Gonna start posting up a few stories again….I can’t promise I won’t bail out on them again when the season really gets going but for now I’m amped up and excited like everyone else.

First track of the year this morning was a success. It was the first velvet buck I’ve ever been a part of recovering. It was also a dang tough one to start the year on as well. The deer was shot yesterday evening way back in the guts just in front of the hind quarter. The hunters had trailed blood for about 100 yards and lost it. They backed out and came back in this morning without having any more luck. We got on the track around 10 am which put us roughly 15-16 hrs after the shot. I could tell right off that it was gonna be a challenge and that the deer had likely either clotted or gut matter had clogged the hole. There just wasn’t a lot of scent on the ground to follow. I pushed Otis on ahead and down the bottom past where they had lost blood. The deer was traveling along the edge of where a creek bottom and pine stand met so we just made the assumption that he had kept traveling along that edge. Finally, at around the 400 yard mark I saw Otis really starting to act birdy and look like he had picked it back up. He took the trail to a thick area of palmettos where I became even more assured that he was on to something. I told the hunter and his buddy to look over that area of palmettos really well while I followed Otis. They immediately whistled back at me and said “It’s full of blood!!”…..

Otis tracked on for another 50-100 yards to freshly downed oak top where it looked like the deer had bedded but there wasn’t any blood that we could see in the bed. After that he tracked on for another 50-100 yards before running into another dead area with no scent. I didn’t figure the deer would be far after stopping and then bedding down the way he did. I told the hunters we would push on down the bottom and see if we could pick back up on it and then circle back to check the creek and the pine thicket. The hunter and I had pushed on down the creek bottom a couple hundred yards when we heard his buddy holler out behind us “Woooo! Hoooo!”…..The buck had turned out of the creek bottom where we lost it and just eased up another 100 yards in the edge of the pines where he bedded down again and eventually died. I think the hunter said we were around 770 yards from the hit site when we found him. An awesome buck and a great way to get the season started……If you look close in the pic you can see the hair ruffed up just in front of the hind quarter....that was the entry hole. It exited out low about middle of the deer on the opposite side.

We’ve got another one lined up for in the morning. It’s probably gonna be a tough one again but if what the hunter said is true there’s a good chance of a dead deer being out there somewhere. He said it's a big 11 point still in velvet and he stuck it straight down through the back. It looked like he buried the arrow up pretty deep but has only found one speck of blood. We’ll just have to see how things go when we get there. I’ve learned there’s more than one way to skin a cat when looking for these deer so maybe we’ll be able to locate him. Gonna run both dogs in the morning. It would be awesome to find two big velvet bucks in a row.

To be continued…….

I’m ready for some good tracking stories!

Looks like y'all off to a good start

No recovery on the one this morning but the fat lady hasn’t sung just yet……

As it commonly does…..the story changed a little when we arrived this morning. I may have misunderstood the hunter last night but I thought he saw arrow buried up to the fletchings. It turns out though that he didn’t actually know where the deer was hit so I’m taking it that he was just assuming it had to be buried up as close of a shot as he took straight down on the deer. The buck was probably 10 yards or less from the base of the tree but the hunter was in a tree on the side of a ridge and the there was a little ledge that dropped off right under his tree that probably put him 35 ft or so above the deer. It was walking broadside to him but spooked right before it walked through his shooting lane and it started turning back the other way. He took the shot nearly straight down onto it through a gap in the limbs with it basically facing away from him.

There was only one small spot of blood that was barely visible this morning. The dogs weren’t able to pick up on much as I expected with this one. Fortunately though, there wasn’t a whole lot of options on where the deer might have ran to so we were able to use satellite imaging on my phone along with the GPS to work the area over really well. There was a small pond about 300 yards from the hit site in the direction the buck had ran. It was only about ¾ of an acre in size but it looked deep. When we got close to the pond both dogs really lit up like they picked up on something…especially Shelby. She tracked the scent to the waters edge and then on out into the water where she swam around in circles for a minute before coming back. Again she looked like there was something there and went back in. I feel like there’s a good chance the deer may have gotten into the pond and sank. The hunter is gonna go back in a few days and look to see if it floats up. I just sent him a message with the idea of possibly dragging the pond with a grapple as small as it is….We’ll see what happens. Hopefully we’ll get a message in day or two saying he found it.

it should float today....

Good read

Glad to see this thread!

Helluva good buck! I know he was pumped to find him! Good job!

Dr. B

I appreciate it y'all…..

I’ve got some good stories and pics to post up. I’ll sit down and write it up tomorrow. The rain should put a damper on the calls for this evening. It’s been a fast start to the season though. I guess the drought combined with the cooler weather really had the deer on their feet. We went on another track yesterday right after I posted my story and three different tracks today. I left about 6:30 this morning and didn’t make it back home until right at dark this evening. Shelby Lou was on fire running by herself today. She’s ready to make a name for herself.

Well I guess the rain didnt deter everybody.....Got another one to look for in the morning. The hunter says it's a giant. Thie area is known for Biggins so it very well may be. Hopefully were gonna find out. I'll get us caught up on stories as soon as I get a lull in action.

Took our first call Tonite from the neighbor we recovered it after a short track...like you I thought the rain would keep folks in the house

What county was the first deer in the picture from that is a really light colored deer?

Touchdown!!....It was indeed a good un!!.....Another one in velvet.


Outdoor.....I don't tell anything about the locations just out of respect for the hunters. I know county is vague but I'd rather just not even go down that road.

That is a good policy you have there and I commend you for sticking to it.

Enjoy the tracking stories.

I appreciate it.....I know how peculiar some folks can be about it and probably rightfully so. I just don't want to tell the county and then the next thing you know someone chimes in with "Hey!...Didn't so-and-so kill that deer?....I know exactly where it came from!".....or something to that effect.

I'm about to start writing up some of the tales from the last few days now...…I'll post part 1 up in the next little bit.

Waiting patiently

Alright, so part 1……

After I got home the other day I had no more gotten my tracking clothes off and posted up the story than the phone rang again. Long story short……we came to the conclusion that the buck the hunter had shot was likely a one lung hit or one of those hits right under the spine that only catch the top of the lungs. He said it looked like a high shot. He shot it at daybreak and they had jumped him an hour and a half later with him just standing in some thick stuff about 100-120 yards away. We tracked it late that afternoon through some crazy thick undergrowth for a good little ways until we found where he had bedded. There was only 4 or 5 drops of blood in the bed so I believe he was probably clotted up when he got up. There wasn’t much of a scent trail past the bed but we searched the immediate area really well and he wasn’t anywhere to be found. I think there's a good chance he lived just going off of past experiences with that kind of shot.

Well, while we were tracking that deer…..the hunter’s phone rang and he tells me…..”Another hunters wife has just shot a big buck and hit it too far back. They said for you not to leave!”…..So we called off the search for his deer and rode back to camp to meet up with the other hunters. After listening to her story and analyzing what had happened….I told them that I thought the best thing we could do would be to just back out and look for him at daylight the next morning. She thought she had hit him about the middle of the body with him slightly quartered to her. I could tell it was a struggle for them to agree to not go look for it that night but I commend them on backing out and waiting. What I told her was that if we went out there now he may or may not be dead. If we wait until tomorrow morning he’ll likely be dead within a few hundred yards and you’ll have him on your wall to look at for the rest of your life. If we go out there now and he’s not dead….You may just end up with a story to tell.

The next morning I woke up expecting it to be raining but it was barely drizzling outside about 5:30. I looked at the radar and it only showed a little faint green that had just about moved out the area. I don’t know what happened after I left the house because by the time we made it to the woods it was freaking coming down. We tracked this one in a down pour. Shelby hit on the scent trail right off and started taking it the way the buck had gone. For some reason, even though she’s fixed I think she still puts off a heat odor every so often because Otis loses his mind and starts trying to breed her every couple months or so. It just so happened that this was one of those days and he was bad distracted and just harassing her. Like a dummy I pulled Shelby off the track and had my cousin hold her on lead just having more confidence in Otis under the extreme conditions we were tracking under.

It took me a while to get his focus on the track but we finally got back searching and working to pick up on the scent line again. The lady’s husband and son was with me looking and we had gotten separated about 100 yards when I hear her husband holler out “Wooooo!!! There he is right there!!!....The brown dog was running right to it!!” She was too….If I’d just let her go and put Otis on the leash she would have took us right to it. It was only another 75 yards past where I pulled her off. He had only ran about 200 yards from the hit site before bedding up. The shot turned out to be a lot farther back than the hunter thought and it was actually hit right in front of the hind quarter. They did the right thing by backing out and as a result she has one heck of a bow kill to put on her wall.

Just a side note….this deer still had some velvet on it. Its on the end of the main beam that's laying on the ground. Sorry for the blurry pic….Like I said, we were tracking in a down pour….Parts 2 & 3 of this week’s tales still to come……

Good job on a less than stellar tracking day, y'all are got afterem

Thanks man!

Part 2……..

So needless to say….Otis got to stay his ass in the dogbox on the 2nd track and Shelby ran it alone. The hunter had shot a good buck the evening before and center punched it through the guts. When he got down and checked his arrow it confirmed what he had thought so he just immediately backed out and called us to come out the next morning. It was another area of crazy thick undergrowth and he didn’t want to take a chance on just stomping around trying to find it knowing that it was gut shot and about to rain on any blood he might be able to see.

I think Shelby smelled this deer on the wind from the hit site. She was lit up like a firecracker from the get-go and quickly took us about 125-150 yards to where the deer had bedded. The buck had actually done a semi-circle around the hunters stand and was even closer than that to him when it bedded up. He absolutely did the right thing by sneaking out because it was a straight up gut hit with intestines hanging out the exit hole. There was likely no blood coming out and had he got in behind it the night before it would have probably turned a 125-150 yard track into a 500-1000 yard adventure that may or may not have ended with a find. Lots of things can happen in 1000 yards. Way to go Shelby Lou!!....I’m super excited about how she’s progressed and how much more under control she’s tracking now. Again sorry for the blurry pic…It was still raining!!

Part 3 and the story of the giant velvet buck still to come in the morning……….