Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer hunting with dogs

I’ve never hunted deer with dogs and I’d like to give it try. What state would be good to start investigating? I would do a guided hunt or trade hunts with likeminded folks. Point me in the right direction please.

prob. SC

Been a long time dream of mine as well. Want to do it before it's gone forever

-Jake

Eastern Virginia

Mississippi has a “dog season”.

Yep, eastern VA. I just got in a lease down there. Really hoping the dogs stay out. I would suggest going early when the season starts rather than waiting. A lot of these guys run the dogs every day from when it comes in til when it goes out.

It is a southeastern thing. I did it once and it was fun, but nothing I would want to do a lot of.

Believe it or not I think California still allows it, but only 1 dog per person or one dog per deer tag or something like that. A bill was set to ban it a year or two ago, but I do not believe it passed.

Louisiana has a dog season....Dogs are fun hunts you see deer almost every hunt.It's been a long time since i been on a hunt using dogs.All i do is stand hunt now.

dog hunts are fun for the dog hunters... for the rest of us that manage our deer herd, they are a never ending intrusion of dogs by dog hunters who cannot contain their hounds to the property they hunt. MASSIVE HEADACHE. Imagine working all year putting in food plots/feeders/stands and having a pack of hounds run through your property...

Dogs belong at home on the couch, not in deer woods

There's many dog clubs in the Low Country of SC. A good many of them will allow guest. It may require a daily fee for a non-member. However, most of these take a member to give an invite. The better dog clubs have many different tracts of land to hunt and the better run clubs do not encroach on private land owners rights. Good luck.

Did he point him or run him up?

Great post.

sounds DANGEROUS ? i can hear or see me reading in the newspaper or hearing on the news gun hunter shoots innocent kid and wounds Bambi with his assault rifle . i am a hunter and shoot guns plenty but here in Minnesota runnin dogs on deer for hunting people would get shot and killed too.

Would've been fun and I suspect highly productive to deer hunt the oceans of CRP we had 15yrs ago with dogs. In '06 ND had ~3.25 Million acres of CRP. We've returned about 80% of that back to ag production in one form or another.

If you've never done it, you don't know what you are missing. But it does take big country and a lot of guys as well as good dogs.

I live in coastal Carolina. The public land near me is open to ''dog hunting". They claim tradition, comradery, blah, blah, blah. What it amounts to is convoys of trucks speeding down dirt roads to get in front of the dogs. Then they form a sort of loose firing line and stand in the middle of the road and blast away with shotguns loaded with buckshot in the general direction of panicked deer, mostly missing but sometimes wounding and rarely killing deer. Mostly they push deer into traffic on hwy 17. Also, any pre-season scouting is mute as once the "dog hunting" starts the only deer you see are foaming at the mouth going warp 9 or buried in the deepest, most impenetrable bush around. Holly Shelter game land is a sizable chunk (by Eastern standards) of public land that many could hunt and enjoy if not for the cadre of "dog hunters" that completely ruin it for everyone else. Additionally, dogs can't read signs so if you happen to own or hunt private land it will be invaded as well. Oh, and shooting hunting dogs, even on private land is highly illegal and heavily punishable.

Alabama has a good bit of dog hunting left. Don’t assume it’s all the same, either. Club I was a member of ran ‘blocks’ of land, caught all dogs after a run, and ran 3-4 runs by 1:00p.m......after which, it was no dog hunting. The deer were adapted to it, and had lots of nice deer killed from stands in the afternoons or during the week....as well as during drives. Most times, we didn’t have enough hunters to plug all the exits with shotguns, and because of hilly terrain, used rifles on occasion. I realize that’d freak some folks out, but it was highly managed for safety for hunters and dogs, and a LOT of deer got through to be hunted later. It was NOTHING like the ‘rumored’ dog hunting you’ll hear the most about from non-dog hunting deer hunters. You could be a stander/blocker or walk with the dogs (shotguns only). Required big chunks of land and good safety practices. Never had any serious issues.....if someone wasn’t sensible and couldn’t follow directions, they got sent packing.

It can be seriously fun. It’s not for everyone. It’s not all the same. It’s generally not what you hear.

are we hunting...or farming? i agree with you on dogs though. how about adding guys who turn the dogs loose, then follow in trucks talking on cb radios, running down the roads in the area to get a shot out the window.

that's real dog hunting.