Post by Dave1 on Dec 15, 2003 20:31:24 GMT -5
The weekend started out good. Friday morning before daylight I had the Cur dogs loaded and was driving down to the south end of my hunt lease property in Central Fla. Even before I got out of the truck I could see hog tracks all over the dirt jeep trail road. Closer inspection revealed that several average to big size hogs had walked on that road during the night. I was thinking to myself this was going to be a good weekend.
As daylight was breaking I was getting the dogs collared up and ready to hunt when I saw a caravan of trucks coming my way and much to my disappointment here came the entire hunt club of deer dog hunters. They had a planned deer hunt in the same area so to avoid any possible contamination of my Cur dogs, I moved on.
Later in the morning I found one track leading off into a big bay/swamp area near our property line and decided to try it with one dog. I collared up "Elvis", my young red Fla Cur dog, with a wide cut collar and long range tracking collar and started toward the bay. Elvis picked up the track immediately and quickly disappeared running silently and trailing the big hog everywhere he walked during the night. I waited, expecting to hear the dog go to baying at any moment somewhere out in that bay but I heard nothing.
30 then 45 minutes went by and still not a sound. This is very unusual for Elvis to stay out this long. He either finds and bays the hog quickly or comes back if the hog is not close by or if trail is not fresh enough to follow thru the mud and water.
I was getting concerned for the dog at the one hour mark. I was worried that he could have been cut up by the big hog and not able to get back to me or got gator caught or snake bit, etc. (A hunting dog owner worries about these kinds of things when his dog is gone)
I had started back to the truck to get the tracking receiver and was going in there after him when I heard him coming, running thru the swamp back to where we had started. He was exhausted and collapsed at my feet. My guess is he trailed and found the hog but the hog ran instead of baying up and fighting the dog. A "runner" (as we call them) in a place like that is hard for a single dog to catch but judging from his exhausted state, he must have ran him a long way trying to get him stopped.
Saturday I didn't find any good fresh sign to hunt, probably because of all of the recent deer dog hunter activity. Because it was supposed to start raining Saturday night then rain all day Sunday, I decided to come home early. It rained most of the day Sunday so I played on the computer, watched football games, checked my favorite hunt forums, and cat napped off and on. A lazy day.
Final score for the weekend was Hogs = 1, Dave and Cur dogs = 0.
Dave1
As daylight was breaking I was getting the dogs collared up and ready to hunt when I saw a caravan of trucks coming my way and much to my disappointment here came the entire hunt club of deer dog hunters. They had a planned deer hunt in the same area so to avoid any possible contamination of my Cur dogs, I moved on.
Later in the morning I found one track leading off into a big bay/swamp area near our property line and decided to try it with one dog. I collared up "Elvis", my young red Fla Cur dog, with a wide cut collar and long range tracking collar and started toward the bay. Elvis picked up the track immediately and quickly disappeared running silently and trailing the big hog everywhere he walked during the night. I waited, expecting to hear the dog go to baying at any moment somewhere out in that bay but I heard nothing.
30 then 45 minutes went by and still not a sound. This is very unusual for Elvis to stay out this long. He either finds and bays the hog quickly or comes back if the hog is not close by or if trail is not fresh enough to follow thru the mud and water.
I was getting concerned for the dog at the one hour mark. I was worried that he could have been cut up by the big hog and not able to get back to me or got gator caught or snake bit, etc. (A hunting dog owner worries about these kinds of things when his dog is gone)
I had started back to the truck to get the tracking receiver and was going in there after him when I heard him coming, running thru the swamp back to where we had started. He was exhausted and collapsed at my feet. My guess is he trailed and found the hog but the hog ran instead of baying up and fighting the dog. A "runner" (as we call them) in a place like that is hard for a single dog to catch but judging from his exhausted state, he must have ran him a long way trying to get him stopped.
Saturday I didn't find any good fresh sign to hunt, probably because of all of the recent deer dog hunter activity. Because it was supposed to start raining Saturday night then rain all day Sunday, I decided to come home early. It rained most of the day Sunday so I played on the computer, watched football games, checked my favorite hunt forums, and cat napped off and on. A lazy day.
Final score for the weekend was Hogs = 1, Dave and Cur dogs = 0.
Dave1