Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Europe Driving deer -

CMG-
Have you ever even been in the south?

Deer should not be allowed to drive

Hope nobody is confusing driving with hunting or is it just me.

No.

Pray tell - as to what bearing the region has on the topic in discussion.

I answer myself - none at all.

Ok,
Lets see if I have this correct.

1. You have never hunted in the south with dogs.
2. You have never been to the south.
3. You don't know what breed of dogs we were being used.
4. You don't know the quality or breeding of the dogs being used.
5. You don't know the tactics involved.
6. You don't know the terrain or the conditions.
7. You have no idea of the experience of the hunters involved.

But you feel qualified to say we were doing it wrong? From Germany I suppose?

I See.

Thank you very much for your opinion.

AJD

That statement is enough to judge the issue - this thread was started to argue that game can be driven carefully utilising dogs of certain breeds to ensure good meat quality.

I even posted a video.

What else do you need?

By your own admission you guys did not do well towards the goal of driven deer.

Read and learn or drivel. It is your choice. My patience is up.

Pardon my french.

No sir, once again you are mistaken, the drivel is your opinion.

Hunting with dogs driving deer done correctly is an art of hunting - yielding high success rates even in areas of low densities, good shot opportunities for selective shooting and proper shot placement and good meat from not agitated animals.

This is achieved by selecting dogs with the following traits:

- hunting the scent trail; using the nose (NOT hunting by sight) the dog will be slowed down by this - leaving the deer in charge.

- barking on the scent trail (the dog becomes a known quantity for the deer and hunter this way).

- hunting solo (each dog searching for their own deer - not bundeling up)

Utilizing dogs with these traits yields results much different from the thing commonly stated derisively about hunting with dogs.

Have watched this thread off and on and considered whether to post another wrinkle on driving game, since dogs were not the only option in the original post. My favorite way to drive game is to gently nudge the critter into going where he wants to go under the circumstances, rather than try to force him to go somewhere he does not want to go. Have someone in position to ambush him at that place that is his preference to go.

Done that way, a single driver and stander can work a huge mountainside for example, which my son and I have done successfully for bull elk in the Canadian Rockies. Meanwhile, several people I know say elk cannot be driven. Elk cannot be driven where the elk does not want to go, and I have watched that exercise in futility!

On such drives we tend to shoot animals that are standing still or moving slowly and leisurely, and often shoot them at quite close range. We often do such drives in unbroken timber where animals feel much more at ease than in the open, especially if forced into the open. Once in awhile the driver gets the shot, and often he still hunts through the area holding game, trying his best for the shot.

We have done this successfully on moose, elk, mule deer, blacktails, whitetails, Stone sheep, coyotes and ducks, that I can recall. It is a good method of real hunting.

Very good points - pretty well illustrates the difference.

Makes me think of some of my public land hunts. When I notice inexperienced hunters make a lot of noise or do a lot of talking, I'll circle around and position myself well ahead of them. They are actually moving the deer ahead of them, ie. being my drivers, only without their knowledge.

A couple of years ago, I heard two hunters (father and son) talking while still hunting on an adjacent ridge. I saw several does move out ahead of them, which they never saw. So, I positioned myself well ahead of them and they "drove" (actually moved at a leisurely pace) a nice 3 point right to me. They never saw it, at least not until after I shot it.

I find that on public land its often better to be behind, loud noisy folks. The deer seem to find ways to circle behind the drivers.

I had a similar occurrence two years ago during muzzleloader season in Utah. The area we were hunting is heavily hunted and the deer get stirred up once the season opens. The spot I picked out to sit on is combination escape route, safety zone, feeding area and it has a watering hole. I had been there for three days watching deer every day and on the last day a guy walked right through my area.

It's a dry brushy area that's impossible to be quiet and try and sneak up on a deer and espcially using a muzzleloader and seeing them in range as they take off. He was by himself and wasn't talking or even making an excessive amount of noise. At first I was pizzed, but then I realized he might just spook something up. He never saw me hunkered down in the rocks where I was sitting only 150 yards away from him. Sure as can be he spooked out four does and two 3x3's that ran down their escape route right past me. When the first three point stopped fourty yards in front of me, BLAMO, I got my buck. I know he never saw me and he probably didn't see the deer he spooked either.

As for the dogs controversy, I grew up hunting deer with dogs in the South. Most of the deer dogs were big walker hounds and some of them would flat out push a deer fast. Some people hunted with beagles as well and they would slowly push a deer.

Now, the difference between those situations and the hunting that is done is Germany from what I can tell is that typically, the terrain was thicker and there were fewer people than there would be in Germany.

A pack of beagles would never catch a deer and really not even push him hard. A smart buck would just endlessly circle in the thickest stuff he could find where no one could get in and get a shot. And being hardly pushed, he really wasn't much distracted and his senses were on full alert. However, a pack of walkers would push him out of there in a hurry and you could get a shot. Of course, if you didn't get a shot relatively quickly, he would end up in the next county. But, then again, it was possible to get in a vehicle and get set up ahead of him as well. The thing is, in those days there were no such things as hunting leases or posted land for the most part. People followed their dogs and everybody did it. You didn't care so much if the dogs ran the deer across the county as that you could follow.

When you're hunting with 7 or 8 guys as opposed to 40 in really thick terrain, a slow dog was just not going to push a deer hard enough to present many opportunities. However, a pack of fast dogs would make him take off across that cleancut or open field where he would not normally go and give someone a shot.

But that said, there were certainly times and places where slow dogs worked better.

The law has caught a few deer driving around home.

Dangerous stuff as they don't use turn signals or have insurance.

Cossatotjoe- I don't think there is any controversy on this.

I grew up hunting dogs. And yes, we used beagles and they would run a deer out of the blocks. When we put on a good/fresh track they would jump and the race would be on. The walkers definitely pushed harder/faster. We found a walker/beagle cross worked well also. When they jumped, we almost always looked the deer over, however there were times when we would have to catch up the dogs for reasons of boundary's, terrain, or if the deer got too far out in front.

And yes it was a different world then, we hunted paper land and it stretched for huge distances and acreages here in the big bend. We had free range, and not many folks in the way.

It is still a way of life here.

To do a "drive" one would have to have a huge amount of people, and we didn't much like to be around that many people. Besides, you could never get that many hunters to agree on anything.

I will say, to get a set of drivers to line up and move through, staying together in the blocks we hunted....I don't think there were that many fools in the state much less the woods.

I will say there ain't much more exciting that a good race. I miss that, but not the dog hunting. I gave it up a long time ago. Not only the leases, but the laws and regulations have changed, increasing populations, along with the cost of fuel, all of these conditions have hindered the sport.

Sorry if I'm late to the party.

I also grew up in the south and currently live here. With my job I also spend a fair amount of time in Germany so I'm familiar with the terrain of both. Germany's northern climate doesn't generate the same type of vegetation as the south's semi-tropical climate. In Germany the forests are usually well managed timber and pretty open with minimal undergrowth. In my home state of Mississippi you'll have big blocks of land that has been cut for timber where the undergrowth is so thick that a man literally can't walk through them. These "cutovers" hold a lot of deer because they provide everything a deer needs, plenty of browse, almost impenetrable cover, and usually plenty of water. A wise old buck really doesn't need to ever leave a decent sized cutover and dogs are used to push them out.

The dog breeds have already been talked about but I'll just interject that regional differences DO play a large role in how and what kind of dogs work best. I appreciate the german sporting tradition and skill with dog breeding, but there seems to be an implication that the same care isn't taken here. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know many guys who have almost dedicated their lives to their packs of hounds, breeding the best of the best for the prefered traits. In the really thick stuff of large enough acreage you're wasting your time trying to run slow dogs, the deer will just run them in circles all day. You have to have fairly fast dogs to push them out into the open where a shot opportunity exists. Of course their voice is important also, a dog that won't bark on the trail isn't very useful and usually don't get kept very long. You lose sight of them almost immediately when you turn them loose in the thick stuff so they have to have a good voice. All of our dogs have traditionally scent trailed, a sight trailing hound doesn't do any good when they can't see 10 feet in front of themselves. There are actually some pretty fast scent trailing dogs, you'd be suprised how fast some well bred ones can scent trail. Keep in mind that there are places around here where a slow methodical dog works well and some guys will keep a pack of beagles and a pack faster dogs so they can cover everything. Sometimes the slower dogs are best and sometimes not, it just depends upon the terrain and vegetation.

Sadly dog hunting is waning in the south. More and more people are stand hunting over planted food plots nowadays and landowners are much more protective of their land. Hunting dogs don't read posted signs very well and many landowners don't tolerate them on their land. With the fast pace of modern life not as many people have the time to keep 20 dogs fed and worked like they used to. It's still done by some, but every year there seems to be less and less dog hunting.

Those that haven't hunted deer with dogs are missing something. Its a great sport, but its unfortunate with so much land being posted in the South that many hunting with dogs have no respect for private land owners. When I first started hunting deer in the late 50's in Virginia there were few deer. The first year I hunted I believe 2 bucks & 1 doe (last day only) where killed by the entire club of 35 hunters. A variety of dogs were used from hounds to beagles. As the dogs were being unloaded from members trucks a bottle of whisky was always passed around. I have hunted other clubs where a variety of dogs were used & usually slow moving hounds produced the best results. Many years ago I began to mostly stand hunt due to the trophy restrictions at these clubs. I have hunted in Scotland & England & while a dog was always along it was strictly for tracking. I admire the German system of hunting including their licensing program. I hope to hunt there in the future.

Crow hunter-
your observations are spot on. Said very eloquently.

It amuses me, that someone who has never hunted or even laid eyes on an area or region would presume that because what they have tried and worked on their home field, would work in other places and attempt to offer advice and expertise as if it were the only way. That because those tactics worked in New Hampshire, or Montana, or Germany, those same tactics would work in N.FL. When people do that it mostly shows how truly ignorant they be.

tbear-
hunting with dogs is an experience no doubt, and your post is also spot on.

Our experience was a little different from yours in that we didn't have a "club". There were only a few of us in our group, it was very close knit. Family and very close friends who were "family", and we passed on the whiskey jug while we were hunting.

Everything cmg wrote is easy to understand - and perfectly logical. Anyone purposely twisting his words - has a motive.
And that motive is not educational. Thanks for the explanations cmg!