No Dogs for Deer?

Blueticker1

Lil-Rokslider
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Dec 8, 2019
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137
The fair chase card gets beat to death and ultimately its usually the houndsman and trappers that get the kick in the guts right off the bat, but eventually as hunters we all lose because what's "fair chase" today may not be fair chase tomorrow by the majority opinion. If you have never heard dogs running open mouthed at anything I recommend you try it. When I was a young snot nosed kid I was always around houndsman and one day the fair chase bs got brought up and one of the most respected people in my life asks the feller pissing and moaning about fair chase what all he's hunted in life, the feller says a whole line from Alaska to Mexico and everything in between also Africa and New Zealand as well. So then the old timer says how many of those did you use a guide on? The feller says well most of em roughly 95%, the old timer looks and says well how and the hell is that fair chase? The fellers reply was well I hunted them. Old timer says the hell you did you shot them, that guide has been doing the damn hunting for months for you to come shoot them so he can put food on his table, because of the mere fact you couldn't "hunt" them.
I still live by that today, what my definition of fair chase is something different than someone else's, but who cares as long as they're doing it legal? Is shooting elk or deer at 1k yards hunting? My opinion? Not really hunting but damn fine shooting. I don't have anything against anyone as long as they're in the outdoors in the shooting/ hunting sports and doing everything to the letter of the law. We all need to stick together we have enough outsiders that don't know a thing about any of it judging us, why should we judge each other?
 

Blueticker1

Lil-Rokslider
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Dec 8, 2019
Messages
137
Just to be clear, I have used guides, dogs, bait, and traps. All legally for their intended game and I have loved every single one of them. If I ever get the chance to go to a state and legally run deer with dogs I'll do that too and I'm sure I will love the hell out of it.
 

Okhotnik

WKR
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Dec 8, 2018
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N ID
I have deer hunted in the South without dogs and done just fine. In fact all the guys I know in those states can’t stand the dog hunters as the have no trouble running dogs right thru private land and killing everything that’s brown.

Of course it’s different. every single person on the planet assigns different values ( and ethics) to different animals. We poison mice and rats, we don’t poison bighorns or elk in this day and age. We trap raccoons with snares, we don’t snare stone sheep and mountain goats.

Lions are pretty tough to hunt without dogs, no way to control them and meet quotas without them. Coyotes populations aren’t exactly a concern anywhere that I’m aware of.

Deer are not hard to hunt without dogs, if you can’t fill your deer tag without the use of dogs then maybe it’s time to take a step back and rethink your entire strategy.






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If you snared a raccoon in Washington you would be charged. Against the law to kill them, but there a lot of them. And now WASHINGTON is trying to ban magazines and try and make law to register to purchase ammo and cops will be allowed to enter your house at any time without a warrant to inspect your firearms, . Getting crazy like Colorado and Kalifornia,


So one bad hound deer hunter makes all hound hunters bad?


So you didn't answer my question. Is it fair chase to hunt with dogs?

Ive shot bear, quail, pheasant, chukar, huns, pheasant, geese, rabbits, coyotes, cats, coons without dogs and you certaintly don't need dogs to hunt those animals. My buddy drew a sheep tag and killed one with a long bow. Native Americans killed sheep , elk, deer , bear hundreds of years with a primitive bow and arrow. Maybe rifles should be outlawed for sheep because rifles are not fair chase because you can kill one with a bow. Maybe those that need a rifle lack the skill to hunt and should not be allowed to hunt. Is it fair chase to shoot a sheep at 1000 yards with a 300 Rum and a 5x 25 NF scope? There are many videos off children killing animals at extreme ranges with high powered rifles and scopes. Sounds like not fair chase to me. Does it take any skills and many hours of dedication to train dogs to hunt deer, geese, cats, bear, pheasants?

Maybe we should ban all forms of hunting with dogs then because it is not fair chase and you can easily kill without dogs based on your logic.

Lion quotas are met early in OR and WA without dogs. We have an overabundance of lions now. In fact you can't legally hunt lions and bears in OR and WA with dogs so I guess the dog ban is justified. I guess using your logic all hound hunting of lions and bears in Colorado, NM, MT, ID, WY , WI .....should be outlawed along with deer because you can kill without dogs.

So again what is fair chase?
 
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Azone

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Apr 21, 2018
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Northern Nevada
Where I hunt out here during the gun season the temperature if we are lucky is down to 85 degrees most days it's in the 90s and often time its 100 plus degrees. If you think its gonna be easy to kill a buck with a dog in those kinda conditions, send me PM and we can setup a hunt. We will go do it without the dog, just so it stays "fair". Pack plenty of water also.
Now my biggest gripe with this isn't the ability to use dogs for actual hunting, it's their tracking skills for cripples. While watching a dog bust a buck out of the brush is awesome, I dont need a dog to kill a buck out here, killed plenty without one.
When you make a piss poor shot on a deer and it gets away from my experience its spoiled by afternoon in that heat if it beds up and dies. Having a good dog let's you get your meat before it goes to hell. The let's backout and get it tomorrow junk dont fly out here unless your just after horns.
 

Okhotnik

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Only in CA? How many states can you deer dog in? 4? What about the other ~46 states?


So why is hunting deer with dogs not fair chase or ethical? Why did Colorado ban bear hunting with dogs like California?

Anti hunting Politics or sound logic wildlife management?
 
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Mattyq17

FNG
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Oct 30, 2019
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Arroyo Grande Ca
I have to agree with @Azone. While I have never used a dog to work a canyon I have had them help many times find a wounded deer, sometimes it was my poor shot other times it was someone else's that wasn't even in my hunting party. The weather during Southern A zone deer season is always hot and you will lose the meat more times that not if you don't recover the deer as soon as possible. I also have had a dog perk up and warn me of a rattlesnake, chase a bear off from camp at night, and the best was when that little Jack Russell went full hound dog and chased a mountain lion up a tree. If I had not had the dog I would have walked right in that lions path(50 yards in front of us on the trail) and might not be here typing this.....
 

Azone

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I have to agree with @Azone. While I have never used a dog to work a canyon I have had them help many times find a wounded deer, sometimes it was my poor shot other times it was someone else's that wasn't even in my hunting party. The weather during Southern A zone deer season is always hot and you will lose the meat more times that not if you don't recover the deer as soon as possible. I also have had a dog perk up and warn me of a rattlesnake, chase a bear off from camp at night, and the best was when that little Jack Russell went full hound dog and chased a mountain lion up a tree. If I had not had the dog I would have walked right in that lions path(50 yards in front of us on the trail) and might not be here typing this.....

A lot of the old timers I know also loved having a dog in camp for security reasons for alerting you, as you mentioned. It's easy to go kill quail, pheasants and ducks without a dog, I've done that plenty of times. But it sure is nice to have a dog handy to flush your birds and go get your birds. I dont see why having one to use on deer is so horrible. Enjoy the death of a thousand cuts everyone, because it is happening to all of us one stupid law at a time.

While were at it, I guess when I take my kids fishing the next time I need to get out of the way with all our spinning rods for the stuck up fly fishermen who are fishing rivers "the right way".
 

Poser

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So why is hunting deer with dogs not fair chase or ethical? Why did Colorado ban bear hunting with dogs like California?

Anti hunting Politics or sound logic wildlife management?

I didn’t claim that it was not fair chase or unethical. I am merely pointing out that not permitting deer dogging is hardly a limitation unique to the state of CA.
 
Joined
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if you dont hunt blacktail deer in Ca, deer dogging does not make any sense. Ca blacktail are not mule deer or whitetail. they dont move durning the day and the brush they bed and call home is mostly inaccessible to humans. you can walk within a few feet of bucks in the brush and they wont move, dogs find them and get them up. me personally, i dont like deer dogging on public land. on a privet ranch i totally get it.
 

3pointer

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Lots of bs here , they got us right where they want us , fighting amongst eachother. hunting with dogs was a tradition where I grew up ,the dogs were bread for it , the deer herds wer thriving back then so it has nothing to do with the decline of blacktail in CA, and I think it’s unethical to not allow a tracking dog. We keep giving up these little things , pretty soon we aren’t going to have anything , my $.02
 
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CHWine

CHWine

Lil-Rokslider
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Mar 22, 2019
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if you dont hunt blacktail deer in Ca, deer dogging does not make any sense. Ca blacktail are not mule deer or whitetail. they dont move durning the day and the brush they bed and call home is mostly inaccessible to humans. you can walk within a few feet of bucks in the brush and they wont move, dogs find them and get them up. me personally, i dont like deer dogging on public land. on a privet ranch i totally get it.
This^. Been here my whole life. Growing up the guys I looked up to and killed big bucks were the guys with dogs. I got me some dogs as did my bro and figured it out pretty quick. There's nothing like planning a good deer push in a canyon and placing guys in shooter positions. You gotta learn to evaluate shooters/no shooters quickly....and shoot deer running. Nothing more exciting.
 

Azone

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Lots of bs here , they got us right where they want us , fighting amongst eachother. hunting with dogs was a tradition where I grew up ,the dogs were bread for it , the deer herds wer thriving back then so it has nothing to do with the decline of blacktail in CA, and I think it’s unethical to not allow a tracking dog. We keep giving up these little things , pretty soon we aren’t going to have anything , my $.02

The death of 1000 cuts. Whether that comes from the eco clowns or amongst ourselves is up for debate though.
 

OXN939

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This is a complex issue. In states like CA, it's certainly legitimate to see any legal limitation on how you can hunt as an infringement on your rights, and outlawing dogs for tracking is obviously ridiculous to anyone interested in doing things the right way. In some states, though, like my native VA, there are a lot of dog hunters who are objectively poor sportsmen and portray all hunters in a very negative light. A few examples:

Sometimes they kill their dogs, sometimes they kill each other, sometimes it's only a flesh wound. For anyone who doesn't want to read the full text, those are three of the higher profile news headlines from the past few years courtesy of VA dog hunters. I'm sure there are some hunt clubs that do it respectfully, but the way the current law is written allows the ones that suck to trespass onto private property while killing game animals indiscriminately and unsafely. Viewing things holistically, they provide a very loud and convenient argument against hunting in general to be used by any and all anti-hunting groups- hunting in general was called into question several times during the infamous gun control debate here this fall because of this small minority of "hunters."

Not saying this is exactly representative of the issue in other places, but the bottom line is that these guys have been given a lot of rope in my current state of residence, and are doing their best to hang us all along with them.
 
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oregon coast
I dont see why some people see it being so taboo. I also dont see why the difference would be laughable either. Hunting with a dog is hunting with a dog as far as I'm concerned. Some people are into blasting deer at 1200 yards with there 8K dollar rifles, some people are into bait piles, some of us may use a dog to jump deer at times.
Our season out here is at the end of summer when deer are very nocturnal, having a dog makes it easier to get them up out of the jungles they live in at that time of year.

I mean if were all gonna be purist and make it fair and square, should we all just start hunting naked and using are fists and rocks? I mean where does the line get drawn? The antis want the line drawn at every thing outlawed, every thing. You give these jerks an inch, they take a mile. End of rant.
I think it's taboo to those who have never been exposed to it. I think we get our ethics mixed up with things we are use to and things we aren't.

I was a little taken back starting this thread, I would have never thought running deer with dogs would be legal in Cali. I will also admit that my thought of what running deer with dogs is, is not deer hunting to me.....

I stopped my thought right there because I was being hypocritical judging that style of hunting, because I have ZERO experience with it, so I shouldn't have a strong opinion one way or another, it's not fair to, and it seems like that would just be me riding a high horse about something I have no experience with.

I have read hunters saying chasing bobs or lions with hounds isn't hunting, or fair chase, or whatever.... that's ignorant, and obviously not the opinion of someone who has done it, truth is, it can be some of the toughest hunting, especially if conditions aren't perfect.... from a non experienced perspective, it probably seems like a slam dunk.

I will assume deer hunting with dogs is the same, not easy, certainly not a slam dunk, and easily shut down with the hard left propaganda.

the idea of running a blacktail down with dogs makes me cringe a bit, but I fully accept that's because i'm naïve to that type of hunting, but all the same, I bet my idea of it isn't anywhere close to the reality of it..... I feel for you guys, because in a hard core liberal state, I don't see this going your way, and another part of the local hunting culture will be chopped down.

I do wish hunters could separate things that they have not been exposed to and ethical, but I see time and time again that just isn't gonna happen, we seem to be our own worst enemies, not sticking together at all, willing to throw each other under the bus for no reason but to minimize opportunity and put a halt to hunting.... it's frustrating we can't have an open mind and support each other.... no hunting style is safe.

there are lots of rifle hunters that think archery is unethical, I have spoke with more than a few..... people are willing to end a style of hunting that isn't their cup of tea, that's all the reason they need.
 
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