Alright fellers. Time for an update. I went on 2 tracks Sunday and 2 yesterday evening. First track was Sunday morning. The hunter which is one of my most hated friends, had shot a buck Saturday afternoon. He knew right away it was a gut shot and backed out. He went back in Sunday morning and lost the deer about 200 yards away in a thicket. I took both dogs because my female is in heat and is acting 6 ways of crazy. We held her back while I went on with Haggard. It was very obvious he is still to young so we brought Spark in. We ended up just going to the thicket where he had lost blood. Once in there, its really thick. She's not hitting on anything. I can hear my midget friend whistle to have me come to him. I had let Spark off leash to be able to work the wind a little. I got to him and it was obvious a deer had layed there a while. I tried calling Spark over but she wouldn't come. She ended up being down wind of the deer and was going nuts trying to figure out where it was coming from. The buck was probably 10 yards away from the bed. Congrats midget, I know your reading this.

Sunday evening, I get a call from a man in Paint Rock. His son had stuck a doe and the arrow was still in her. It was his son's first bowkill. I put Spark on the deer 7 hours after the shot. I let her backtrack it all the way to the hit site and started from there. We had parked down the mtn from there. So we head back down following blood and we get to where the guys had lost blood and she is still going strong. Dad was back behind a ways looking for blood as we were going. We went about 200 yards and found no blood. By her body language I believed she wasn't on the deer. So I restart. She takes the same exact path but takes a left about 100 yards into it. I let her work for another 100 or so yards and come up with nothing. So I restart yet again. Same story, she goes the same way down but gets out so far and just seems to lose it. At this point its nearly dark and i have no light. We started the search about 3.5 hours earlier. I tell Dad that I believe he needs to call a more experienced dog. I had told him from the start that mine were young and there was a good chance they wouldn't make the recovery. There seemed to be a lack of trackers Sunday and I was the only one available. The only other one wouldn't take the track later that night because I had been in there already. I really felt horrible leaving without finding the young man's deer. It's very discouraging.

Up next is yesterday's track. Got the call midday that the hunter had shot a buck and misjudged the distance. He had no blood at the hit site and just backed out to find a dog. He tells me that the deer bolted about 20 yards, stopped and walked off twitching its tail. So we go after him about 6 hours after the shot. He takes me to the hit site and Spark is on it. She tracks exactly where he said the buck walked off. I found one speck of blood about the size of a pencil eraser. There was white hair at the hit site and arrow had some clear fluid on it with no color or smell. I can see in the mud as Sparks tracking a large set of tracks and by her body language I feel like she's on the deer, but we're not finding anything. I restart and she does the exact same thing, goes to a creek. We did this 3 times and she follows the same trail each time. I believe that the deer was shot low and would live. But the way the deer acted is puzzling me. It sounds like a classic gut shot minus the hunching up. But there was only one speck of blood.

I left there and went on up the road. Hunter had shot a buck at 8:40. 18 yards broadside with a crossbow. He caught the off shoulder and they didn't give it any time before tracking. They busted the deer out of its bed and it probably ran 400 yards thru a semi grown up sage field. It made its way into another field which was slammed with cuckaburrs. They seen it trying to get across this field and it was having a hard time walking. So they went in after it, thinking it would be dead in there. They grid search it with no luck. I got there about 30 minutes before dark and we go to last blood and start working our way back towards where they last seen the deer. We end up going around this field hoping Spark will pick up on where it exited at least all while working the downwind side of it. I ended up zig zagging thru this field of cuckaburrs that's at times up to my chest. She ends up hitting a faint trail thru it and we find blood. Its off to the races. She's digging in and on the track. We come out of the field and cross a field road and hit a small strip of woods that is right next to the backwater. She tracked it all the way to the water and I pulled her off. We went 100 or so yards in both directions just to make sure and found nothing else. There was another section of land about 60 yards across the water the we assumed the deer went to. The hunter decided to call it and said he'd go back in this morning to see if it was there. He updated me today and did not find where the deer came out of the water. Up to that point the deer had been bleeding pretty good for just an entrance wound. We both believe the deer tried swimming across and drowned and sank.

Some of the things I've learned this week are, that my dog needs alot of work on older lines. I feel so embarrassed when she can't find a deer that I believe is down and dead. I figure it goes with the territory.

On a positive note, my collar should be arriving this Saturday. I will be headed out for Ohio for a hunt, so I will be unavailable. When I get back, she best tie her shoe's tight cause we got a lot to work on.