 different traits we are breeding for and factors that effect it, but overall hounds should be better. I feel like they are today, anymore you rarely draw a dog that cant at least tree a coon...

Tyler, you are correct, I have been hunting over 55 years and I DEFINITELY know today's dogs are much better across the board. I have seen and hunted top coon dogs from the 70's until now the 2020 era and I see way more decent dogs today than back in the early years. Today's dogs are naturally cleaner dogs, do not run as much trash and most can tree coons by themselves and start at an early age. It was a rarity to see any dog that could tree a coon by themselves under one year old back in the day. Dave

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