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Dogs running deer in Cherokee

BSK said:
The last time I had this problem, the pack of dogs mysteriously disappeared. When the dogs' owner got replacement dogs, he kept them fenced in. Message quietly sent, message quietly received.
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Chickencoop96 said:
Last weekend of this past rifle hunt for deer in South Cherokee I had a new experience in the woods. three pit bulls with no collars on ran a massive buck off of my spot and ruined my hunt. He was about to step into my shooting lane before he stopped to look behind him and before I knew it he was running full sprint. He went past me like a bat outta hell and I couldn't pull the rifle up and get him in my scope quick enough. Then them dogs followed right behind him. This happened to me the opening weekend in the same spot with a spike, same three dogs. Is there something that can legally be done? Will a game warden be able to help? Need opinions.
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Had it happen to me near benton mtn. If your hunting near the foot where alot of the deer are its bound to happen. To many in McMinn and Polk let thier dogs run free.
 
When I hunted coal mine land in IN the DNR always told us that if we saw a pack of dogs running without collars, shoot them on the spot. People would drop their unwanted pets off and let them run wild. Over time, they can run with the coyotes, but I heard this takes a long time to happen. I've shot a handful of wild dogs when I was up there. Some get extremely dangerous. Down here in TN, all the dogs I see running on WMA's have collars and typically live nearby. Extremely aggrevating that the owners could care less about them running wild like that. I've had at least a dozen hunts ruined because of dogs running in the last yr. I watched 2 dogs destroy a buck that looked to be hit by a car that ended up dieing on private land that backed up to a WMA. So they absolutely will take a deer out if they can get ahold of them (most will get away if uninjured).
 
A few years ago we contacted the sheriff and animal Control about a dog. He was a problem. They did nothing at all. They told us to shoot him actually. We didn't ended up attacking a neighbors dog and he finally got picked up.

Been lucky not to deal with dogs much during hunting beside stupid coon hunters that think they own everything.
 
A few years ago I shot a doe by the time I got to her two pits were eating on her. I left the area and hoped to never see them again about two or three weeks later I was walking out from a morning hunt when the same two dogs charged me. I have seen them since. SSS. If they would have charged me walking in I'm afraid there would have been a different out come.
choot'em before your being chased in or out of the woods or some other hunter meet his or her fate in the woods.
 
I'm not sure how far you were from houses but if you were deep in South Cherokee it probably wasn't yard dogs. There are guys around Polk county that run hogs, bear and deer with dogs on South Cherokee. Most of their dogs don't have collars for a reason. It could've been some of their dogs.
 
Dogs at large are fair game in TN. I had an issue with a neighbors dog that was vicious towards me and my dog on my property. I finally called the state and asked what I could legally do, they said to shoot it if it happened again. I confronted my neighbor several times, once was a hostile confrontation where I was PISSED. He didn't like me for a while which was a little nerve racking because he was a major drug runner for cartels back in the day, spent 30 years in prison for it. He finally realized that I didn't want to shoot his dog but I was GOING to if I ever saw it loose on my place again. We are buddies now but it was touchy for a few months.

We've also had issues with dogs loose on our farms, we take care of them if needed especially if they run livestock.
 
Hunting out west my buddy and I found some cage traps then we ran into the Govt trapper. He told us the marijuana growers would take whole litters of pitbulls and release them to scare away wildlife from their grows. There were packs of about dozen pits running around the mountains. He said to shoot any dog that didnt look like a "farmers" dog.
Because he was a hired trapper he couldnt kill them unless they were attacking livestock. He had to trap them alive and take them to a "rehabilitation" center for pits.
 
DeerMan66 said:
I'm not sure how far you were from houses but if you were deep in South Cherokee it probably wasn't yard dogs. There are guys around Polk county that run hogs, bear and deer with dogs on South Cherokee. Most of their dogs don't have collars for a reason. It could've been some of their dogs.
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I hunt polk with my dogs, for bear and hogs. Haven't met anyone hunting deer with dogs. Also Haven't met anyone without collars on thier dogs. It's really hard to hunt dogs on South Cherokee without a garmin or identification collars.
 
timberjack86 said:
I hunt polk with my dogs, for bear and hogs. Haven't met anyone hunting deer with dogs. Also Haven't met anyone without collars on thier dogs. It's really hard to hunt dogs on South Cherokee without a garmin or identification collars.
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I suspect these dogs are either wild or just poorly cared for. Definitely not somebody's dedicated hunting dogs
 
I'd shoot them with no hesitation. If it's wild mongrel dogs, pit bulls at that, they are gonna get shot.

Someone's walkers, curs, beagles? Heck no I wouldn't shoot them. I'd try and help get them rounded up to their owners. I've ran hunting dogs a fair amount. And we love them and would want any decent human to return them if they ran off.
 
I have neighbors that let their dogs run loose. It's a little nerve racking at times. It's 3 or 4 of them . 2 of them ran around for 30 minutes opening day of rifle season . I've yet to do anything about it because I have doubts anything will change
 

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