This track was a 15 year old boys first deer shot at 9:30 in the morning. He only had hair and a piece of the meat at shot site. After walking 20-30 yards in the direction the deer went he could not find any blood. He asked for thoughts on a FB forum and received all kinds of bad answers and recommendations. I hit him up and suggested to just let it lay and we would check it out later in the afternoon.

Brayden and Huck worked this track with us again. Not going to lie, the dogs struggled to get on a good line at the start and it wasn't looking good. Both dogs would take the track in the same direction but would circle back around looking for something better. About 75 yds from shot site we decided to do a half circle and make sure we had not missed something. Scout and I worked one direction without hitting on anything and Brayden and Huck worked the other. Huck hit on a trail and about 75 yds later was at the buck. I brought Scout over that way and she hit the trail about the same spot and went straight to the buck.

I'm not sure if the buck had walked some circles throwing them off or just wasn't putting out any scent until a certain point or what. The dogs were on the right path from the start but they were just not as hard on the track as normal for some reason. But the deer had traveled about 225 yds from shot site and not a single drop of blood was found.

Scout and Huck are now 4 for 4 on the season running together. Hope we can keep that streak going.

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Had a rare back whack recovery tonight……The story was classic back whack with the deer hitting the ground and laying there for a while before getting up and struggling off. The hunter tried shooting him again but missed. He was only about 20 minutes from my house so I decided to load up and go give a try. It did turn out to be a back whack but the buck was hit just low enough that it must have done some internal damage. He was still alive when we found him 300 yards from the hit site but he was too weak to even get up. The pic doesn’t really do it justice…..It had a 19 ¾ inch inside spread with a body pushing 200 lbs…..My females are in heat right now so they had to stay at home for this one

Got to go look for a gut shot this afternoon. It’s about time we had something to do.

Good luck!

Well he was smoked just a little back on the exit only went about 70 yds. Nice deer for one of the forum members.

I'm on a bad streak at the moment for tracking scratched up deer. At the same time my Catahoula Cotton and my mtn cur pup have been doing way better than I ever expected. Went on a long track in Jacksonville last night for a preacher. Muzz got hung up in a few spots and Cotton blew through all of it. Found a unusual amount of specks of blood to back her up for over 1 mile. Last spot was alittle blood smeared across the top of a web wire fence. Ended it at a big creek after making a big 2 mile half circle. Trail never got hot and the deer never bedded. We had some pretty deep conversations and even though we didn't get the deer it was some of the best fellowshiping I've ever experienced.

Took my 8 month old Belgian Malinois on his first track job tonight. Only about a 65 yard track and his first time to be exposed to a deer. He did great.

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Fell and had a stick go between my eye and eye socket. Had to leave the deer. Probably worst pain of my life and sheets of ice were coming down. Bad situation all around, headed to the emergency room when the wife gets ready...damn

Damn dude that sounds rough.....hope you're ok......

Dang johnv, hope you're ok.

Holy crap John that’s not good.

I'm good other than a really scratched up eye. Hopefully I can go load him up today. Got to the track 24 hours after the shot. Had a hard time getting a hold of one landowner. Dogs jumped him and caught him. I got within 60 yards of them in thick cutover. They broke away, I fell and had the stick go in my eye. It's had started sleetting hard and the hunter wanted me to call it for the night for our safety. I couldn't see so I had to agree with him at that moment.

Well guess we're holding off till tomorrow. Roads are bad out towards New Market. I've had a string of bad luck for the last week far as tracking goes

I hear you man…..It’s been one of these kinds of days and we don’t even have a deer to show for it…..

I look about the same

Y’all need some welding sleeves🤣

Recovered another young hunters first buck this morning…..The buck came by with another one on the move and he couldn’t get it to stop……Ended up hitting him in the hind quarter……Him and his dad lost blood after about 100 yards and called us to come help…..We jumped him still alive about 250 yards past last blood. He bounced around a few times but we were able to finish him off within 100 yards from where he got up……

Nice, I've got two tracks to run later and I dread it. It's 16 degrees at the moment

Its been really slow around here since Christmas......I know there's more trackers now than there used to be but a few years ago my phone would be ringing off the hook this weekend