etiquette question for houndsman

[IDSANDMAN]

New to Idaho(and bear hunting) so please forgive me if i ask dumb questions.

I have a bait site that someone is running dogs off of... Is this normal? or a breech of etiquette? or anything goes. I guess I should get further into the forest/off the road.

The flip side then ,when does the bear become the prize of the houndsman, I would never think of shooting one that is treed but what if I'm watching(spot and stalk)a bear and he is pushed to me by hounds. Can I shoot it? or is this bad form on my part? Or if one runs by me with hounds 1/4 mile behind? If my questions are out of line, let me know.

Newbie

 

[Ike]

I don't know what the laws are in Idaho, but I realize they can run off baits in some regions. First off I'd talk to the houndsmen to see if they realize they are starting dogs off your bait. Often times a houndsmen will rig and dump and not realize that he invading your space.

If they know and refuse to quit I'd call the game warden and speak with them about what is legal and what isn't--they should be able to straighten out the problem.

The fight between baiters and houndsmen has gone on since the beginning of time, and many baiters don't understand the problem. A good pack of rig dogs will strike a bear up-canyon nearly a mile away, that doesn't mean they'll go to the track but can smell one that far away on the wind. My advice to to setup down-canyon from any roads and as far away from the road as possible. That will not eliminate the problem, but the thermals will shift cause a houndsmen to have to rig evening rather than morning to intentionally run off you bait.

Bottom line take that bait as far off the road as possible, which may keep your bear from hitting the road and getting hounds on him..............

God luck!

 

[sandsavage]

In Idaho it is legal for ANYONE to hunt your bait, meaning if another boot hunter wanted to set up a blind on your bait he could as long as it is on public land. It is also legal for the houndsmen to run off of any bait they find. That being said, I will not run off other peoples bait if I can help it but like Ike said, often times I strike and run a bear without even knowing a bait was there.
We had some boot hunters that were baiting in a canyon just 100 yards from our bait. They were a little irritated to see our dogs come screaming by in the morning but onece we met and talked things got better for them. They ended up shooting a bear, and wounding it, one evening on their bait but it took off up the mountain.The next morning they asked if my buddy would come trail it out for them and he did.It was still alive when the dogs caught up to it and they got their bear.
Now as far as your other question about shooting a bear that dogs are on, let me ask you are you willing to pay thousands for a dog which may get killed or hurt by a wounded bear? Or even get your ass kicked or worse? Most of the houndsmen I know have a screw loose and its a very real possability that you would be in great danger if thir dogs were hurt.
It is illegal to interfere with a legal hunt so shooting a bear in front of or over another mans dogs is interfering.Also, to kill abear in Idaho while hounds are being used requires a hound handler permit weather its your dogs or not.

 

[watts]

Ok let,s flip this coin Im in my tree stand over my bait station. it has been hit a few time so I rebait and the next morning Im in my tree stand and I have a bear coming but is run off by the hound,s men,s dog,s now who is interfering and illegal. cuz this is more often the case.

 

[sandsavage]

I figured that I opened myself up to that one. I'm smiling here......

It's a similar situation, the only difference is that I never know where you are but you will ALWAYS know when my loud ass dogs are on the mountain.
This scenario is why I am friendly to almost anyone I meet on the mountain.I spend lots of time on the mountain with my hounds mainly for fun as I rarely kill anything, BUT I also dont want to ruin anyone elses' day either. I have caught bears for a few guys and have never asked for a thing in return.

Last year some bozo shot a bear over my dogs before we got to the tree.It was a short race and we listened to the whole thing.We were 342 yards from the tree, all the dogs were treeing and the gps showed treed. All of a sudden BOOM and the dogs go quiet, then all hell breaks loose.We haul ass down there and 2 puppys are hauling ass toward me.I load them and hear a guy yelling just above the road on a little hill. I get up there and he is trying to chase my dogs off of the dead bear that THEY had caught. I jump out of the truck and he looked pretty scared.He said the bear was treed but no dogs were there but after he shot it they all showed up and started fighting with it.I called him a liar and I told him the dogs were going to chew on this bear a while because they earned it! I loaded up the dogs and left him with his 80lb "trophy".
What i didnt know at the time is that 2 of my dogs had been injured.I saw that the one walker had alot of blood on him and had a cut ear but he also had a nasty cut down the side of his head and he didnt want to walk by the afternoon due to soreness in his hips. I stitched his cuts up and he was fine but I couldnt hunt him for the rest of the weekend due to the soreness (I assume from the fight with the bear). But the worst was my Nip dog, he had no marks on him but acted very sore.(this is a 1 1/2 year old dog)he would cough and gag when ever you would lead him by the collar.I put him on antibiotics and let him rest too but he just got worse.After we got home his lower jaw swelled up like a mellon and I finally had to take him to the vet.It turned out he had a torn windpipe and was drowning in his own saliva. It cost me $900 to have it fixed but he is ok now.

So 2 of my 6 dogs were injured and tied in camp while I hunted the next 2 days.I travel about 250 miles one way to go bear hunting and I can only afford so many trips a year. I hate for my 2 young prospects to be in camp not out hunting. That was not fun for me.Next time it happens someone will pay. If the guy had just waited at the tree I would have just got my dogs and left.He could have still got the bear but with no conflict.

Sorry for such a long winded story , but I tried to condense it. I left out alot of details but maybe it still makes sense.
I hope you understand what I'm getting at here.Its just like shooting over another hunter to get the deer they are stalking. I would never do that and ask for the same courtesy.

 

[utahheadgear]

If we are going to discuss the issue of interfering with someones hunt, I would argue that if a houndsman knowingly turns dogs out in a canyon with an active bait he is interfering with someone's hunt and is breaking the law and/or common hunting etiquette, depending on the state law.

If you ask me it is more likely that a houndsman will interfer with a bait than the other way around.

Now, if the houndsman doesn't have knowledge of the bait, or if the dogs happen by the bait on accident during a chase or whatever, there is nothing anyone can do about it. That's just part of hunting on public lands.

We had a houndsman run dogs right past my wife's bait last weekend. He didn't know it was there, so it was no big deal, and we still had a bear back on the bait the next night. However, if the same guy shows up this weekend, now that he knows the bait is there, I'm not going to be too impressed.

 

[EVILNR]

I've never understood the houndsmans logic that if their dogs were running the animal that it belonged to them. Gimme a break!
That's like saying any animal that comes in to my bait set belongs to me.

 

[mevertsen]

>I've never understood the houndsmans logic
>that if their dogs were
>running the animal that it
>belonged to them. Gimme a
>break!
>That's like saying any animal that
>comes in to my bait
>set belongs to me.


It's not necesarrily that an animal belongs to the houndsmen if their dogs are chasing that animal. The real issue is having respect for each other in the field. If you are hunting a bait site, I am not going to interfere with that, providing I know you are there. That does not mean because you have a bait site in one canyon that I am going to stop hunting that canyon alltogether. I can't know which bear is hitting your bait, and where a particular bear will run, or how far it will run.

On the other hand, I would expect the same in return from you for you not to interfere with my hunt which is also taking place legally. Every action can have unintended consequences, and in the case of shooting a bear in front of dogs without thinking the entire process through can cause injuries or death to the dogs very easily.

I sure would be pissed if I turned loose on a bear, had it running good, then had someone put a less than ideal shot on the animal without me knowing it, and later find one or more dogs wounded or dead. There would be a confrontation.

Now if I am sitting on a bait site, and a pack of hounds runs a bear through the area, what damage has been done. As long as he is not turning loose on that site, or very close to it (intentionally), then what has he done wrong as a houndsman?

Marcial

 

[patientlywaiting]

I'm not a houndsman and I don't have a bait out, But....last weekend I was with a friend, a houndman, and hunting with four of his friends, also houndsman and hunting down near Monticello. THis was my first time chasing bear with hounds.

The dogs struck scent crossing the road and we were able to locate a pretty big track, so the dogs were let out. We stayed on the roads and followed the barking of the hounds from a mile way in the bottom of a nasty looking canyon, trying to keep track of the dogs and where they were headed. Three hours and 3-4 miles later the dogs apparantly followed this scent right into a bait station with the hunter sitting in his treestand. We know this because one of our guys talked to the hunter 30 minutes after it happened when he came out on his 4-wheeler. The dogs continued on a scent away from the bait (only now the trail of a smaller bear) which they finally treed another 2-3 miles away from the bait and a good 6-7 miles from where we started the track.

My point is that there is no way a houndsman can tell where a bear track/scent is going to lead his dogs. Everyone of these houndsman I was with were true sportsman and in no way would have interfered with the guy sitting in his treestand over his bait if they knew he was there and could have avoided it. Plus even if they would have known about his bait, the track they started was a canyon away and miles away from where the bait was.

 

[Ike]

If a dogger finds a track on a public road that track is fair game. You just touched on the long term issue between hounddoggers and baiters, and there isn't any solution except different seasons or elimination of one or the other methods of hunting. A bear might travel and hit every bait in a ten mile area (some legal and some not) but the hounddogger is never guilty of wrong doing unless he knows they're headed into a legal bait. And to take the baiter's side, I seriously doubt most baiters could ever get far enough off the road to keep hounds from coming through. Bottom line both guys have a desire to hunt and both dogger and baiter impact the other sportsman........

 

[tnuge23]

sand

sorry to hear about the pups. gotta be frustrating to find those things out well after the fact. wonder if the guy would have took care of the situation or just kept denying it. i have heard of these types of things happening out there, i guess you never know what you're going to run into. especially with hounds, those damn dogs can wind up down in town with granny's little old house cat treed up on the front porch swing!! haha good times right?! anyways just a question for ya regarding the post, so you hunt for mostly fun... thats cool so do i. cant get lucky enough to get a tag so just be chasin for now, but what if you was a guide and had a hunter in that day from across the country and that was a big ole boar and that guy shot it out from under ya... obviously not the case for you but just sayin, that kind of thing can happen out there and sometimes its not a very good thing. especially when there are guides and clients involved. so it goes back to the "anything can happen" mentality. which is the kind of attitude you have to have to play the game. so just wondering what you and everyone else thought, if that were the case.
good luck

 

[buglinbilly]

LAST EDITED ON May-29-11 AT 12:50PM (MST)[p]I used to bait bear every year, here in Utah and once they closed down over the counter bear sales, I baited in Idaho every year for over 15 years.

I really got upset when someone purposely ran their dogs, off one of my baits, in the early days. I felt if there was a dog track or scent around my bait, it would shut it off for a length of time. How foolish and wrong those feelings were. I now take both of my dogs to my baits sites when I hunt, and have learned they have no effect on the bears.

There were several times in Idaho, where the dogs came running by my bait, as I was baiting, but by then I had figured out, that it really has very little effect on your hunt or your success. It is however something one can blame for his failure.

Most houndsmen turn their dogs loose in the mornings and have most of their dogs recouped by late afternoon. Most bears hit a bait in the evening and that's when most guys hunt. And I learned by experience that houndsmen can run a canyon in the morning and you most likely will have a bear there that evening if you have a good bait site and know what you're doing.

This past week (part of) I went out to bear country, where my son's friend had a tag. He had a bait not far our camp and about mid morning, on one of the days I was there, we could hear the hounds coming and they crossed the road very near our camp and chased a bear into the canyon. We walked to the canyons edge and listened as they chased the bear for out of sound range, and that took a long time, as it was a deep canyon and we were right on top. Almost all the day the houndsmen stood on the edge of the canyon and yelled for their dogs, as they tried to retrieve them, until it was almost time to go hunt.

My son went with his friend that evening, to his nearby bait and watched his friend miss a 20 yard shot, at a tank bear.

I have watched this time and time again, and thus I really think it has little effect on ones success. Now if the houndsmen began their chase early evening, then it would be a much different story.

I have come to understand if we (I am a baiter) and they (the houndsmen) all work together, we can help each other out and we have no need to fight.

While on this past trip, we saw a nice bear, in the middle of the day. We saw and told a houndsmen and they went down and gave chase. They had a great run, but the bear out foxed them, like they do to most of the time.

Have a good one. BB

 

[kk]

I agree with BB, as a Hounds man, I think we all need to work together and not against each other. There is no doubt I will mess up a bait sitters hunt some day but I will never try to do it. I try to respect all other hunters, but the fact is when the dogs are turned out they cover a lot of country. You never know where you will end up, that is half the fun, you always learn new country.
Back to the original question, If you have a bait I should leave it alone, and I will if I know about it.
If my dogs are on a bear don't shot it. If you really want the bear and my dogs tree it, talk to me, but don't shot until you talk to me.
As hunters we need to work together and not against each other we have enough people working against us.
kk

 

[Ike]

LAST EDITED ON May-31-11 AT 07:45PM (MST)[p]Sounds like you have learned alot and come far in the past thirty years buglibilly, and it's refreshing to hear a bowhunter and baiter who seems to understand both sides of the issue. Don't know whether you remember me or not, but I still remember you and that guy climbing up out of East Willow Creek with a two foot plus buck on your back headed for Ten Mile Knoll about twenty-five or six years ago. That's tough country to hunt afoot with a bow and I guess we were both young and tough back then..........

ike

 

[buglinbilly]

Dennis, I sure do remember you. In fact I remember the year your horse dumped you and your gear and headed for the parking lot via Diamond Ridge. They were very fun times and some of my very best memories. We took some nice bucks out of there, but we sure earned them, as everything went in and come out on our backs. I love the road less area of the Book!

In fact Shane, a guy you took last year is a good friend and fellow hunting partner of mine.

Take care, BB

 

[Ike]

LAST EDITED ON Jun-01-11 AT 04:37PM (MST)[p]Yes, those were some of the good old days for sure. That horse didn't dump me but rather dumped all my gear, ran off and left me to pack it all out. But I got even with him and sold him by the pound for dog food and picked a pack horse rather than a jug head. I loved that Roadless area as well but haven't been back since the state closed that unit to public hunting. Matter fact I've only had one deer tag since the Books were closed coming twenty years ago........

I know Shane is a good friend of yours, as we did lots of visiting while he was out. Summer pursuit is acomin and he (or you) are welcome to come chase bears with me if you want. My truck is small though and ain't much room more than two.....

Dennis
http://www.ingramwildlife.com/picture.htm

 

[sandsavage]

tnuge23, thanks for the comment.
I do a little guideing on lions here at home and all i can say is i'm not sure what I would do if someone killed something over my dogs while I was guiding. I think I would do something really stupid and bad.Honestly,guideing or not its all the same to me, I need to be sure my dogs are ok and I get to decide what dies over my dogs. The guy I mentioned in my story would never have seen the bear he killed if it hadnt been for my dogs, even if he did kill it before the dogs got there,which I assure you he did not.
I am usually very calm and easy to get along with, but most houndsmen are not.I gurantee that anyone who kills an animal over someones dogs before he gets to the tree does not want that guy to catch him. and they better pray for a clean kill and no dogs get hurt......
The truth is, most sport houndsmen want thier dogs to get to chew on a dead bear every now and again so if a bait hunter approaches them and asks for help they usually will catch them a bear.so just ask, and try to work out a deal then maybe we can all get along.