-NOR CAL HOG DOG HUNTING-

[dglover]

LWG welcome to JHO, but first things first, I agree 100% with Hunterdoug on his post, hunting isn't a game like monopoly where you can just pass go and hunt. without taking the Ca. hunters safty course first you cant hunt no matter how intrested you are in hunting. if your serious and think you can just knock out the hunters saftey course that easy let me know when you do and post up your score, then we will talk about hunting. until then nothing else matters, have a great day!..................tra

While most of what you said is true it is in the wrong context.

Hunter safety scores are irrelevant.

When I took hunter safety 25 years ago it was much different then it is today.

The old timers that ran it might even have helped fudge a kid or two that knew it for the most part but I can't be sure.

It was free for me put on by the Kiwanis club.

There was a required field portion that you had to cross fences safely with a weapon, demonstrate the proper shooting zones while hunting with a shotgun, and we shot .22 caliber rifles at the range.

Grandpa had that sunk into my head before I started my ABC's.

I can still remember shooting my Mom's single shot lever action .22 with Grandpa teaching me the basics like it was yesterday.

It is my understanding this has been removed in most classes and replaced with more technical questions instead.

Actually you can just pass and go hunt.

You can also tag along as a non hunter without a license.

I have pictures of my little ones in the pheasant fields busting out birds in front of my pointers.

Don't tell them they are not hunting.

Anyone that has time and decent study skills can pass the test without any practical experience.

Except younger youth that have been tested out of hunting early.

I personally think we have set the bar to high academically. It is now much harder for our younger youth to pass the test.

This type of elitist attitude is part of the problem today.

It doesn't matter what your score is.

Hunting is not about who is the best test taker or even the best shot for that matter.

It is about a tradition passed down from generation to generation that enables you to take care of your family no matter what happens.

For those that don't have someone that passed it down they have to learn from others and will hopefully pass it on to their children and start the tradition in their own family.

Hunting is about many things for many different people but it is not about a test score for anyone.

This is only the beginning and has nothing to do with a hunter or their present skill level.

People that have been hunting for generations but never taken a recognized hunter safety course would have to test here in California.

Would you so quickly dismiss them and their lifetime of experience if they scored less then a newbie that is good at taking tests.

Just some food for thought.

I encourage people like this to learn as much as they can before and after the test.

 

[THE ROMAN ARCHER]

i understand you comepletely DGloverand what ya say is all good and true, but i was commenting on his statements of having absoulutly no expieriance and i dont know if youtube is a good way to learn to hunt, but taking the hunters a saftey course would open his eye's to what he knows and dont know and hopefully become better informed before he steps out to hunt. i wish him luck in his pursuit to hunt wild boars with a knife! have a great day and we will chat later..........tra

 

[dkhuntr25]

ya i agree youtube is a bad way to learn how to hunt. i have seen some videos of people that shouldnt even be allowed to carry a firearm. shooting off machine guns into a herd of pigs and stuff like that its sad they post stuff like that up and make all us hunters look bad

 

[Laced Wit Game]

first off id like to thank bigboarstopper & everybody else for theyre usefull information. as far as BBS's offer on the dogs, eventhough i highly appreciate the offer, i have the catch dogs ill be using planned already. game bred APBT redboy/ablizin bloodlines. should top out in between 50-65 lbs. (not even bred yet but i have the pedigree if youd like to check it out). but if you have "bay" dogs info. handy maybe we'll be talking about that shortly. like i said i have nothing but time as to taking the test because im doing this as an athletic sporting outlet for my future dog.
and NO i wont be just "jumping" into hunting expecting to knife some pigs and wont be using machine guns either lol.
like i said my dad has been hunting deer/duck for 20 plus years so i can look to him for guidance also. thanks everyone.

 

[bigboarstopper]

let me know. I leave the catchdogs to you. I just deal with strike dogs for the most part.

 

[Laced Wit Game]

let me know. I leave the catchdogs to you. I just deal with strike dogs for the most part.

what exactly is a strike dog and what is its job? is it the same as a bay dog?

 

[RIFLEMAN]

rifleman please i know exactly what im talking bout. we have hunting that ranch for bout 5 or 6 years now and up until about 2 years ago there were hogs every where. and we found out about 2 yrs ago the surrounding neighbors started running dogs and have been trying to run all the hogs off and out of the area. we are the only ranch up in this area that likes the hogs cuz we hunt them. so everyone else its tryin to get them out. and i have talked to numerous people most being pig guides that agree that dogs will run hogs out of an area so dont sit here and tell me i dont know what im talking about!

Oh, okay...because you and other "numerous people with most being pig guides" say its true, then it must be unequivocally be true. Gimme a break, kid. Even if I was to believe that your conclusions are accurate, what is true in your area is not necessarily true in other areas, much less in enough areas to make it the common rule. Try looking beyond your own anecdotal experiences before coming to a general conclusion based upon nothing more than an assumption.

As to your correlation between dogs and the scarcity of hogs, consider this:
1. Hog mortality is heavily impacted by drought-like conditions. The rainfall in most parts of California has been below average for the last few years.
2. Hog reproduction (litter size, offspring recruitment, etc) is heavily dependent upon the availability of food. Much of the feed that hogs in the oak woodlands and chaparral of the Coastal Foothills seasonally depend upon is influenced by rainfall. Less rainfall generally means less feed.
3. Let's put aside the science for a moment and evaluate your statement only on its own merits. If what you say is true (that the use of dogs on a ranch will drive hogs off of that ranch, and that your surrounding neighbors use dogs), why wouldn't your property (sans hogdogs) have more hogs rather than less? Are you trying to say that the use of the dogs is so effective, your neighbors have essentially created a moat around your property that the hogs will not cross or get through? Otherwise, the use of dogs has not only driven hogs from the individual ranches, but the entire region apparently. And those poor hunters that use hogdogs...what a nomadic lifestyle they must lead as they are forced to move from one ranch to the next in search of a place that does not allow dogs and must therefore have hogs to be found.

I am not assuming that rainfall and food availability is the cause for the decline of hogs that you are reporting in your area, but am merely introducing some very plausible alternatives to the cause you seem so certain of.

There is a lot of bias against the use of dogs, and unfortunately, even more ignorance.

 

[bigboarstopper]

what exactly is a strike dog and what is its job? is it the same as a bay dog?

Sorry for the confusion, strike dogs and bay dogs are usually the same thing. The term is used loosely for a dog that is used in the field to hunt hogs as well as a dog that is used strictly for bay pen competitions.

When I refer to a strike dog im refering to a dog that will find a hog and either bring it to bay or fight it. Bay dogs are specific to a dog that wont touch the hog but use its athletic skill to keep the hog in one spot. I tend to use both terms interchangeably.

 

[Bluenote]

Look at the Jagdterierr I have 2 and they eat very little and are a silent dog until the pig is found. The breed is 15-25 lbs. and are very fast and great hunters. They use sight,sound and smell to hunt and are great house dogs. I use my oldest dog for hogs and she bays them up real nice unless it's a small pig like under 80lbs, then she will be a little catchy. They run 450 as a pup and about a 1000 for a trained hog dog. Send me an email for a good breeder. The picture is of a 5month old Jagdterrier from my litter this spring. The zoe5month picture is of my female that I breed this spring.

Nice info on dogs BigBoarstopper!

All due respect , but leave the Jags to what they're best at , which is the same thing I use Patterdales for , and yes I've tried Patterdales out on hogs , nice for telling you where the hog , and that's about it. Not going to hold most hogs and if the hog gets the dog they're dust.

I raise two breeds Patterdales and APBTs , and said APBT into my sixth generation of Chinaman/SPike/Patricks blood, I've been around the gamebred dogs all my life and indukged in every legal activity with them , here's the truth , the vast majority of game bred dogs make thoroughly lousy hog dogs , they're bred to exhibit gameness , to continue on in spite of injury ,to never say die.

This trait contributes to often getting them killed , since of course no dog alive of any sort can best a 200 and up lb hog if they *really* decide to fight it out.

Do the dogs and yourself a favor ,if you wish to use APBTs as catch dogs then have the sense to go to an individual who has been breeding towards that task for some amount of time.

And true gamebred APBTs are too small , if you see someone with their hundred lb Razors Edge dog and they try to tell you that it's "gamebred" they're full of crap.

And I don't hunt hogs with dogs anymore ,less noise and fuss without them and I don't have attempt to save a dog that got overly brave , there's nothing like being five miles from the truck and running out of Clotisol and staples.

I prefer spot and stalk with a handgun or sitting on aridge with a decent rifle.

And for those contemplating the dogs and knife route , best go out with someone who does it a few times first , it is not something to be taken lightly , you have to be sure of yourself and very ready for what happens,I've seen a couple of times over the decades where someone hesitated and the wrong time and got pretty badly torn up. And go buy the right knife.

 

[Bluenote]

, i have the catch dogs ill be using planned already. game bred APBT redboy/ablizin bloodlines. should top out in between 50-65 lbs. (not even bred yet but i have the pedigree if youd like to check it out). .

Which Ablizin stuff , down off the Boyles blood? Because I'll tell you bluntly what you're going to get running the above on hogs.


A bunch of dead dogs.


And even with the influence of the Tramp Red Boy stuff ( and WHICH Red Boy stuff? What did it come down through? There's lot of Red boy dogs around) you're going to be really lucky to see *A* 65 lb dog out of that blood , and dependent upon which Ablizin blood it is you could get some small dogs out of it.

And yes I've had some Boyles dogs , some straight from Ronald himself , they're not what you want for hogs.

Start with something else ,look for someone who has been breeding these dogs for catch work for several generations and culls out the ones that won't work.

There's several different folks around who have had success via the above method with Watchdog bloodlines( not a true gamebred bloodline really anyway) , the bigger Alligator dogs ( since Alligator himself matched at 65 lbs you stand a better chance of bigger dogs) , sometimes crossed into Nigerino stock. Or cross your red Boy stuff across Tombstone lines , that will put leg under them and more wind into them and you'd see a chance of an upper 50s dog in most litters.

 

[MJB]

Bluenote, you should see the pack of Jagds we run on pigs, I think you will view them differently. We only let them bay the pigs but we do have one male that gets a little suicidal on hogs but the rest of the pack helps him out when he gets a little catchy........ We even have a Jack Russell in the pack that is amazing on hogs he can bay them up like a pro and doesn't miss a step.
After deer season I'll get some video!

 

[bigboarstopper]

I say let the man use what he wants to catch the pigs. Any bully breed will catch. Some catch better than others. Some of the extra large bully breeds will gas out before they get to the hog. Some will gas out on the leash before any action starts. With catch dogs my rule has always been the same. Easy on the leash, no dog fighters, and cheap to free. I have never spent a penny on a catchdog. Pound dogs have always made my catchdogs. If the man likes his breed for whatever reason I say use it. It may end up being what he wants or he may switch after a while. After almost 20 years of doin the dog thing I am always looking to better my pack of dogs.

 

[Bluenote]

I say let the man use what he wants to catch the pigs. Any bully breed will catch. Some catch better than others. Some of the extra large bully breeds will gas out before they get to the hog. Some will gas out on the leash before any action starts. With catch dogs my rule has always been the same. Easy on the leash, no dog fighters, and cheap to free. I have never spent a penny on a catchdog. Pound dogs have always made my catchdogs. If the man likes his breed for whatever reason I say use it. It may end up being what he wants or he may switch after a while. After almost 20 years of doin the dog thing I am always looking to better my pack of dogs.

Sure he's free to use what he wants , but he's another young APBT owner with fantasies that will just end up crying , you don't take a dog out for hogs that you're unwilling to lose or get hurt.

Look I'll be very blunt here ,I've been around performance APBTs all my life , my family has had them from way back , four generations , and I've seen this time and time again , I've tried gamebred dogs on hogs myself more than once ( what can I say I'm stubborn) and what it comes down to is that a lot of these young guys really don't understand what the word 'game' means as applied to terriers in general i.e. resolute ,unyielding ,never back up , never QUIT in other words being willing to take ones death in battle rather than give up.

If your dog should get into a scrap with another dog you can wade in and break it up. Your dog gets into it one on one or two on one with a hog and they both decide to stand an fight it out then what you end up with is often a demonstration of 'gameness' , these guys like to throw around the word 'deadgame' , well here's a bit of very harsh truth if you have a 'deadgame' dog then what you've got is usually a DEAD 'game dog'. A dog that just KNOWS he can whip that hog if he can just draw one more breath.

It's a waste of good bloodlines and good dogs. And within the context of THIS particular individual he's taking two bloodlines , one known for producing a high percentage of deadgame dogs , sometimes without much ability and another that is known for producing a lot of high ability dogs that would scrap with their own hat.

It's a recipe for disaster , especially since it sounds like he's going to make the central mistake of taking his breeding stock out into the field.

If he does this you'll likely see him in a year or so , surfing the APBT forums and asking ' anybody got any RedBoy/Boyles crosses for sale?'..

And *I* know this from harsh experience , many , many years ago I lost a DIRECT son off of Gr.Ch. Art ( there weren't very many of those since Art got bred VERY few times before thieves got him) to a hog , he wouldn't relinquish his hold and the hog just crushed him against several trees. I still had to take a parting stick and get him off the hog after I shot it , and he was already dead. And he was a decent sized dog for a gamebred dog , 49 lbs lean and in impeccable shape.

He can do what he wants , but he would be better off if he selected other breeds.

 

[hunterdoug]

great advice you guys. I hope LWG will take some of it. learning to dog hunt pigs from you tube doesn't show you that the dogs can get hurt! or killed! LWG go on a hunt with someone with experience and see if the GAME is really for you. listen to the stories, good and bad, meet some guys that will help you learn the right things to do before you waste a good dogs life. good luck.

 

[bigboarstopper]

Well a catchdog that dosent give up no matter what and will fight the hog in the face of death is exactly the dogs job. Disposable hero.

There are measures needed to protect a catchdog, Full kevlar vest with either an attached cut collar or one built in. One that covers right behind the ears, down to the elbows and back far enough but not cover his pecker. There are no exceptions to not giving a catchdog a full vest and cut collar.

Another thing is the distance you let your catchdog go to the bark. The catchdog should never be let go far enough where it has to spend a longer time than necessary stopping the hog. The catchdogs job is brief. Just enough time to hold the hog long enough to close the gap. That gap should be short. Anyone who dumps a catchdog because the strike dogs havent stopped the hog is asking for a dead catchdog. Its a 100 to 200 yard max job. And you need strike dogs willing to back up the catchdog. Thats one reason why I dont run mini (jagds or ratt terrier type of dogs) strike dogs. They give zero support to the catchdog. The catchdog essentially has to take the brunt of the hogs power and attention. Agressive strike dogs will support your catchdog and give him a career instead of a suicide mission. Little dogs have zero stopping power.

My point is you can use whatever you want in a catchdog, Pitt, dogo ect. You have to be willing to work with what you have. If your gonna run tiny strike dogs and a catchdog you better let that catchdog go at the very last second because hes gonna take a beating. If you have an agressive pack of strike dogs that will support your catchdog when he gets there and fight along with him you can dump the dog earlier. If you have some monster sized catchdog your gonna have to dump him later because he is gonna gas out. There is a balance you are gonna have to find. If somone isnt willing to hunt in a way that maximizes your dogs abilities and minimizes their shortcommings than your gonna end up with either a pack that wont catch any hogs or a bunch of dead dogs.

 

[EvBouret]

I'd agree with everyone that suggested going out and dog hunting hogs a few times before investing time and money into the sport. Ive done it a long time with friends and we have seen a lot of hunting partners come a few times and decide the hunt wasn't for them. Very few stuck it out and continued coming for a while, and some even got their own dogs.

Its a serious, rugged sport. You have to be willing to put your life on the line for your dogs. There's a kind of bond there, every hunt they're willing to die to get you a pig, you must be willing to do the same for your pack. This includes getting seriously close to seriously big pigs that seriously want to hurt you and your pack. Like I said, not a method of hunting that everyone enjoys. Make sure you try it first. And try it more than once.

 

[bigboarstopper]

proper protection a must

I wish I had left her cut collar on for this picture. This is my best dog. she got cut just underneath the cut collar (wide protective collar) by a medium sized hog who pinned her up against the brush. If your considering running dogs be prepared to spend a lot of money on medical supplies and vet bills. Be ready to shed some tears as well.

The hogs tusk went into her neck up into her cheek. Note the facial swelling that almost completely closes her eye.

On the flip side when it all comes together. Have you ever see a catch dog smile????:bounce-aqua:

 

[hunterdoug]

great pics, the smile say it all,thats mine!

 

[dglover]

Thanks for sharing the pics and the info!

 

[MJB]

My point is you can use whatever you want in a catchdog, Pitt, dogo ect. You have to be willing to work with what you have. If your gonna run tiny strike dogs and a catchdog you better let that catchdog go at the very last second because hes gonna take a beating. If you have an agressive pack of strike dogs that will support your catchdog when he gets there and fight along with him you can dump the dog earlier. If you have some monster sized catchdog your gonna have to dump him later because he is gonna gas out. There is a balance you are gonna have to find. If somone isnt willing to hunt in a way that maximizes your dogs abilities and minimizes their shortcommings than your gonna end up with either a pack that wont catch any hogs or a bunch of dead dogs.

That's it in a nut shell....plus the medical supplies/services, the adrenaline rush, the anticipation when a big one's cornered and the enjoyment of watching your pack just have fun and enjoy their catch.

Talk about giving it all for your pack.....Didn't someone on this board get gored in the ass from a pig while working a young dog?
Sometimes you need the saline, staples and antibiotics instead of the dog.