Registered: Jun 2003
Location:
Posts: 737

I've heard guys talk about this but not seen it too much until now with the new dog I am hunting.

Seen her last night strike in a small woods and I am standing in a bean field on the side of this woods. She works the track to the bean field and once there, picks her head up and goes flying across this field with her head up a couple hundred yards and never makes a bark until she goes across the road into another woods, she opens and moves the track another 150 yards or more and comes treed.

I started to think she was running something off but I was watching and she wasn't running something off by sight...nothing was there.

Why silent across a field? She seems to put her nose down in the woods.....

Talk to me about this....

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Registered: Sep 2013
Location: Shiloh, OH
Posts: 264

I have a female that wil do the same thing when she winds one. I have even been close enough to her to see her running on her back legs with her head in the air when she is close to a layup.

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Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Weyers Cave Va
Posts: 13413

I've seen a lot of deer dogs that would shut up when they hit an open field like that. I have no ideal why they do it.

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Registered: Dec 2012
Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 2027

I would think it's hard to gather a lot from just this one night.

If I had to guess, she smelled something through the air currents and was just following her nose.

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Registered: Jan 2006
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Posts: 139

My coyote hounds do this. Drifting the track. They will run off the track with their head in the air

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Registered: Oct 2013
Location: Maryland
Posts: 2633

Yep, what you are describing is more drifting the track than running with head up. The difference is like when a real deer burner jumps one red hot. There is so much scent in the air that he doesn't have to follow "foot scent" he can just run. But they usually do that wide open barking unless the dog is silent.
Drifting is when a dog has a good hot track and runs usually silent to try and catch up closer to the animal. Not all dogs do it, not all hunters want their dog to do it. But it is a sign of an intelligent dog. He is smart enough to know that if he shuts up and gains ground {drifts} he can get close enough to force the animal to tree. If you see the dog and animal tracks in the snow it will look like the dog is cutting corners or taking short cuts to catch up. I don't know if all dogs are trying to really get the animal to climb but some of them sure seem so. I think it's done just to try and catch the thing they are running.
One things for sure, no matter what you call it, it is rare to hav ea dog good enough to do it.
Most of the time, a dog can only run certain animals that produce enough scent to run with their heads up...like a red fox or a deer. The conditions have to really be right for a dog to seem like they are running a coon with their head up. Some dogs are running foot scent, but they are so fast at it that it would seem they are running with their head up. It takes a very gamey cold nosed dog that can really run a track to soound like that consistently.

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Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Central Michigan
Posts: 6544

Drifting doesn't have to be on hot scent. Typically, dogs that I have owned that drift run with their heads up. They will run often times down wind of the actual track. In the winter when there is snow it isn't uncommon to see them 10-20 yards down wind of the actual track. When drifting style track dog makes a loss they tend to circle and increase the size of the circle to quickly pick up a track. A more tracking style dog tends to slow down and get more methodical circling with their head down vacuuming the ground.

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Registered: May 2008
Location: Gillett, Pa
Posts: 1876

quote:

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Originally posted by Larry Atherton
Drifting doesn't have to be on hot scent. Typically, dogs that I have owned that drift run with their heads up. They will run often times down wind of the actual track. In the winter when there is snow it isn't uncommon to see them 10-20 yards down wind of the actual track. When drifting style track dog makes a loss they tend to circle and increase the size of the circle to quickly pick up a track. A more tracking style dog tends to slow down and get more methodical circling with their head down vacuuming the ground.

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Registered: Dec 2012
Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 2027

quote:

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Originally posted by Larry Atherton
Drifting doesn't have to be on hot scent. Typically, dogs that I have owned that drift run with their heads up. They will run often times down wind of the actual track. In the winter when there is snow it isn't uncommon to see them 10-20 yards down wind of the actual track. When drifting style track dog makes a loss they tend to circle and increase the size of the circle to quickly pick up a track. A more tracking style dog tends to slow down and get more methodical circling with their head down vacuuming the ground.

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Registered: Dec 2014
Location:
Posts: 14

To me hounds tree alot more layup coons , hard to tree coons , and swamp cooons with their heads up . they dont beat tracks to death ! thats why i ll take a heads up dog anyday !!!

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Registered: Jul 2013
Location: Franklin County, VA
Posts: 388

One of our best bear dogs runs everything off the wind unless its real cold. If you get close enough to see him runnin the track his heads always in the air and he doesn't run exactly on the track. Now if its fairly cold he'll put his nose to the ground and run the track. But when he brings a bear across the road and he's say 300 yards behind it, he doesn't cross right where the bear crossed, he crosses 30 or 40 yards up or down the road usually, head in the air.

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Registered: Dec 2013
Location:
Posts: 71

hey shane a lot of the old Lookout Luke bred dogs ran a track with there head up and could move a track fast that way. Ilike em.

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Registered: Jan 2007
Location: Al
Posts: 3070

any smart hound should do this if the cent is good, why waist time bumping their head in the mud , pick it and go I say

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Registered: Sep 2014
Location: Moline Illinois
Posts: 407

many dogs don't have a good enough nose to wind one like that- many need to smell the stronger scent on the ground.
I like a dog that will wind them and drift the track- they are definitely faster dogs on a track.
And I agree with MSINC... a dog that shuts up is SMART and I will add that those dogs are the ones that catch em on the ground a lot. I just lost a hound that would shut up on a track and force the coon up a tiny little tree if she didn't catch him first!

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Registered: Jan 2013
Location: Quaker City Ohio
Posts: 280

I have a young dog that runs with his head a foot off the ground constantly and a coon treeing son of a gun.....hunts on a dead run hot tracks never says a word even cold tracks I've never seen his nose on the ground and I've been on top of him a few times watching and deadly accurate... Saw him stand on back legs for 10 seconds and less than a minute later be treed 200 yards away with the meat...the last 25 times he has treed had 21 coon 2 big dens and 2 grape vine messes..I. Just hate that he is that tight mouthed but I can live with it....he has been like this since I've had him at a year old on a turn loose 20 mins before he came out of the truck his nose never touched the ground and was always very close to the track the coon laid

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