Thread: dogs chasing deer.

At the end of the day, dogging deer is probably the oldest form of hunting them that there is.

When I was living in the north island I went hunting of couple of times with some friends of my cousin and they doged deer. Doged venison tastes like shit and chewy compared to a stalked upspooked shot deer.

If you were any where near whakamaruma , its common. There is a local up there that uses dogs to chase down deer all the time. ive come across him and his dogs several times and having talked to other hunters up there hes not to popular. In my view its not on and i wouldn't have much time for any one that I found doing it, including there dogs.

Originally Posted by nelpop

If you were any where near whakamaruma , its common. There is a local up there that uses dogs to chase down deer all the time. ive come across him and his dogs several times and having talked to other hunters up there hes not to popular. In my view its not on and i wouldn't have much time for any one that I found doing it, including there dogs.

Same individual that I was talking about he lives Katikati way, runs dogs down GPS track lines he has opened up Whaka, Aongatete seem to be the locations he frequents. His dogs need a lead pill to sort the situation out

No this was in the Motu in the 80s no GPS collars in those day and the boys would pack them out with the horses.

Not everyone's dogs hunt out for miles

Originally Posted by MSL

Not everyone's dogs hunt out for miles

Never realised how far a pig dog actually travelled until I had tracking collars, it's not how far they hunt but how far they will follow a pigs once they have been disturbed. Myself I prefer close finders but it doesn't always happen that way as the hunting areas become diminished and the hunters increase in number.

Kaimais gets dogged hard out all the time, especially all the road ends around Kati/Aogatete. It sucks cause the area is fucked afterwards, I hate people using their dogs to chase down deer but that's the way it goes unfortunately, idiots like that don't stray too far into forest parks anyway so you wont have these problems 1hr from the carpark.

Just to give you a different perspective on the issue:
Where red deer come from, they used to be chased by wolves and then by humans with hounds for centuries. ( you can check out the legend of St Hubert ). Deer are still chased by hounds , notably in france. Usually the pack is about 30 to 40 hounds of great size, as they have to chase the same stag ( never hinds) up to 7 hours and be able to cover up to 50 km. The hunters usually follow with horses, trying to not interfere with the hounds. The only communication is with the French horn called "trompe".
No electronics, no gps.
Deer that are regularly chased on a territory , know perfectly well which of of their mate is chased and they will step aside or move around with out too much worry.
The chased animal will try to use all kind of tricks to evade the hounds: crossing rivers, back tracking, looping,going through another heard of deer or even through a heard of cattle .
Over a season a lot of them escape with out getting caught. They get smarter and fitter. And it is possibly one the most natural way of hunting deer by natural selection. The deer that get caught is traditionally finished with a long knife or the same knife put at the end of a Handle and used as a spear. The meat is given to the hounds at the end of the hunt during a ceremony called " la curée".

So I would not worry to much about the issue if it is only a handful of guys doing that with their dogs here. It would have an impact on the population if the dogs are chasing about anything including hinds and fawns. Other wise it would make the deer smarter and harder to hunt which I don't have an issue with.

Definitely not pointing fingers, did a lot of pig hunting when I was younger. The last few guys I have come across have tarnished my view, but I realise there's passionate guys out there.

Spent years with dogs beating all that chased deer theres nothing worse well there is but its still pretty bad having a mutt infect the pac its like a disease with young dogs & its almost always a pointless exercise dog chases deer deer runs runs & runs some more either the dog or dogs get lost or the hunter is sitting on his arse for hours with an itchy trigger finger or a nice bit of alkathene for a repeat offender at best when a dog chases a deer they come straight back a very small consolation would be well there covering some ground ...bet if they come across some pig sigh they look for that instead lol or they turn up on farmland .things are much better with gps but I just carnt see the point in having dogs in nz for chasing deer maybe in matagouri or short scrub where you can see whats going on but neh id be pretty pissy if someone was targeting deer with dogs in my areas...let alone 30 or 40 of them with quad bikes or horses bring up the rear !

I agree with Bonecrusher. We are both talking about the same guy. He has stuffed the hunting in most of the areas that he dogs. He is poaching and has no regard for anyone else that uses the area. As a result of that several people that i know wont hesitate to shoot his dogs if they come across them.
Im not against useing dogs to point deer or for that matter to find them once they have been shot. There is a lot of hours put in by owners as well skill used to train a dog to do that and the deer have a fighting chance. These is no ethics or skill in what hes doing.

Originally Posted by nelpop

I agree with Bonecrusher. We are both talking about the same guy. He has stuffed the hunting in most of the areas that he dogs. He is poaching and has no regard for anyone else that uses the area. As a result of that several people that i know wont hesitate to shoot his dogs if they come across them.
Im not against useing dogs to point deer or for that matter to find them once they have been shot. There is a lot of hours put in by owners as well skill used to train a dog to do that and the deer have a fighting chance. These is no ethics or skill in what hes doing.

Poaching? Really ?
He may of pissed off other users of the same area, but there is no law to say he cant use dogs to get deer.
Not saying I agree with his methods, but hey, if it is public land (doc) and he is not breaking any laws, then suck it up

OK Pengy, How about no permit, the area he frequents you also need a permit for dogs and he uses a single barrel shotgun. If that's not poaching then i don't know what is. So its not matter of sucking it up. Ive actually talked to this guy and he dosnt care. Hes only interested in what hes doing and his attitude sucks. Thats why hes pissed of so many people in this area.

Originally Posted by nelpop

OK Pengy, How about no permit, the area he frequents you also need a permit for dogs and he uses a single barrel shotgun. If that's not poaching then i don't know what is. So its not matter of sucking it up. Ive actually talked to this guy and he dosnt care. Hes only interested in what hes doing and his attitude sucks. Thats why hes pissed of so many people in this area.

He,s probably got a failed pack of pig dogs that just turned into deer chasing mutts ..be interesting to no how many deer he actually gets let alone what condition they are in if he catches up to any I just can not see how its more beneficial to have dogs randomly chasing deer in any which way the deer chooses to run as opposed to stalking with or without a dog or glassing areas ..I swore many years ago I would never hunt without a dog pigs or deer as even my most trusted pig dogs where good on deer id take 1..there little ears would drop followed by a guilty look or a tail would get tucked in between there legs sometimes they would stand behind me when a deer was close which was pretty humorous at times looking a a boof head go all shy , when on the back of the truck the young dogs would be winding like there is a mob of pigs just of the track but the main dogs would take a step back or wind & not jump , dogs go hand in hand with hunting but a pac of mutts chasing deer around the nz bush is stupid on plenty of levels just because it mite not be illegal it doesn't make it rite , look at what happened to our poor kakapo , its not like in England or the high lands of Scotland with stag hounds or lurcher,s basically covering open ground & etched in tradition i have Scottish brothers we shear the black face together drink the dram , people left that place to escape the shite that go,s with it...over here we just open up a tin of whip ass for dick heads .