Went out last night to an area where a bunch of springs and two creeks come together. Nobody runs dogs through it so I figured it would be a good place to get a few. Dogs opened as soon as we cut em but it fizzled quickly. Went down the path a couple hundred yards, cut again and they opened up hard, crossed the creek and two of em made a big circle back to the truck and back to us. My female kept runnin a circle from one side of the creek to the other and back and forth. Finally they gave up on it and took off. We walked the creek bed lookin to see if we could find a den or even a coon layed up but there's so much hardwoods in the area it was tough to look every tree over. I swear they back tracked but the two that worked the big circle we took back to where they opened and they didn't hit it again. I think my female knew there had been a coon in there at some point but she couldn't pinpoint which tree it was in or came out of. Am I thinking right?? What would y'all have done in this situation?

_________________
Jon McRobie
Wide Open Kennels
304-813-0857

Join the forum today and remove this ad!

just a thought but if your dogs usually hunt a hot track they could have stumbled onto a heavy old track where the coon was playing in the creek. I would of took them back like you did and that is about all you can do. Good luck.

do you think it was a coon they were running? if that happens again i would find were the dogs crossed the creek and look for coon tracks. the backtracking thing really could be were the coon is looking for food. ill tell you what my dog did tonight. she struck by a creek and worked it up then back down then back up, it sounded like she was backtracking which i wouldnt own her if she did but i got to listening closer when i thought she was backtracking she was getting futher away from the creek maybe 30 or 40 yards but still going up and down by the way the creek ran. maybe your dogs were doing something like that but going in a circle but not tracking the same track they just went over maybe moveing over from it a little.

Well that's a possibility, i looked for tracks where they struck at but couldn't find any. The creek bed there is mostly rock, no sandy dirt to look through. I'm not real sure what they had goin i just know they didn't do a very good job figurin it out.