they can't control their dogs, that's the point.
Its the nature of hunting with hounds, they have no sense of trespassing, they just follow the track where ever it leads them.
Its probably the most hated sport of all.
Nobody likes hunters and hounds running willy nilly all over country.

I’m pretty sure in Montana it’s legal to shoot dogs that are chasing deer.

NOT IN MISSOURI!!!!! Shock collar training should be done well BEFORE the trials, and "correcting" a hound mid trial is not allowed. Some bunghole with his Deer runners can really ruin a field trial. The pack will follow and tongue a line the lead dog is running, Good dogs will come back with a (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) look on their face. Rest of the pack goes on the clock, while the handlers try to catch them up and get them back where they started out.

Sounds like the fishermen were glad to help and didn't accept money offered. Good guys helping out, good story, thanks for sharing it.

Tightly connected in the sense that everyone is against us and the day one group suffers so will the other next. If you don’t understand that then you’re clueless. And everyone I know that traps has also owned hunting dogs or loved participating hunting with dogs. It’s very bizarre to me for a trapper to ever be against hound hunting. Just as it would be bizarre for a hound hunter to ever be against a trapper. I know hundreds of hound hunters as I’m deeply involved in beagle trials in many states, and actively hunt coyotes and bobcats with dozens of guys. Not one single guy I know would ever bad mouth a trapper. Many of us beaglers trap as well since we’re all for killing rabbit predators as much as possible.

Obvious you ain't in Missouri.

Except this happened in MS, where it's LEGAL to run deer with dogs, and illegal to shoot dogs.



I see both of your points and if either of you think the other is absolutely wrong, then YOU'RE wrong.

I know of the particular houndsmen mentioned in this article, it happened less than 30 minutes from me. And I promise you, they do NOT like trappers at all. They will cause trouble for trappers when they can. If you honestly never heard a houndsmen talk chit about trapping, you don't know very many houndsmen.

That said, I also know of a group of coon hunters not affiliated with the above group, who welcomed me into their group knowing full well I was a trapper. I can't speak for every one of them, but at least some of them have expressed support for trapping. If you honestly never met a houndsman that supports trapping, again, you don't know many houndsmen.

I think a lot of it depends on area, and the particular groups you're dealing with. If the only houndsmen I knew were the Grenada ones I would probably think all houndsmen suck. And if I only knew the ones I coon hunted with, I'd think they were all great.

The bottom line is that trapping and hound hunting both ARE at the front of the line headed towards the chopping block. IF there was some way for the two to work together, that would be great, but I also understand that that would not be possible in ALL situations.

Maybe we all just need to try not painting with so broad of a brush?

Like

Gotta love these houndsmen vs. trapper threads. The discussion invariably goes downhill fast. As both a hound guy and a trapper, after reading through these, I can't help but end up hating myself.

HA!

I can’t count how many deer/duck hunts I “ruined” as a kid checking traps b4 school.

I try to balance the two but struggle with my and everyone's private property rights, dealing with dogs and their owners going on my property without permission. I do not see the dog owners' rights trumping my private property rights and my being on my property being disrupted or ruined by the inability of the dog owners to control their animals. In WI it is my responsibility to keep your farm animals off my property, thus I need to maintain fences. Is it my responsibility to keep someone's dogs off my property? If so what are the options? The owners claim an inability to control their dogs as in farm animals it is the land owners responsibility to keep them out how does one do that?

In WI you can kill a dog if its threatening to do serious bodily harm and other restraining actions have been tried and failed OR immediate action was necessary.
This also applies to a domestic animal that is on its owners property and is being threatened with serious harm by a dog.

A good example of this is I have a buddy who's dad raises exotic pheasants, Lady Amherst, golden pheasants and such, he had issues with a neighbors dog jumping against the pens and scaring the birds causing them to fly against the cages and beat themselves up.
The Sheriff told him to shoot the dog next time it shows up. After telling the neighbor what the sheriff said he decided to control his dog despite being asked multiple times before.

So in WI if a dog is threatening someones domestic animal and the animal is on the owners property its OK to kill the dog if other restraining actions have been tried and failed OR immediate action is required.

It is not your responsibility to keep others dogs off your property, its up to the dogs owner, so if someones dog is on your property threatening your livestock and you feel immediate action is required your good to shoot the dog in WI..

BANG !!!

w

I have never had a dog ruin a hunt.
I’ve never seen coon dogs chase anything but coons…one did tree a possum, but learned his lesson.
I’ve never seen hog dogs chase anything but hogs.
I’ve got the hog dogs on camera running and seen the deer I was after leaving the bottom they were in. They got two hogs in that bottom and that night that deer was back on camera.
I’ve got the coon dogs and hunter on camera and 2 hours later the deer I was after was back in there.
We run pointers over different courses and can deer hunt that very afternoon and it not affect the deer.
Generally trained dogs only run the game they’re trained for. It’s the “pets” of your neighbors that run wild and chase whatever runs.
I hear people say they’d rather have destructive hogs than a hog hunter come in and run all his deer off the property…all that tells me is that’s one ignorant individual that has absolutely no clue about dogs or training.

WB,
You need to get out more...lol. But, I do realize that where you live isn't hound country as much as down this way is.

The saving grace down here for the houndmen is that most of this land is back to back 5,000 to 25,000 acre hound leases. Deer hounds, hog dogs, bear hounds, coon hounds, bcat hounds....

The fringes of this huge dog hunting area is where the recurring problems are....ie where the dog club borders the still hunting club or a private landowner.......oh my!

Most houndsmen have e-collars now and can control/stop their hounds with the push of a button. But, it sure hasn't always been this way. It is much better than it was.

Field trials down here rarely occur outside of an enclosure (where trappers sell their coyotes and fox). And Georgia has no legal deer dog training season.

Hound hunting for deer, fox, coyotes, coons, bcats, bears, etc is the fastest disappearing activity in the outdoor world. I hate to see it go, but it's a combination of costs to join a large lease, costs of keeping hounds, costs of fuel when hunting, and the large land area requirement for free-running hounds. It is dying out and its noticeable even down here in this pure hound country where dog boxes stay in the bed of pickups year-round.

All it take is one stupid dog or owner to ruin well trained dogs. In MO they can run dogs on your property as long as owner is not trespassing which is bull crap. Had one fool running coyote dogs no my place during deer rut. Ruined one of my days of deer hunting vacation.

So coyotes running deer don’t affect deer? But someone running coyotes does?

Now as Swamp mentioned, we don’t have deer hounds over here in my part of the State. The only hounds I see are coon, hog, and bird dogs and they run what they’re trained to run. Heck, if someone had coyote hounds we’d turn’em loose and say go for it.
With that mentioned, we only have 2500ac, but before they run for hogs we notify surrounding landowners and let them know before hand. Everyone of them are like “catch’em all.” With that said, we don’t run during gun season for deer, but will run during archery season. Coon dogs run during deer season, but of course at night.
Now you guys that say dogs ruin hunts, are they running deer legally? Or do you just have neighborhood dogs running around your land?

Y’all come on to VA. My only saving grace is I have several hundred yards of deep swamp on the back of my property and not 3/4 mile past my farm is a rural interstate that stays moderately busy. The dog clubs don’t want their dogs getting near that interstate. I also have neighboring farms on either side that only have still hunters.

The problem I have with it is the parcels are shrinking. I’m as much to blame for that as I bought the smaller half of a 500 acre farm. The bigger half was turned into 5 acres lots. The days of having clubs with continuous acres are gone and the houndsman for the most part haven’t adapted. Many still run long legged Walkers for deer hunting. I couldn’t comment of coon hunters as that seems to have all but died out +10 years ago around my area.

I’ve hunted in dog clubs in the past and the best of them cannot control their dogs from crossing onto non-permissioned property. The worst of them didn’t care.

My property rights should trump anyone else’s rights whose name isn’t on the tax bill. I’ve literally had club presidents in the area stop to tell me how bad it was that the land was getting all bought up and they didn’t have any appreciable acreage to hunt anymore. Always followed by asking me for permission or a lease. When they get a NO, then I’m the problem. I get it to a certain degree, but you ain’t the one with the bill every month.

Wanna Be, I can promise you that the beginning of dog season affects deer movement. It’s probably got more to do with the additional hunters hunting, but it’s when I see my daylight movement fall off to nothing. First 10 min in the morning and last 10 min of the evening is what the hunting turns into. Seen the same pattern play out over 40 years of hunting. Once again, I’ll admit it’s problably more to do with the hunters increasing, but without the dogs, many of those hunters wouldn’t be around.

It does get better later in the season, but only because many deer on the other side of my swamp get pushed onto my property as there is less pressure.

It's not just the running of the deer (which coyotes do mostly silently)....add in the barking/roar of the pack, the shooting of guns, and last but not least....the ripping and raring of several pickups up and down the roads in the area.