Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Al Dogs The Tales of Otis and Shelby Lou

Here's a little better pic of the rack.........

That's great!!! Good job Shelby & Otis!!

Thanks man.....

That's pretty awesome for them to be able to track after that rain. It rained hard some through the night and then really poured this morning after daylight. Congrats to you and the boys for finding this one. That's awesome.

Heck yeah, great job!

Thanks man

Yeah, I was a little worried about this one. It's amazing that they can still track one after the rain like that. I think what threw them off on the rain track for olemossy's club the other week was just the amount of standing water we were trying to track across. It was pretty solid water across the ground in that bottom. It was also still raining on that track while we were searching.

Is there a reason you don’t put orange vest on them dogs. I would be scared they would get shot.

I have some but they don’t really wear very well. They rub the dogs and they don’t like to wear them. They also just add to the heat factor. They both wear two bright colored collars with big antennas coming out of them. If someone shoots them then they’ll do so damn well knowing that they’re someone’s hunting dog. They make orange antennas that I’m gonna replace mine with before next year to help make them more noticeable. Most of the situations I track in are just not iffy situations though. I’m on private land and everyone knows I’m there. The dogs rarely get more than 100 yards in front of me too so they’re not just running wild. The one situation that does still worry me though is when the dog hits the property line out ahead of us before we get there and someone has a greenfield or stand just across the line. You never know who might be in those stands. Still though, they'll be shooting the dog knowing its wearing two bright arse collars.

I enjoy reading this stories. Keep up the good work.

My favorite thread also.

Just caught up. Congrats! I would say that's one of the tougher tracks you guys have been able to navigate through. That hunter should have hugged you and kissed the dogs!

Congrats on a GREAT find!

Thanks!

I think the fact that the last one was a hard gut hit really helped out. Otis had to work it pretty slow and do a good bit of looping back....but you could tell he was consistently picking up more scent and progressing the line. Those gut hits really put out the scent.

Great work! Congrats.

Thanks fellas!

Call just came in for tomorrow morning…….

I don’t know many details on this one. The hunter said that he had a field full of young bucks and then right at dark a bigger mature buck walked into the field at about 60-70 yards. The hunter said he couldn’t tell what happened after the shot but felt like he should have hit it. They’ve found some blood here and there for 100 yards then nothing…..

To be continued…….

How bout it, CNC?

I'll get us caught up on the stories in the morning.......

Alright, so the stories from yesterday………..

The first one must have just been grazed across the brisket or something of that nature. There was no blood in the field at the hit site. The first blood was a skoal can sized spot where the deer stopped and stood about 15 yards inside the wood line. There was a few drips after that for 50 yards and then nothing. We pushed the track out to about 1000 yards and then called it off as it went onto another property. I feel pretty confident that he wasn't hit hard.

Just as I was getting back home from the first track I had another call come in. The hunter reported shooting a good buck free handed the evening before around 3:30 as he was walking into his afternoon stand. The buck was already in the food plot when he got there. He had found bone at the hit site and tracked the buck for around 350 yards before running out of blood. By the time we got on the track it was around 22 hrs after the shot. Otis and Shelby both tracked this one really well for about 1100 yards before we came upon the main dirt road where we had to call it off.

To be honest, I’m really sure what the buck did at that point anyways. Otis tracked him all the way to the road but on the opposite side was a 12 ft bank that was straight up and down and extended for 150 yards in each direction. I don’t see any way that he would have gotten up that bank with a hurt leg. He almost had to have run down the dirt road in one direction or another but we never did pick up on where he might have reentered the woods and there was no sign of him doubling back either. All I can figure is that he ran down the main dirt road for a ways and there wasn’t any scent holding on the bare dirt after that length of time and truck traffic.