Killing bear with dogs in North Ga

NCMTNHunter

Senior Member
following a dog w/gps collar for a few hours to shoot a bear in a tree vs. weeks of scouting. my scouting isn't ez or quick. its a matter of perspective

But your not talking apples to apples. You have to compare the weeks of scouting vs the hours spent year round training dogs. If you started buying pups right now it would take running them 3+ days a week for 3-5 years before you would have a pack of dogs you could tree bear with. It is truly a full time job and thats the reason that most of us on here who truly love it fall in to the "used to" category. It is a young man and retired man's sport.

You also have to keep in mind that houndsmen do the same scouting you do. They spend weeks finding where bear are using so they know where to hunt.

It is also anything but indiscriminate. Bear dogs are not just let loose to run anything and everything. They are kept on leash until the hunters find a track that is warm enough for the dogs to be able to take. If a track is too small, too cold, or a sow with cubs you just keep going until you find a suitable track. Some days consist of walking 15+ miles and analyzing many tracks without turning a dog loose.

Shooting a bear out of a tree is by far the least difficult and least important part of a hound hunt. It's kind of like telling a still hunter there is a bear at 20 yards and your bow is at full draw, how hard could it be? Well as we all know the hard part is everything that leads up to that moment.

Just trying to give enough information to help with perspective.
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
following a dog w/gps collar for a few hours to shoot a bear in a tree vs. weeks of scouting. my scouting isn't ez or quick. its a matter of perspective

First, I never used gps collars.

Plus, you still have to do all that scouting just the same. You have to know where the bear is in order to turn the dogs on him. I would guess that most hound hunters do just as much or more scouting as you do.
 

twincedargap

Senior Member
But your not talking apples to apples. You have to compare the weeks of scouting vs the hours spent year round training dogs. If you started buying pups right now it would take running them 3+ days a week for 3-5 years before you would have a pack of dogs you could tree bear with. It is truly a full time job and thats the reason that most of us on here who truly love it fall in to the "used to" category. It is a young man and retired man's sport.

You also have to keep in mind that houndsmen do the same scouting you do. They spend weeks finding where bear are using so they know where to hunt.

It is also anything but indiscriminate. Bear dogs are not just let loose to run anything and everything. They are kept on leash until the hunters find a track that is warm enough for the dogs to be able to take. If a track is too small, too cold, or a sow with cubs you just keep going until you find a suitable track. Some days consist of walking 15+ miles and analyzing many tracks without turning a dog loose.

Shooting a bear out of a tree is by far the least difficult and least important part of a hound hunt. It's kind of like telling a still hunter there is a bear at 20 yards and your bow is at full draw, how hard could it be? Well as we all know the hard part is everything that leads up to that moment.

Just trying to give enough information to help with perspective.

good points. i assume your not the average, and i'm not the average, we both assume. I used to hunt deer with dogs for many many years, many many years ago, so I know a bit about hounds and putting them out. Thus my closed mind to bears & hounds, and my prayers for peace in the bear woods.
 

The mtn man

Senior Member
Its certainly easier to scouting & hunting one on your own. Its no longer a person hunting a game animal. Its a person following a dog hunting a game animal.

Dogs chasing bears would indiscriminately disturb bears, their locations & habits, as well as all the woods & game of all species for everyone else.

Dogs don't know/respect property lines.

From experience on both sides, it's not easier, if anything, it's tougher. Those bondsman that follow dogs are some tough men, you still have to scout, you don't just indiscriminately turn dogs loose, you have to physically find a hot bear track. Then pack the hounds on it, I've seen them run 20 miles by the Garmin collars.
 

Ghost G

Member
I've never hunted bear either way but am looking forward to hunting them this year. I see hunting with hounds as a different method of hunting. The enjoyment/reward would be in watching those dogs preform after all the training that would be required. So rewarding watching a dog perform the way you've trained them. I've got great respect for those that are able to follow a hound through the mountains. All said
if there was a hound season I'd prefer it be in January.
 

saltysenior

Senior Member
after seeing the 5 mile track that the bear led the dogs on in Yellow Creek N C , I could not call it a sport..I would have to call it hard,hard work. And the locals that do it,love it
 

The mtn man

Senior Member
after seeing the 5 mile track that the bear led the dogs on in Yellow Creek N C , I could not call it a sport..I would have to call it hard,hard work. And the locals that do it,love it

I been to yaller creek a time or 2..
 

j_seph

Senior Member
good points. i assume your not the average, and i'm not the average, we both assume. I used to hunt deer with dogs for many many years, many many years ago, so I know a bit about hounds and putting them out. Thus my closed mind to bears & hounds, and my prayers for peace in the bear woods.
Have hunted deer with dogs myself, as well as hogs, refuse to go after bear simply because I do not know that I could handle the 18 mile day in the mountains. Deer and Hog are two different apples just as I would assume deer and bear are two different apples. I have hunted hogs from the ground as well. As for hogs, dogs are way more effective in the conservation side than still hunting. I mean we took more off Pinelog in 2 days than still hunters did the whole season. I would say it would be the same for managing bear as well.
 

The mtn man

Senior Member
Have hunted deer with dogs myself, as well as hogs, refuse to go after bear simply because I do not know that I could handle the 18 mile day in the mountains. Deer and Hog are two different apples just as I would assume deer and bear are two different apples. I have hunted hogs from the ground as well. As for hogs, dogs are way more effective in the conservation side than still hunting. I mean we took more off Pinelog in 2 days than still hunters did the whole season. I would say it would be the same for managing bear as well.

Very sensable statement here, bear hunting with dogs, and deer hunting with dogs are no where near comparable. Deer hunting with dogs is more like a rabbit hunt, except deer typically make a bigger circle than a rabbit, you don't put out standers for bear, there is no way of knowing where the bear will go. It is different bear hunting around the coastal plains for bear, than in the mountain, my old crew did both, they hunted bear in eastern nc. And the mountains, the coastal bears would sometimes run circles trying to stay in a block of timber, kind of like a deer, but mountain bears just run straight usually, only treeing when they turn up hill with some hair pulling dogs on his tail, big bears will mostly just walk and slap at the dogs when they get close enough, if you can't cut them off, the bear will go until you run out of dogs, or the dogs give up, and that could be two counties over, no joke, have been on a couple of those journeys.
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
Very sensable statement here, bear hunting with dogs, and deer hunting with dogs are no where near comparable. Deer hunting with dogs is more like a rabbit hunt, except deer typically make a bigger circle than a rabbit, you don't put out standers for bear, there is no way of knowing where the bear will go. It is different bear hunting around the coastal plains for bear, than in the mountain, my old crew did both, they hunted bear in eastern nc. And the mountains, the coastal bears would sometimes run circles trying to stay in a block of timber, kind of like a deer, but mountain bears just run straight usually, only treeing when they turn up hill with some hair pulling dogs on his tail, big bears will mostly just walk and slap at the dogs when they get close enough, if you can't cut them off, the bear will go until you run out of dogs, or the dogs give up, and that could be two counties over, no joke, have been on a couple of those journeys.

Yep, and those journeys usually end in the roughest terrain to be found in that part of the country-straight up and down, rock cliffs, and crawl-on-your-belly rhododendron and laurel thickets.
 

The mtn man

Senior Member
Yep, and those journeys usually end in the roughest terrain to be found in that part of the country-straight up and down, rock cliffs, and crawl-on-your-belly rhododendron and laurel thickets.

True, we struck a track in clay county one time, jumped it up pretty quick, it ran the tusquittee mountain range over to choga, crossed hwy 74 some where around the gorge, we wound up finding our dogs two days later treed in stecoah!!! So struck bear and ran it through clay county into Cherokee county, through the southeast Cherokee to the northwest part of Macon county, all the way into Graham county. That bear race went through 4 WNC counties through some of the narliest terrain imaginable. When we got to the tree behind some elderly couples house we were amazed at how small it was, it just simply out footed our hounds. We left it be, we figured if that bear was that tough it deserved to live. Probably only weighed 90 pounds or so. That old timer that let us park in his drive way wanted some bear meat bad, I believe to this day he went back up there and shot it out, haha. He wasn't happy that we left it.
 

HOGDOG76

Senior Member
good points. i assume your not the average, and i'm not the average, we both assume. I used to hunt deer with dogs for many many years, many many years ago, so I know a bit about hounds and putting them out. Thus my closed mind to bears & hounds, and my prayers for peace in the bear woods.

You bred, raised and trained your own packs for years or you hunted with others dogs?
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
good points. i assume your not the average, and i'm not the average, we both assume. I used to hunt deer with dogs for many many years, many many years ago, so I know a bit about hounds and putting them out. Thus my closed mind to bears & hounds, and my prayers for peace in the bear woods.

Deer hunting with dogs and bear hunting with dogs, especially in the mountains, are two entirely different things, almost opposites. You are comparing apples to carburetors.

Deer hunting with dogs is basically rabbit hunting with beagles on a little bigger scale, nothing at all like hound hunting bears. If you've ever coon hunted with hounds in the mountains, you got a tiny taste of hound hunting.
 

Al Medcalf

Senior Member
Dog hunting bear is the only method of hunting bear that I would do.
 

Russdaddy

Senior Member
We get enough coon dogs running around on our property,I'd have to vote no to bear dogs joining in on the fun.
 
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