Thanks fellas.....


Part 3……….

So after finding the 2nd buck we loaded up and headed to the third track of the day with it still raining. The hunter had reported hitting a good buck the evening before but wasn’t sure exactly where he’d hit it. They had not found the arrow and were pretty sure it stayed in the deer. They had tracked it about 200-250 yards the night before and jumped him up out of his bed. This was roughly 2 hrs after the shot. The guy who jumped him said that he ran off looking gimpy.

Again, I left Otis in the box for this one and ran Shelby by herself. She picked it up immediately at the hit site and bee lined right to where they had jumped the buck. I was really pleased to see the way she was still able to pick up on the track because by this time we were tracking around 20-22 hrs after the shot. She got to the bed and sniffed around for a minute before taking off the way the deer had ran after being jumped. After 75 yards or so though it was like she hit a brick wall and then there was nothing. That’s when I had to start pulling my weight as her teammate and try to help her out. We started arcing out from the last known spot trying to pick back up on the scent line but with no luck. We searched out to around 300 yards in each direction before deciding to back up and punt.

There were three other guys back at the trucks so we decided that as open as the area was we may be best to all spread out in a line and do an intensive grid search. The area was some mature thinned out pines with very little in the understory so you could see a long ways and if the deer was laying dead somewhere in it….he shouldn’t have been too hard to see. We grid searched the whole area with five guys out to probably 600-800 yards past the jump bed but never found the deer. As one last ditch effort, I went and got Otis out of the box to see if maybe he could take the scent line a different direction from the jump bed. He did the same thing as Shelby though and it pretty much confirmed to me that the deer had likely clotted up while bedded and just never left any scent on the ground after the jump. This is why its so important to back out and let that deer die in his first bed. Once you jump him then there’s not telling how far he might run or if he’ll leave a good scent line along the way.

During the grid search…..Shelby and I ran across and nice sized rattlesnake. Luckily it was very lethargic and never even moved or she might have gotten bit. The guy in the pic was about my height so he's around 6 ft tall for reference on the size of the snake.

The conclusion of part 3 and the giant velvet buck still to come………..Pics will eventually improve I promise.