I was checking out the Hog Blog like I do often and saw Philip’s post about hound hunting. Unlike him and many of the native tarheelers I hunt with, they grew up with the hunting of deer with hounds. When I moved to the state I was surprised to hear about this tradition but had no opinion either way about it.
I must admit that for many of the reasons and issues Philip has raised I certainly have a somewhat negative view of the practice. Should it be outlawed? Certainly not I think it is an important part of the culture of this part of the country but a tighter reign on the renegades that abuse the sport need to be put in place. I also must admit that I’ve never been on a hound hunt for deer and I would like to at least experience it once to see what it is all about. I have only seen it from the side of having dogs running over my lease and putting added pressure on the herd and increasing the likelihood of more nocturnal movement and less movement during the daytime lessen my hunting experience.
When ever this topic comes up you’ll hear that there is only a few bad apples given the rest a bad name by not respecting property rights, hunting from the road, racing 4 wheelers and trucks up and down public roadways to catch up with the chase and maybe that is the case.
I have found another trend and that is more and more people are getting out of the sport because of the costs associated with keeping the hounds and getting land access. My concern is that from what I see these are the good hunters who we need to carry on this tradition and I’m afraid the bad apples are staying in.
We have enough people that want to end all hunting that we really don’t need to be fighting amongst ourselves on such issues.
