Congratulations x 2!

Thanks for posting these, I check this thread every day to see how the tracking is going. And thanks for the shot location information and taking the time to help us all be better hunters!

Great read! Thanks for sharing the stories!

I appreciate the comments fellas!

abolt300…….I haven’t been keeping up with any numbers but going off of what I been told by other experienced trackers….typically around 60%, give or take, is what you’ll recover. I’m sure some get a little more and some a little less depending on how aggressively they choose to deal with live deer. If you’ve got a good working dog though, then that number is really a reflection of the hunter's shot placement more than the dog’s ability to track. A lot of deer just aren’t hurt that bad or go farther than we can follow them.

Congrats fellas!!

Good stuff

Rookie question...you mention no blood on the first find of the day, yet he went 700-800 yards. What is Otis following? If you drew a complete circle with an 800 yard margin of error in all directions, you're literally talking about close to a square mile. Without a dog, you're really looking for a needle in a haystack.

Awesome!!

That’s a good question for trackncur……I’m not 100% sure what Otis is following. I’m assuming that there’s actually a little blood on the ground that we can’t see but that he can pick up with his nose. I'm sure we miss some too that we just walk over. I'm watching Otis and the GPS most of the time unless we're working through a slow part of the track or I see Otis lick the ground, etc. The hunter is the one doing the most looking for blood as I guide us along Otis's path. Otis almost has to be tracking the individual deer scent too though because some of these deer only have small entry hole wounds and simply can’t be excreting that much blood. It’s amazing to me to think that a dog can come in behind a deer the next morning and still follow where that one deer walked the evening prior.

BTW…..These are not just guessed at distances…..I’m going off of GPS readings. You’re correct about the needle in the haystack. There’s some deer we find that could have possibly been recovered by search parties but most of the time they don’t even stand a chance from the get-go. I’ll reiterate this again though. Most deer that are hit hard and aren’t pushed don’t go that far. This deer would have very, very likely only been 300-400 had the hunter not went in after him too soon. Take the story from a few days ago about the buck Otis nearly ran over us as an example. He was still alive the next morning but only 400 yards from the hit site because he was never pushed.

A call just came in for tomorrow morning. This one sounds very similar to this morning’s first track. The buck came out in a greenfield with some does. The buck was quartered away from the hunter. It bucked up and then took off fast at first. The hunter reported that it ran by him and then right before it went out of site it slowed down, stopped for a moment, and walked off. He said they had pretty good blood for 100 yards and then it petered out to nothing and they can’t find anymore from there. It sounds like a pretty promising track. I hope the rain holds off long enough for us to track this one without getting wet.

To be continued.......

Also, wasn't questioning your distances at all. I figured you were giving GPS measurements. Honestly it makes me wonder just how far off I've been on some tracks that were never found. I always felt like the deer could be "right up there" or "maybe he turned here", but honestly he could have been 3/4 mile in the other direction.

Tuned in for tomorrow!

Oh no, I know you weren’t questioning the distances. I was just throwing that out there for anyone reading who thinks I’m just eyeballing these distances. I can measure a straight line on my GPS when we find the deer from point A to B. The only estimate is how much to add for us looping around or arcing back.

Here’s something else to consider about that 800 yards. Look in the background of that first pic at the understory we were working in. The whole track was just like that from beginning to end. You could barely see five yards ahead of you and deer trails criss-crossed everywhere. There was zero chance of finding that deer without a dog unless you spotted buzzards on it. A lot of the tracks we’re working are in these really thick young pine stands or some form or thick understory. A deer doesn’t have to go too far through that type habitat to make it a really difficult find without good blood. These thick areas are typically where most of us are hunting here in my neck of the woods too.

Congrats on the doubleheader.



Looking forward to tomorrows story. Seems to be a lot of deer getting gut shot.

Thanks!


Sitting here listening to the coffee percolate. I feel like I may need an extra cup of it this morning. Whew, this is gonna get fun before the seasons over if calls keep coming in. Let's go find a deer fellas.

Well, no recovery on this one. I think the deer was just grazed real good either under the armpit or on the brisket. The hunter was on the side of a ridge shooting down at the deer at a steep angle. He was probably a good 40 ft above the deer. We actually talked a little more about the deer’s reaction and he said the deer stopped and looked back after the shot before walking/trotting off. That leads me to believe that he wasn’t slammed in the body too hard.

We tracked the deer very well in a light rain out to 900 yards before the track went hot at the big creek. I let Otis take it hot for a few hundred yards before calling him off as the sky opened up and went from a light rain to a down pour. We headed back toward the truck but it was too late by then. We got soaked from neck to nuts. That spare change of clothes in the truck came in handy today.

The deer was quartered away and he was shooting down on it at a pretty steep angle. I figure he hit the deer something like this and why the deer bucked up a little when he shot.

Another call just came in from this morning’s hunt just as that heavy band of rain turning to sleet has hit my house. In as nice of a way as I could, I basically said………..





Otis & Shelby Tracking Services or temporarily closed....

You and Otis have had a heck of a tracking season thus far.

Looks like he has really come on this year.

This is one of the first threads on the site that I go to every day.

It's been real enjoyable.

Love the daily updates, keep them coming. From what I understand, yes, there is probably some microscopic blood droplets he is smelling that we can't see, but also, a deer has an interdigital gland that excretes a distinct smell when it is shot/injured/frightened/adrenaline rush/? or something and that is why a good dog will find deer that you can never find blood on. They are actually smelling whatever scent the gland between the hooves are putting down.