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Wet or dry ?

Around 50 years ago before I figured out what an outstanding coonhound was, a well renowned hunter told me that most people would say you couldn't tree coons when it was really dry but if you kept records it might surprise me. So I did and was surprising how it came out. I was wondering what yall thought will you tree more coons in the mud or the dust? I am especially interested in the comments of Old Timer and Shadinc and Reuben. Thanks for reading.

Home field advantage??

A good hound will take them as they come to them I feel.

The big problem is with the owner of hounds today, regardless of the game being hunted. “Most” have gotten into the number game. Be it a score on a card or how many are piled in the back of the truck box.

Who sets on a log and lets a hound or hounds work a track anymore and lets the hound learn how to work it out. How many hunt regardless if it’s dry, windy or the ground is bare and frozen?

Coyote hunters may be the worse. Their hounds lose a track, they are toning them back to the road to load and go to another spot instead of setting on a log and let them work until they figure it out. Raccoon hunters are a close second by now hunting ambush hounds.



Hunters are as bad at raising hounds today as parents are at raising kids. I drove school bus in 1969-1972 and again from 2011-2021. I have hunted 1955-today. I have seen it first hand.

Bottom line, a good hound will learn to tree or run on dry ground or wet ground. Both will be impossible to a poorly trained hound and possible with one that was given the chance to learn. But if you are one that wants a ribbon because your hound participated, join today’s parents. In real life there is a winner and loser every turn out. Hound opens and works until game is treed or caught it’s the winner, if not then the game we were after is the winner. Pretty simple rules.

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OLD TIMER

Dry conditions

I hunt western South Dakota. Dry, even powdery dust at times.
I picked up a heavy jet/ Utchman bluetick out of Mike Harward’s willing and able dog.
A lot a titled dogs in her pedigree and she gets it done out here consistently.
They go thru blowdowns, swim the Cheyenne river, bump trees and in and out of beaver bank dens. At 4, she is well seasoned because I let her look bad when she was young and helped where I could to work thru her missteps. Lots of shoe leather and time. And patience. 🙄
I took her back east this spring and she held her own hunting her with gr nt and nt champion studs I was considering breeding her with. She ain’t a one in a lifetime dog but she can eat my feed.
I grew up in the late seventies hunting acha , 4 hour, 40-60 dog hunts. She could have competed. Took a track last night 1.14 miles with the fur on the outside😁

Dry conditions

I am a coonhunter, bragged on my dog a little, sorry.

I said all that to say this: many here say east river dogs don’t look good when they come over to this part of the state, west river.
I think if your dog Is raised and trained in these conditions that makes a big difference and they will get the job done in wet conditions also.

I'm with Old Timer. I can sit on a log and let one trail and I do. If lion dogs can learn to trail, ours surely can. The top priority in a hound for me is accuracy. I don't want to sit on that log for an hour and look at a sapling with 4 leaves on it. I said this in a previous post. I have a male dog that hunts hard and wide. I trained him alone and every coon he treed was far away and not much track. I started hunting him with my cold nosed female and now he trails and doesn't strike out of hearing.(Which ain't very far, (I'me 82 and have hearing aids) As far as dry hunting, last year was a very dry year. I think I looked as many coons as ever.

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Donald Bergeron

Shadinc, Now you're getting to the point I needed to make. After I kept records for a couple of years and that was hunting almost every night and every condition imaginal the dust condition won out but after I found the good dog it didn't seem to matter much about the weather or temperature or anything else, he even seemed to tree coons where folks said there wasn't any coons lol. So they must be easier to tree away from the mud who would've thought it!

I used to hunt with a friend once in a while…his style was very different than mine…he also had some of my line of dogs I would give him a pup or two when he needed dogs to strike and find…so it is safe to say some of the dogs he hunted had fairly good noses about like my dogs…
It was really hard for me to hunt with him because of his way of hunting his dogs which I thought would set my young dogs back on their hunting style…he turned out his dogs and would immediately take off…the dogs seemed more interested in keeping up with him and would not hunt as wide…his dogs didn’t strike off the rig…and they only took hot tracks…

In the hot summer time during dry conditions his dogs ran over the tracks going into a corn field…I would be bringing up the rear…my dogs would open 2 or 3 times and it wouldn’t be long they had one bayed in the middle of the corn field…this happened regularly…he held two jobs and that was the main reason he hunted his dogs that way…

I say the difference in how my dogs took a track is how I hunted them…normally if I am roading them I wait on them to work a cold track this way their total focus is on straightening the track out or if they come back we either move on or move down wind further down and retry the track again…always giving them the opportunity to work as long as they want…this taught them to use their noses to the best of their ability…

My dogs worked both wet and dry…I very seldom hunted south or west Texas where it gets really dry and hot but my dogs did as well as anyone who hunted regularly in those areas…
I’ll just say I know what a good hunting dog is and a good dog can hold their own in any company…

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Training dogs is not so much about quantity, it's more about timing, and the right situations...After that it's up to the dog....A hunting dog is born...

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Originally posted by 2ol2hunt
Shadinc, Now you're getting to the point I needed to make. After I kept records for a couple of years and that was hunting almost every night and every condition imaginal the dust condition won out but after I found the good dog it didn't seem to matter much about the weather or temperature or anything else, he even seemed to tree coons where folks said there wasn't any coons lol. So they must be easier to tree away from the mud who would've thought it!

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Donald Bergeron

My records showed that the dogs slick a good bit in the mud but very seldom in the dust, we thought maybe a little to much scent in the water and mud 🤔