Gearing Down Or Cold Trailing ?

[WELLS WOODS]

They can trail an old trail silent until they're sure it's going to produce game. Hunting hard in likely cover & using that good nose to wind rabbits will produce more that barking on old tracks that usually don't produce.

[outrider66]

This post wasn't about a dog trying every track in the woods and not producing ! heres an example ,I went hunting with a guy several yrs ago and we were hunting up
a thick ditch line between 2 sets of woods we jumped a rabbit that circled around us and ran through an open woods out of sight , dogs struck ahead of us and went
opposite direction into a big cut out woods and began circling that rabbit up in there. we moved up and ended up killing the rabbit. an hour had passed and on the way
out my female opens on that rabbit . and he said she was cold trailing and he didn't like it. she ran at a slower than normal pace and was almost out of hearing before
it got hot enough for his dogs to open! they brought the rabbit back to us for an easy shot with her leading the pack ! I thought it was an outstanding job ! How do you
find fault in that ???? The only way I can see fault would be a field trial situation not an actual hunting situation!!!!! If my dogs are going to jump a rabbit they don't open
till its jumped! But if they can run one I surely don't want them running it silent.

[WELLS WOODS]

A field trial & hunting situation should be one & the same. I would like for a track when hunting to be made more recent than an hour old before my hounds open. I would like them to trail it up silently until it is jumped again, but in this case your hound did a good job because she had the brains to know this wasn't an old feeder track & the rabbit had been jumped fairly recently. More than likely she was up on much hotter scent before she went very far. Rabbits don't run out of hearing without being pursued in the daytime from my experience. That being said, if a hound can produce a rabbit within a few minutes, you can't fault the dog no matter how cold the track is or how much he barks. Judges must give a hound enough time using common sense to prove itself even if it's the only hound barking in the pack. Also, no hound is perfect & a few barks here & there before the rabbit is up should not concern a judge unless the hound continuously keeps trailing without producing. The environment & conditions also play a big part in how much extra mouth you can put up with. With scarce game & tough conditions you would be breeding for a ton of nose & put up with more mouth, but with plenty of game & commonly good conditions with all of the different night feeding tracks that the hounds can smell, you would breed for a ton of brains & a cleaner mouth. I remember a hound that used to run in the Mid-West that ended up finishing after several years of trialing that would get picked up more than half the time for cold trailing. He would open on just about any track he could smell & this led to wasting a lot of time on tracks that never produced a rabbit. I remember one of the trials he did win. It was on an inch of ice & he was the only dog that could smell it on even a freshly jumped rabbit. If this dog was hunted in an environment where scent was always tough, he would be very valuable, but in Kentucky where really tough conditions are rare, he was too mouthy before the rabbit was jumped to have good results. If you let him go on & on, you would waste half the day wondering if he actually had one this time & eventually not even paying attention to him when he opened. What I call gearing down or grubbing a rabbit, is when a rabbit that is up & being ran by the dogs, crosses an area of ground that doesn't hold much scent like dirt, sand, worn out path, etc.. & the dogs have to slow down & concentrate to pick up any scent at all. The hounds should most definitely bark in this situation even if they aren't getting much scent. A judge should be very impressed with a hound that can do this & adjust to conditions especially if they can get up & roll when running in areas where the ground holds a lot of scent.

[outrider66]

LOL! Bring back the ones you would hunt with!

[WELLS WOODS]

lol? I said your hound did a good job, but not every old track is going to lead to a jump. How many rabbits go under ground before daylight & how many lines did that one rabbit make during the night? Just think about hunting in an area with plenty of rabbits & how many tracks back & forth the hounds can smell. Are you saying some dogs know which old tracks will lead them to a jump? Go hunting a few times with a pack of cold trailers & see how miserable you are by noon. Dogs cold trailing an old track down a path passing by tons of good thick cover where the rabbits are hiding. Not saying these dogs don't trail up a rabbit every once in a while, but not consistently enough to want to hunt with this type. Give me the dogs that hunt the brush, not old tracks & when they open, I know to get my gun ready.

[outrider66]

this post wasn't about dogs trying every track in the woods and not producing ! and I don't pack hunt ! I train dogs by themselves ! but will pack them when they are ready!
I think some very experienced hunters & houndsman replied to this post and pretty much said it all in a hunters point of view already ! not from a trialers point of view!
sounds to me like Terry McBride had it figured out ! and I would also like to say he had some very nice looking dogs !

[Alabama John]

Hunting swamps with a lot of water, a coldtrailer will just call all the other dogs to it and stop them hunting. (Ever notice they all seem to have good calling mouths!) They will follow the coldtrailer til it hits water and then it stops and goes off looking for another cold track. Not a better nose, just stupid.
After a while the dogs get use to it and will not go to it. They are no good down here.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

In my first post on this subject I got kind of long winded but I still hope I explained my thoughts accurately.
Make no mistake about it,I am not in favor of hot nosed and tight mouthed hounds !
We all prefer the hounds that perform best in the conditions we have in our area and the conditions we get to hunt in.
When I hear folks say that a hound can run when"no other hound can smell it" when it's ice covered ground and below zero or it's 90 degrees and dust covered.Know what I think? At this point in my hound dogging/hunting life I have no intentions of going hunting in those conditions !!!!! Don't have to and there's too many other good days to go out.Why thrash around when it's that severe?
Truth is that the hounds that can excel in those conditions carry traits that I don't necessarily need or want to put up with on a regular hunting basis.
As Jim Lane pointed out and I quote"I believe there is a limited amount of hounds that can do this and produce in such wicked conditions." I am in total agreement with him.Top snow hounds and top hounds that can trail when no other dog can smell it are few and far between.
Given that and where I live I find myself in agreement with Greg Wells and the several postings he's made on this subject.
If I was hunting in an area like a hare hunting buddy of mine hunts in New Hampshire on deep snow and he says there might be only one or two hare in a big area then I as Greg stated would probably want that cold nosed hound.
Here in Tn. most places I run/gun the conditions are not very tough and I can jump 1/2 a dozen rabbits in a couple of hours of hunting.Don't need or want that hound that trails around on old feed tracks.
I defintely want a beagle with enough nose to carry a track that's being run across the R.R. gravel bed or across the dirt road or bean field.But not the one the constantly opens when not moving out.
Had a Bluetick coon hound years ago that had quite the local reputation as a superior cold trailer.When Drum hit an old track he didn't potter around or "Black and Tan" the track. He was moving on.And many nights he 'd trail for some distance before hounds running silent with him would open.
He had a superior nose but he had brains enough to not fool with tracks that he knew were too old to tree

[WELLS WOODS]

I didn't understand outrider. Probably because I'm not a hunter & just a trialer. I thought you were promoting what I call a "cold trailing" dog. Working a rabbit out that has been jumped on tough scent is not cold trailing to me. This is gearing down to the level required to move the line. Yes, a hound with a better nose can smell the track better & will run better on tough scenting days or environments. Most however with enough nose to move a track when nothing else can, will open on old tracks in the morning. This is what I call cold trailing. I want a hound with enough nose to be able to run in tough conditions that has enough brains not to cold trail & know when it's time to hunt the brush & which tracks not to open on even though he can smell them very well. This type is very hard to get; with a very strong nose & enough brains to be true mouthed. Everyone is looking for that balance & a hound with less nose, but more brains might look better in certain areas or on certain days & a there are days the hound with less brains with more nose may look better. I don't call "cold trailing" running well on tough scent. I think that's where I misunderstood you. Cold trailing to me is running old feeder tracks in the morning that rarely produce a rabbit. "Gearing down" to me is when a hound can adjust(brains) & has the nose to run a rabbit that has been jumped on tough scenting areas or days. Is this what you meant?

[gwyoung]

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[Markday]

Wells I don't think outrider66 is carefully reading what you have wrote in your post. Because what you have wrote is very true and well said.

[outrider66]

I know what yer saying ! I said in my first post that I don't like cold trailing either ! some of my vocabulary comes from my coonhunting days! lol cold trailing or gearing down
is what I meant to ask. I think its pretty much the same thing in reality in the winter when a dog is workin its butt off to get back up on a rabbit. not blowin holes boo hooin around!

[gwyoung]

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[outrider66]

If he aint up he will be! with some nose power!

[mybeagles]

I love a "good" cold trailing beagle. As Laneline explained they are rare. Many don't understand the difference between a good cold trailer and a babbler.

Many claim to want a dog that will only bark when rabbit is jumped. In exchange they are willing to give up considerable nose power. Field trials in poor scenting conditions are a complete joke. No rabbits get circled and more excuses fly than I can stomach.

Due to this mindset its getting tougher and tougher to even find a dog with a good nose.