I know I'm a little late on this post, but good dogs are hard to find and when you do, they are expensive. I have strike dogs that have cost me upwards of 2000.00 and pack dogs that I have paid 500.00 for.
Don't get me wrong, I breed most of my own pack, (Blueticks, Florida Red Curs and Southern Blackmouth Curs) but there have been times when I've needed a good strike dog.
When you've got that much tied up in a dog, a tracking system is cheap insurance. As someone mentioned earlier, land is getting harder and harder to find to run dogs on. If you run long legged dogs (walkers, blueticks), you need alot of land (dogs can't read posted land notices). If you are hunting an area that butts up to private land or still hunt land, you need to know where he is, so that if he gets over there, you can get him out, quick. Landowners and still hunt clubs have no problems shooting your 2000.00 jump dog.
Just my 2 cents....
now the gps trackers are affordable, easy to use and you dont have the big bulky antenna to deal with. i know when i use to coon hunt in indiana we used the heck out of the old antenna if the dogs got out of hearing range. my cousins had thousands invested in his dogs and would do whatever it took to make sure he found them whether they be alive and treed or caught in a fence or worse dead.
