1 dog killed 7 injured by bear.

[Liver and Onions]

My first experience chasing bears was quite an education. I now have some understanding of the huge committment that it takes to train dogs to track bears. A tip of my hat to anyone who is willing to sacrifice the time, effort, and money into their dogs to train them for this purpose. As the title indicated, one bear really did a job on the dogs. One was killed, two had minor scratches and were able to hunt the next day, 3 had moderate scratches and puncture wounds from teeth and were not able to hunt the next day, and two had significant wounds that should heal with time. All of this from a single bear. I got to see him twice. Once when he crossed a two-track and a second time in the woods when we were trying to retrieve the dogs before any more got hurt. He was a good sized bear, but not huge according to the guys with experience. We did chase 3 other bears but were unable to get a look at any of them.
L & O

[bearboyluvsQDM]

Where did this happen?

[Liver and Onions]

The U.P.

[birddog]

Sounds like you got a mean one running in your area.Sorry to hear that they lost a dog while in the field.I can't hardly wait till 2nd season because me and the wife are going behind dogs with friends of ours when they come up.Baits are looking good so should be no problem getting good runs.Good luck to all bear hunters this season.

[northern_outdoorsman]

Anyone know of anyone who has dogs to run Bear Near Gwinn, Mich???? I am going to try it alone with a bait pile but if it gets near the end of my week hunt I would like the Option of the Dogs...Please let me know if ya know anyone, Thanks>>>Don

[northern_outdoorsman]

Just a law abiding citizen here, don't mean to cause any trouble. I was reviewing the rules for bear hunting and came across this:

DOG RULES

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For the purpose of hunting bear, no more than six dogs shall be run as a pack. Relaying of packs is prohibited. It is not illegal to relay dogs if six or fewer dogs are used. All dogs must be immunized and licensed and must have a license or other form of identification affixed to their collars
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Might want to inform whomever you were hunting with about this before they get a ticket!!!!

[boehr]

I will echo what northern...posted but before I do I want to say where I am coming from.

Obviously, a post like that can be taken a number of different ways. The way it reads, it sounds like too many dogs were being used in a pack. Now that doesn't necessarily mean there was a violation as none of us are writers and do make mistakes and write something that can be taken different ways.

I have always stated I am here to help everyone stay out of trouble and do not read posts to find tickets or start investigations so....

If more than 6 dogs were being used on the bear, please don't participate and apply peer pressure to anyone else that you may be hunting with as to not violate and cause others to believe bear dog hunters are violators. We have been down that road once and things are trying to start up again, believe me on that but that's all I can say about that right now. If your post was accidentally misleading then I apologize for misreading it. Outside the possible violation, it was interesting and hopefully others will learn that an angry bear can destroy dogs, more so when their scared or hurt than any other time.

[northern_outdoorsman]

I just wanted to add that I wasn't trying to start anything at all, just trying to save someone a ticket if they didn't read the rules!

[Houndman]

Hello,

I don't want to fuel the fire here, BUT if you read the rules- You will see that you can run 8 dogs during training season. There is not a specific rule listed that says that all 8 cannot be in one pack during the training season. We have always ran 8 together during the training season, if we can get them all in anyway. I think that it sounds like thats what they were doing.


During the KILL season is where the 6 dog pack rule applies, as I and most other houndsmen, read the rules.

Hope this clears some things up.

Houndman
www.houndmangsk.com

[northern_outdoorsman]

Cool! hope that was the case! Like I said, I just didn't want anyone to get in trouble! Get that BEAR!!!!!!

[boehr]

I'm also glad to hear it. Post didn't indicate anything about training but for training Houndman is correct, 8 are legal.

[Houndman]

Hello all,

I was assuming since there was NO kill season open anywhere in MI yet, they MUST be training, or I SURE HOPE SO! Again I do not wish to fuel any fire here, I just hate for hunters to view what houndsmen do out in the woods as a bunch of "outlaws." I'm sad to say that sooo many hunters feel this way about hound hunters, and out of the hunndreds I know-nothing can be further from the truth.

I enjoyed his story,although I hate to hear of hurt and killed hounds. This does give a good representation of what can and too often does happen when running Bears with hounds. Its a great sport, but as with any other, there is at times a price to pay.

I do also appreciate you folks keeping us on our toes about the rules. I think we all need reminders at times.

Thanks and good hunting,
Houndman
www.houndmangsk.com

[Liver and Onions]

Yes, we were TRAINING dogs. It was mid-August about one month before the bear with dog season opens. As Houndman and boehr pointed out...you can train 8 dogs at a time....once the season opens you can only use 6. My reason for posting this event was to convey the tremendous time, effort, amd money that houndmens put into training their dogs for bear. I guess I missed the mark. It ends up that I will be hunting over bait, not behind dogs.
L & O