[nutterly_uts]

I understand why someone having a little walk with their lab and shotgun isn't going to see them. . . . . .. but when hunting with proper dogs. . . . . . I just think it would be inevitable

I'm sorry if this is daft but we only have one hound pack here and limited gun dog owners so my sample size is small

Our hound pack when they are out on the drag hunts are NOT quiet and I'd guess that is part of it. Even when they aren't all chuntering to themselves or indicating they've found the scent, just because there are so many of them they are noisy. Stealth isn't needed when you can follow your nose!

When I've seen working springers and labs when they are in the field, again when they are in the undergrowth they aren't quiet - crashing about in the undergrowth looking, and even on the retrieve when focused there is noise and that's not counting the shooting.

I've never watched a lurcher hunt so I can't comment on that, but also both the activities above carry a pretty big scent burden attached to them too which will be a heads up too - multiple dogs (and people/horses) will be hard to miss and I'd also imagine there is a smell associate with shooting residue?

I'd imagine that if there was a cat in an area, it would be pretty familiar with what noises (and smells) are normal and what aren't. Most of the sightings do seem to be accidental findings when neither party are particularly doing anything and paths cross - presumably they are down wind and virtually silent for whatever reason, even those out walking a dog or two.
I know Boone Smith (as an eg) use dogs to tree and capture puma in America but I'd imagine its because there are more of them, the dogs know the scent to look for, and I'd imagine he has far more fails then you'd expect?

[Porterlauren]

Without being funny. . . . . I don't think you've quite got the right idea of how it works in many places.  Regardless of whether the cat can smell / hear the dogs coming, its going to get scented, and its going to get hunted until some kind of conclusion. There is no hiding. I take as my measure the wild boar we have here, they are incredibly smart and stealthy etc, and most people never see them. We see them every week a couple of times a week.

Same with cats, the wild cats in Europe, America etc, are surely as stealthy, fast and cunning as the ones we have had released over here. And yet they are regularly hunted and killed / caught.

A good team of capable dogs (and some hound packs really aren't very capable) can, with the right scenting conditions, track down most things. And they can run faster than a cat. The cats instinct would be to tree itself for safety. . . . .or it would be pushed out past observers etc.

P.S not all hound packs come with lots of daft folk on horses wearing red.

[Me]

    

[in the hills]

Has anyone ever thought that they have 'heard' a big cat?  OH and I did, a few years ago, hear 'something'.

We could only describe it as the throaty sound that you hear big cats  make on TV. 'It' ran past the lounge windows late one evening making the sound as it went. Both jumped up and ran to the window but it had gone. OH went outside and could hear 'it' padding along the hedge on the other side of the lane.

Would love to know what it was. Not a fox or dog. 

Do badgers ever make that type of sound?    Never heard anything like it, before or since.

We are in Mid Wales.

[nutterly_uts]

Like I say I have limited experience with hunting.

But surely when out hunting, the dogs are looking for specific scents, not just following whichever takes their fancy? And surely in order to follow those scents, they do so as there is some reward for them that has been re-enforced?  That's what I am not following in you saying they would get scented - I agree they would, but not that they would become the quarry just because they were scented. Also, when out are you looking up every tree you pass?!

And I do think a numbers game comes into it too - you will hunt and capture more if a population is larger.

[Nellie88]

I have joined (having been reading for ages) just to post that I've seen big cats. 2 now, one I am certain of and one I am less certain but pretty sure.
First was in 2009 I was out exercising a seasoned hunter at about 7am. Same route I'd been doing in the summer for the last three years. Came around the corner on a lane with tall hedges each side. The horse froze, I looked up to see what was there as he is pretty bomb proof and there about 100m away was a panther. There as plain as day walking away from me. It turned left and went through an open gate into a field so I got the chance to see it walking and in profile before it disappeared. I went forward and as I passed the gate I looked in the gate but couldn't see anything. That was in Wiltshire and I am 100% sure that's what I saw. The next time was in 2011 walking with my dog across Cannock Chase. And about 400m looking down on the edge of a plantation I'm sure I saw one come out for about 20m and go back in. This one I am less sure about but only because it was against a dark background and a lot shorter time. I have no idea if these were just random cats or a 'breeding population' but they definitely were there! (Or I'm a complete fruit loop! )

[Me]

When I am out at night in winter, I can often see pheasants roosting in the bare branches against moonlight sky. I doubt even Porterlauren could miss a Leopard in a tree in daylight!

Mixed packs of dogs used rough shooting etc draw mixed cover from brambles to woodland to bracken and hunt what ever is there, I can't see any jackrussel worth its salt turning down the chance to chase the biggest cat its ever seen! 
 

[nutterly_uts]

When I am out at night in winter, I can often see pheasants roosting in the bare branches against moonlight sky. I doubt even Porterlauren could miss a Leopard in a tree in daylight!

Mixed packs of dogs used rough shooting etc draw mixed cover from brambles to woodland to bracken and hunt what ever is there, I can't see any jackrussel worth its salt turning down the chance to chase the biggest cat its ever seen! 
 

Fair enough, didn't consider people using mixed packs including jack rats

And I wasn't exactly thinking of bare branched trees 

[Porterlauren]

Nutterly-uts - Well. . . . our gun dogs, would show some interest in the scent, might have a little explore, may flush it. . . . but more than likely wouldn't push it enough, and would lose interest, allowing the cat to make good its escape / evasion.

However. . . . in my experience, even proper mounted packs of hounds, will riot on new and exciting scents, and things like cat scent, tend to drive them nuts. It's as much a case as breaking them to scents, as it is training them to it. So a fresh scent of a beast they don't know is going to most likely drive them nuts.

And as for the kind of packs I hunt with. . . . . . if its there, they will hunt it, from a rat to a wild boar. . . . and pretty much without exception, they hate cats. Ive treed enough feral cats to know how it goes. . . . you locate all of the dogs at the base of a tree going nuts at the feral spitting and hissing from the branches. I imagine it'd be very similar but on a larger scale lol.

For the record, our own particular mooching pack, when at its largest would consist of a few terriers (russels, patter dales, lake lands and cross breeds), some small hound types, and several lurchers. Not much can avoid them if they want to find it.