So back up a day and to the original deer that I was called out to track at Enon. The deer was a stud of a buck….a good bit bigger than the one in the pic. It was the first track that I’ve been on where the hunt was being filmed. This was awesome for being able to assess where the hunter had hit the deer. What was not so awesome is that where they hit him, they might have been lucky if they just cut his pecker off. It definitely wasn’t the “gut shot” I was hoping to find.
The hunter was bow hunting from a ground blind when the biggest buck he had ever shot at walked in broadside. I didn’t step it off but I recall looking back at the blind from the hit site and thinking to myself that it was a pretty decent distance. In the video you could see that the arrow was falling and on a downward projectory when it hit the deer. It hit the buck here…………
I wasn’t very optimistic about this one from the get go but we were going to give our best effort anyways. There was enough blood for them to trail about 75 yards but then it petered out. They brought in a pet dog to try and progress the line farther the night before but they said it didn’t do anything but run around for a while. They had hunters out in the area the next morning so we didn’t get to start tracking until nearly 11:00 am. The deer was shot just after 3:00 pm the prior afternoon so we’re talking about a 20 hr old line. To make matters even more challenging, the wind that day was blowing 10-15 mph with gusts around 20. I remember thinking to myself….”Dear Lord, please at least let Otis attempt to track this one.”
He really surprised me that morning with his effort under those type conditions. He usually works a scent line pretty fast but that morning he started the line with his nose glued to the ground and progressed the line very slowly right through their search area. I had the hunters wait at the hit site until we progressed the line to give Otis some space. I knew a general direction the deer had ran but not the exact trail. As I slowly followed Otis up the hill he took us right by every piece of toilet paper the searchers had left on the ground and as we passed the last one he continued taking the line on out past the search area. This turtle like pace continued on for over an hour as we slowly progressed the line another 400-500 yards in a circle. After the buck had made a complete loop and was passing back over the original scent line again we called it off. Having to really dig minimal old scent out like that is very demanding on a young dog and I’m really surprised Otis lasted as long as he did. They become mentally fatigued and I could tell Otis was to that point. I didn’t think this deer was very likely to be found anyways with such a marginal bow hit and neither did the guide.
Just to give it’s due before Otis completely ran out of piss and vinegar, we pulled off of trying to track the scent line and just started looping out in the area the deer was headed hoping maybe if he was bedded close that we could wind him or jump him up. I used my GPS to grid search the area for another hour for 400-500 yards in a couple directions with Otis but didn’t come up with anything. All in all it was a great day for us though. For Otis to dig like he did, for as long as he did, on that type of scent line was very rewarding to see. Otis and I also got to meet some great people and begin what I hope to be a long term friendship with the folks there at Enon.
