dogging deer
I've lived and worked in 3 states that allowed dogging deer, and 'Bama still does, though it's restricted a bit to certain counties and still allowed in the county I reside. There is a very heavy tradition of deer dogging in the South and those that hunt this way are very serious about the hunt and their hounds. Very often it is a social hunt, a "party" hunt, meaning that all who are involved will get a portion of meat from the kill. But in most of 'Bama, dogging deer is on the decline, largely due to the decrease of land/acreage that doggers can legally access......the rise of private hunt clubs have created boundaries and legal issues that did not exist as little as twenty years ago.
Deer pushed by hounds will run terrain features,, ie a saddle, draw, bench, or ridge top, that sort of thing. It is common to post standers on such crossings before the hunt, then the hounds will push the deer past the standers. In areas that have been dog hunted by generations, these crossings are well known, and doggers can take a significant number of deer. Shots are often close and on the run, and semi rifles and pump and semi shotguns with buckshot or slugs are frequently used as well. On flat land, timber roads and ROW's, breaks in the cover, are stood off, often with multiple standers at safe (sometimes not) intervals, and the deer are pushed across these openings. It is also not uncommon to shoot a deer on a crossing that is not being run by your partie's dogs. In that instance, if done traditionally, the animal is usually divided accordingly with the other group and dog owners.
Dogs can loose a deer if it takes to the water, or runs among other deer and holds, and the dogs take off after a different animal. Deer hounds often get out of hearing, and doggers spend a lot of time collecting their dogs sometimes for days afterwards. It is not uncommon to see a couple of pooped hounds layed up on the side of the road waiting for daddy to roll by and collect them. A hound will not "catch" a deer, but it does happen that a wounded or ultra fatigued deer will get "bayed up" in shallow water or against a blufff. The tone and tempo of the hounds change, and if heard, somebody will close and shoot the deer if legal.
Unethical deer doggers have given a poor reputation to the pastime. Hunters racing all over the countryside in ATV and 4wd, communicating by CB radio, attempting to get ahead of the chase, sometimes paid little attention to property lines and legalities of permits. It was also a common practice to drop hounds in closed areas, like parks and WMA's and other clubs, then stand off the boundaries and wait for the deer to be pushed out to those "legally" on the fringe of the property. Hounds helped in collecting cripples, but shooting to far with buckshot at deer out of range, and peppering them few pellets, led to bayed up cripples, not a clean kill.
All that is on the decline in 'Bama in my area. I don't think I heard a dog race in the past two seasons, even though hound hunting is largely legal on pvt land. But the season before that (3 yrs ago) the outlaws were at work. This bunch drove into a WMA on the last hunt of the year(open to hunting, but closed to hounds) dropped hounds at intervals, then stood off the boundaries in hopes of a shot. Infuriating.
If my Dad had a pack of hounds, I likely would be a dog man, but my Dad was a bowhunter, as am I. I've no problem with the sport, as long as done ethically and legally. BTW, there are quite a few dog deer hunts on Youtube by a a couple of posters in NC and SC.