This track was another prime example of why it’s a good idea to play things conservatively even if you think you’ve made a good shot. I’ll post a picture at the end showing the entry hole and you’ll see that it was actually a pretty dang good hit….however….because the hunter got in behind the deer tracking him too soon…..we ended up finding him around 1200-1400 yards from the hit site. That’s roughly ¾’s of a mile.

The dogs did great on this one. The buck was about 600-700 yards past where the hunter backed out. They took us straight to a big creek that the deer had actually already crossed one time last night while the hunter was pushing him. We got to the edge of the creek and Shelby went off in it then came back while Otis started working down the bank. After a minute though Otis came back and he too started wanting to go in the creek. Both dogs were working back and forth and into the water indicating that the deer had gone in. One of the hunters spotted blood on the bank verifying it but there wasn’t any deer to be seen. I told them that I’d be really surprised if the deer went into the creek and kept going with a wound like we expected to have.

We had a small group with us so I started working down creek to see if I could spot him in the water while some other guys kept looking up creek and at the spot where he went in. No sooner than I had gotten about 50 yards down creek one of the guys said “There he is!!”……He had sank to the bottom and you could just make out part of the rack and belly down submerged in the creek. We were very fortunate that he sank in a relatively shallow part of the creek because it wasn’t 20 yards down creek to where it got deep and we’d have never seen him in there.



Here’s the entry wound…..exit is just about the exact same place on the other side…..and he went ¾ of a mile……Had he not been pushed it would have likely been 200-250 ish range.