I didn’t want to keep hi-jacking the LFTT thread too bad with my tracking stories so I’ll post this here. It’s bothering me to not have put this one on the tailgate today. Almost like letting a deer of my own get away. It may be best that we didn’t get into another bay situation with that deer though. That kind of situation is going to take some getting used to….it’s unnerving. It all just happens so quick and so close when you’re in the thick stuff like we were in. Below is crude sketch of what the buck did to us and why we had a hard time getting Otis back on the track. The top of the pic is the ridge we came off of into the creek bottom. The green is a food plot and the tan line a hunting club road….blue the creek….and the red line the bucks trail.

When we originally crossed the creek following the buck we had to loop around about 50-75 yards up creek (left of pic) at a better crossing spot. Otis followed with us and then got back on the track after we crossed. What we didn’t know at the time was that the buck was just lying in the bushes on the other side of the creek from where we originally came up to it. Otis bayed him right on the side of the creek for a moment but then the buck bounded back across the creek and went right back the way he came from. It was so thick that you couldn’t see really what happened other than a giant buck all of sudden emerged from a thicket like a flying unicorn. Me and the hunter both thought that he went on down the creek. I never gave Otis time to run the deer after he broke bay. I just beeped him to me and we regrouped. Both me and the hunter were really surprised that the buck was still alive.

I sure will be glad when Otis and I both get past this training period. This learning curve thing sucks.