By Travis Reggear

The alarm goes off at 3:30 a.m. and you stum­ble into the kitchen for a cup of hot coffee. Anxious to get the day's hunt started, you grab your lunch and your training and tracking collars that have been charging all night. You head toward the ken­nel to release the hounds that have been barking since they saw the light come on in the kitchen. As you are loading the dogs your mind races in cir­cles, thinking about where your best chance is to find a bear that morning. After collaring all the dogs, you place the strike dogs that you want on top of your truck or ATV for that day and begin rig­ging for bear.

Soon after putting the dogs up, they get the scent of a bear and the dogs explode in a barking frenzy. You mash on the brakes, spilling your cof­fee, jump out of the truck and unsnap a few dogs. They hit the hill with their heads in the air looking for the bear scent. As soon as they find the scent they start to open as they drive the track around the hill. You turn the remaining dogs loose and the race is on. All this would not be possible without a good dog striking, finding and starting the bear's track; not something every dog can do.

Striking is actually a complex sequence of events that can be broken down into three main steps. The first step of striking is the strike itself. This is where the dog has to sound off when it smells the proper scent. This is important because the dog has to be able to sort out unwanted scents and tell the hunter that there is good scent in the air. Good scent being the scent of whatever it is that you are after that day. For this article, it's all about bear scent. A well-trained strike dog will ride the box all day and not make a sound until it smells the right scent. A dog that barks all the time on all kinds of scent or just babbles is not a finished strike dog. Some dogs will strike older scent better than others. Most real good strike dogs will strike real cold or old scent that can sometimes be hard to start or trail. Dogs all have a built in thermome­ter on how old of scent they will open on. Some dogs will only strike scent that they can run while others will strike any amount of scent that might be lingering in the air, although the dog might not be able to trail it. Having a dog that will hunt off the box and strike when it smells bear scent is step one in striking.

Step two of striking is finding the strike. Finding the strike is probably the most challenging step in striking for most dogs as it can take a lot of effort. The strike dog has told the hunter that there is bear scent in the air and now the dog has to go find where the scent is coming from. If the bear has walked across the road, finding it should not be so hard for the dog. But if the scent is floating in the air it might take some work for the dog to find it.

Many strikes are winded strikes. This is where the scent from the bear's track is floating on the air. It might be 300-400 yards up the hill from where the dog smelled it off the truck or ATV. A strike dog that will go and find the source of the scent that they have struck is priceless when hunting steep hills and canyons where the wind thermals are constantly moving. Some dogs hunt close to the rig while others will cast out and hunt up the track that they have smelled a long ways off. I have had both styles of dogs and the dogs that will go a long ways to find the scent usual­ly start more bear races than the dog that has to have the track close to them to find it. Hunting with GPS collars has really shown me what a dog is capable of doing. I have seen where dogs have found a track a measured distance of 400-500 yards away from where they struck the scent. Dogs that can do that will certain­ly help you catch more bears.

The third and final step in striking is starting the track. After the dog opened or barked on scent for the strike and found the track, they need to start the track. Getting the track started and starting it the right direction is huge. Some dogs have the ability to take the track the right way most of the time, while others are 50/50 at best. A dog that starts the bear's track the right way all of the time is a huge asset in a bear pack. If you get a strike and the dog starts the track back­wards, the hunter will be in for a delay in the day's hunt. Getting a track backwards and having the dogs trail out or lose all the scent is the biggest contributing factor to most trash races. When young dogs run out of scent from good game because they went back­wards, a lot of the time they will find something else to run, espe­cially in areas with a high concen­tration of hoofed game like deer, elk and moose. Out of the three steps of striking, starting the track in the correct direction is definite­ly the hardest for a dog. A dog ei­ther has the ability to go the right way or they do not.

Strike dogs are definitely the quarterbacks of the bear pack. They open on scent, go and find the track and then start it the right way, and if they are well polished they do it so smooth and fast that a hunter really doesn't give the complexity of it all much thought. They come in all colors, shapes and sizes and can make or break the day for the hunter. Sometimes it seems like they can invent bears in areas that don't show a lot of bear sign. Good strike dogs are a lot like a fine wine, they just get better with age and increase in value.

Hunter's also need to continually develop other dogs into fin­ished strike dogs as you never know when your best, and maybe only, strike dog will have their final day atop the rig for one reason or another. The more days you hunt your dogs, the better they be­come and the better you will work together.