Enjoy reading your track stories. Keep up the good work!

Thanks fellas.....


Part 3……….

So after finding the 2nd buck we loaded up and headed to the third track of the day with it still raining. The hunter had reported hitting a good buck the evening before but wasn’t sure exactly where he’d hit it. They had not found the arrow and were pretty sure it stayed in the deer. They had tracked it about 200-250 yards the night before and jumped him up out of his bed. This was roughly 2 hrs after the shot. The guy who jumped him said that he ran off looking gimpy.

Again, I left Otis in the box for this one and ran Shelby by herself. She picked it up immediately at the hit site and bee lined right to where they had jumped the buck. I was really pleased to see the way she was still able to pick up on the track because by this time we were tracking around 20-22 hrs after the shot. She got to the bed and sniffed around for a minute before taking off the way the deer had ran after being jumped. After 75 yards or so though it was like she hit a brick wall and then there was nothing. That’s when I had to start pulling my weight as her teammate and try to help her out. We started arcing out from the last known spot trying to pick back up on the scent line but with no luck. We searched out to around 300 yards in each direction before deciding to back up and punt.

There were three other guys back at the trucks so we decided that as open as the area was we may be best to all spread out in a line and do an intensive grid search. The area was some mature thinned out pines with very little in the understory so you could see a long ways and if the deer was laying dead somewhere in it….he shouldn’t have been too hard to see. We grid searched the whole area with five guys out to probably 600-800 yards past the jump bed but never found the deer. As one last ditch effort, I went and got Otis out of the box to see if maybe he could take the scent line a different direction from the jump bed. He did the same thing as Shelby though and it pretty much confirmed to me that the deer had likely clotted up while bedded and just never left any scent on the ground after the jump. This is why its so important to back out and let that deer die in his first bed. Once you jump him then there’s not telling how far he might run or if he’ll leave a good scent line along the way.

During the grid search…..Shelby and I ran across and nice sized rattlesnake. Luckily it was very lethargic and never even moved or she might have gotten bit. The guy in the pic was about my height so he's around 6 ft tall for reference on the size of the snake.

The conclusion of part 3 and the giant velvet buck still to come………..Pics will eventually improve I promise.

Are mainly working off lead or on?

All of it is off lead using a Garmin Alpha system. I've worked with them on staying close to the handler and they're very obedient when I tone them to come back.

I was wondering how you managed 2 dogs if you were on lead.i mainly stay on lead with mine use the Garmin alpha also but I will cut him lose on one if I need to

If you work with them on staying close to the handler then you can track with them off lead just about like they were attached to a lead. They just learn that you're working as a team and they're not allowed to tear out on their own. There's pros and cons to doing it this way. My dogs aren't gonna take a wounded deer and run him the same as some dogs will but the upside to that is that I'm able to track in areas around roads and subdivisions, etc with the confidence that I can let them search off lead.

The conclusion……..

So after a long day of tracking I finally made it back home right about dark. I got settled in and was enoying a few cold Dos Equis when the phone rang again. The hunter said that he had 5 racked bucks come in on him that evening and he had shot the biggest one in the group….it was a stud. He thought his shot was a little off though and that he had hit high and a little back maybe catching liver. Like with most of these stories it was super thick where the buck had ran after the shot and the blood trail was very sparse. Him and a couple of other guys had searched around but only found a fist sized area with spotty blood in it where the deer had crossed a small creek branch. This was in a creek bottom and they had tromped it out pretty well looking for the buck but with no luck.

We got there the next morning just after daylight and I took Shelby down to the hit site and left Otis back at the truck with my younger cousin. She picked up on it at the hit site but just got muddled down in the area where the searchers had been walking around so much. I called my cousin and told him to bring Otis down and lets see if he could pick his way through it. In the meantime I crossed the creek with Shelby and walked it out for about 300-400 yards to make sure he just wasn’t laid up on the side of the creek branch. One side was super thick but the side we walked on was really open. That kinda led me to believe that the buck would likely be on the thick side of the creek and that what we needed to really work it over well with the dogs.

So after not finding anything Shelby and I went back to the hit site to get Otis and restart. By now Otis was so jealous and upset at having to stay in the box….he was ready to hunt and prove himself. He didn’t even pay Shelby any attention. I started working him on down the bottom through the thick side of the creek…. trying to work out ahead of the muddled up search area where we could pick up on a clean scent line. The hunters had tromped it for a good ways so it was tough to tell if he was on a scent or not. I felt pretty confident though that the creek bottom was the most likely place we’d find the deer. Well, after we’d searched about 500 yards down the creek I told the hunter and my cousin we needed to back up to last blood and see if he didn’t go a different direction. I just didn’t see anything from the dogs that looked as if he had gone this way.

There was a 1-2 year old clear cut that ran along the side of the creek bottom we were searching in. It wasn’t crazy thick but it had grown up in some summer vegetation like they typically do. I told my cousin that as we looped back to last blood….walk up there in that clear cut and check the edge of it to see if you see anything. Well, we had almost made it back to last blood when I hear my cousin holler out….”Got him!!!!!!....Wooooo! Hooooo!”…Sure enough….instead of continuing on down the creek bottom like he was headed…the buck had taken a hard right and shot straight out in the clear cut where he crashed and died. He was probably 200-225 yards from the hit site. The hunter was pretty accurate about where he had hit him….it was a little far back and high. This was one heck of buck here with a spread I’m guessing was around 20” or so……and another one in velvet. I gotta believe the drought is causing them to shed late this year.

Did your cousin get a special treat and pat on the head for finding that deer


Enjoy the stories, keep up the good work.

Yeah, he said I should just put the collar on him the next time we go.....

Oh please please do and if he don't come when you beep him shock the piss out of him and he'll come next time

Just got caught up. Looks like you are on a roll.

Just got caught up on this years tracks. Looks like you're on a roll!! Nice work Harold

Don't think I've ever seen so many velvet bucks hit the ground this time of year. 👍🏻

Thanks fellas.....Its been a good start to the season. Its been some tough tracks and teamwork has been a big part of finding most of them thus far. Something that I've had to learn over the years is that its not always gonna be just turning the dogs loose and following them. Sometimes it is but many times you have to work as a team and use all the tools at your disposal to locate the deer....GPS, aerial photos, dogs, humans searchers, experience, and sometimes just a little luck don't hurt either. The goal is to find the deer or determine that he probably lived and that's all that matters in the end.

Been looking forward to this, CNC! Congrats to y'all on a great start!!!!

Thanks!

I look forward to this thread every year! Great job CNC! Keep up the good work and please keep us updated

Thanks! Glad y’all are enjoying the stories so far….I posted another track we went on a couple days ago on a tracking thread that got started in the general forum. I’ll repost it here in case anyone missed it. There wasn’t a whole lot too this track. The hunter shot the buck at daylight and knew he had put a marginal hit on it. He backed out immediately and called us to see if we could help late that afternoon. We gave the deer about 8-9 hrs before getting on it.

I put Shelby on this one again by herself but she struggled for some reason on what I thought would have been an easy one for her. That’s just the way it goes sometimes though. She started out good but then just acted as if she lost it and didn’t know what to do. The deer was running along side of a deep creek bank and he was trying to find a place to go down. He kept dipping in toward the creek acting like he was gonna go off in it and then he would back track himself a little and keep on going. Maybe that’s what was throwing her off. I went back and got Otis and eventually found the buck in the creek about 300 yards from the hit site. It’s very possible that the deer scent was flowing up the creek back toward us and Shelby was picking up on it. She wanted to go off in the creek bed when she needed to keep on going down the bank. It’s all good though…..her teammates came through for her and another deer was recovered.

Shelby is licking the entry hole....the exit was about the same front to back on the opposite side but lower on the body.