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That's awesome. You might have to invest in a pair of hip boots

Nice job Otis!

Great read thanks for posting... Sounds like Otis is coming along really really well... That's got to be a great feeling to help kids find their first deer, Otis and CNC...this Bud's for you... Congrats

That's great! It sounds like you've done a fine job with Otis and him with you!

Good job guy. Keep up the good tracking

Thanks fellas!....

I think Otis is coming along really well for a dog his age. I feel like today’s track was one of his best learning experiences yet. He learns quickly and I can tell it from track to track. I watched him approach that tree top today and you could tell that he knew better than just to run in on the deer now cause it may not be dead.

You da man Otis!

A young dog needs all the work he an get. The part about not screwing up the scent trail should be a thing for all to remember.

Awesome story, congrats to all involved

Congrats on another successful recovery!

Thanks!....Hopefully with the south zone opening back up, it won't be long before we get to go again. Dang weather is horrible though.

I got us a pic to go along with the story. The deer was found hiding in the tree top you see in the background. You can’t tell it but the water’s edge is only a foot or two out of the pic to the left. I snapped Otis on his leash and the little man asked me if he could walk Otis out of the woods. I told him heck yeah. You could tell the whole experience was almost larger than life to him at the moment. Him and his dad both were still smiling from ear to ear when I left. The landowner made the comment while we were taking pics….”That little boy will remember this for the rest of his life.”…. He right too. That’s pretty cool to be a part of.

Great thing you're doing for those kids, CNC!

That is pretty cool ...that lil fellow will tell that story the rest of his life .

Pretty work Otis!

Good work! I like reading these stories.

That's awesome for all parties involved.

JR

Great job!!

I really appreciate all the comments. I’m glad everyone is enjoying the stories. I hope they not only entertain everyone but I also hope that they’re able to serve as learning experiences for everyone to draw from. So often times after the shot the stories end with 50 yards of sign to track and then nothing more after that then wondering what happened. These stories will hopefully shed a little more light on how deer react to different shots and what we can do to be more successful in recovering them. Below is a closer look at where this deer was shot. A couple of things could have been done differently that would have made this deer easier to recover.

The main one would have been if the deer had not been pushed so far within an hour or two of the shot. If you start tracking a deer within an hour of the shot and you’ve followed it more than 200 yards without finding it……real consideration should start being given to backing out and waiting. Its likely a marginal hit and the deer will need to be given some time. We were really lucky yesterday that the deer wasn’t off in the river. There was really no need to have tracked the deer 800 yards the night before continuing to push the deer. After a few hundred yards of tracking, you know the deer isn’t hit in the major vitals and will need time.

The other thing that will help you find the deer if you decide to bring in a dog, is to try and leave a reasonably clean scent line for the dog to follow. Don’t take 3 or 4 or your buddies out there with you to blood trail the deer and stomp all through the woods. Track it alone or with one other person and be deliberate about where all you walk. If the blood trail peters out, mark it and be conservative about how you proceed ahead. Just keep in mind that the more loops you make and the farther ahead you go “blindly”….then the more the dog will have to work through to locate the real line. If 3 or 4 folks have grid searched for 200-300 yards ahead of last blood then it I will nearly leave me with no other choice than trying to make a big arc around the search area and hope we run across the clean scent line. On the other hand, if it were only one person tracking and they had just backed out after losing blood….then the dog would probably never miss a beat as it passed where you stopped. Just some things to keep in mind if you yank the shot on that big one and you really want to find him.

Good info. Keep up the great work CNC

It always seems to help explain any concept if you can include a visual aid. I used Paint to make a crude sketch to reinforce what we were just talking about. This is the most difficult part of a track for any dog, especially the young ones. Even an old experienced dog is likely to have to check many of those false lines before figuring out where the real one exits the search area. It confuses a young dog and the more complicated it is….the more likely they are to give in to mental fatigue. An old dog knows that if they keep looking eventually they’ll work through it and their mature brains can work for an hour or more though this mess if need be. Its hard to predict how long a young dog might go….it varies with the given day and track.

Without this one obstacle, tracking with a dog would be pretty simple and straight forward. The more complicated the search area is muddled up though then the harder it is on any dog and tracker. An old experienced dog may be able to work through it eventually but it may mean spending an hour just trying to pick it out. Maybe they eventually do, maybe they don’t. It takes a really good dog will the experience of dealing with this situation over and over to pull it off. It’s going to be hard for that dog up the road that only goes on a few tracks a year to figure it out. It’s also going to be hard on any young dog until they get enough experience.

Just take this info and put in the back of your head. The rut is just around the corner and they’ll be a lot of marginal shots made on a lot of coveted bucks. We, the dog trackers, can find these deer for you in many instances. Below is one of the biggest obstacles that you put in our path though. If it wasn’t for this obstacle, many tracks would just be a straight run to the deer. If you make a bad shot on a buck and you really want to find the thing….then call us first, not last.

The X is the hit site and LB stands for “last blood”. The dashed lines are the false line made from searchers tracking back and forth across the real scent line.