Call just came in for tomorrow morning. This one is for a club I tracked for a couple weeks ago but a different hunter. The hunter reported that a big bodied deer came across his field right at dark. He scoped it out with his binoculars and decided that it was definitely a shooter. He got his gun up and got his crosshairs on him just as he was about to go back into the woods and squeezed the trigger. He said that it was only about a 60 yard shot and he felt really confident that he hit the deer….but with the rain coming down like it is, they couldn’t find blood. They want me to bring Otis out in the morning and see if we can locate the buck. This should be pretty interesting with all the rain.

To be continued..........

Great work Otis! Love reading the stories.

Good luck

Thanks man....

Thanks! I'm sitting here sippin on a little coffee and checking out the radar. Looks like there's gonna be another big line of rain move through this morning before we can get started. This is likely not gonna be a situation where we can ground scent right to the deer. I'm probably gonna have to use my GPS combined with Otis's nose to do a little gridding into the wind. If he hit it well and they didn't push it....then it'll likely be somewhere within the 300-400 yard range.

enjoying this photo journal. Thanks for sharing CNC - and the chart above is a great visual tool.

We tracked to this deer about 500 yards out but it was still alive and not weak enough that we could really do anything with it. We were too close to a major highway to really turn Otis loose on it. Actually the reason I started tracking for this club is because another tracker referred them to me not wanting to run his dogs that close to a highway. Otis works in close proximity to me so I can work him on a track like this until it goes hot. One thing I was pleasantly surprised by is how well he worked the track after at least an inch of rain at least. It really wasn't that much different than a normal track. I think the hunter may have hit the deer really low in the guts or something of that nature. You could tell the buck was slower than normal but he wasn't hurtin too bad.

Another call just came in as I was typing that last story. I'll be dang if it ain't almost the neighboring property from where I just came from. Let's load back up and head out again. Hair and a little blood at the hit site but that's all I know right now.

To be continued........

This one turned out to be another grazing shot. The buck was shot late this morning around 10:30 ish so we were on his trail just a few hours after the shot….actually a little sooner that I would normally like. We tracked about 300-400 yards and got him up but was never able to catch up with him after we did. The track had really just gone hot when we called it off. The rain and lightning was moving in fast on us. The hunter said that from the reaction of the deer and sign that he thought he had just barely hit it but he wanted to bring in a dog and confirm it.

Regrouping this morning and getting ready for this cold weather to move in. This little boot dryer is one of the best investments I’ve made.

Call just came in for tomorrow morning. Not a whole lot of info on this one. Got pretty good blood for 250 yards and then lost the blood trail. No bone reported so maybe it’s not a leg shot. I asked the hunter how the deer reacted and he said it just took off into the woods and he couldn’t really tell much. It could be a decent shot back in the liver/gut area and they just tracked it too soon. Hard to really say though on this one. We’ll find out in the morning.

To be continued……….

Good luck this morning, I hope we see a dead buck soon!

Got him! Pics to come.

Good deal. We will have reading material shortly.

We don’t get too many like this one but I’ll dang sure take it. The deer was less than 100 yards from where they lost blood. It was a gut shot WAY back in the guts. The deer had gotten on one of their interior 4-wheeler trails and was walking down the center of it. It must have gotten up against the brush on the left side of the road and sprayed some blood over in the bushes because the hunters thought that it had taken a left into the thicket when actually it had just gone up the road a little farther and went to the right.

The shot is not the big hole behind the shoulder but rather the smaller wound you see just in front of the hind quarter where I drew the arrow. The yotes had gotten to this one sometimes during the night. I hate when that happens but I’d rather that happen than Otis get gored by a lively buck that we rushed in on too quickly. You just never know what you’re dealing with until you track it. Everyone has a different approach to dealing with these type of situations but I’d prefer to give any deer we track around 4-5 hrs to weaken down before tracking. It’s really dangerous business when you have to deal with them alive and frisky. Another tracking buddy of mine had his dog gored just last week. Luckily it hit the dog in the back end and the two puncture wounds didn’t hit any vitals. The way I looks at is……If you don’t want to risk something getting the meat, then don’t shoot him in the arse.

Way to go Harold! congrats

I'M headed to Union Springs in the mornin, and will be there thru February,, will be callin ya if needed for sure

Way to go, Otis! Love catching up on this thread each day.