Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Al Dogs Tracking Dog Stories 2025-26

My dad has the scar to prove that you don't get close to a live buck, even when they appear to not be able to move. He has about a 6-inch scar, I believe on his left shin, from walking beside one and it kicked him.

That was a lot harder than you want them to be……..Shot was intestine/gut about midways up on the body with nothing being put on the ground for a scent trail… ……He was in a high traffic area for other deer coming in and out of the field and we had just driven in on a sandy road that he crossed and possibly ran down…..……It was a tough situation where there just wasn’t any clear scent line to follow and we had to find him by gridding with the dogs until we came across him……We were down to our last thicket to check too….We started looking for him at 6:30 and I don’t think we found him until probably 10 o’clock.....Found him buried off in a grown up clear cut about 250 yards from the hit site

Great work!

I took the crayons and made a little sketch to add to yesterday’s story to show what we were working through…..The deer was shot at the X and exited out of the field through a little strip of woods…..We couldnt figure out where he went from there though once he got to the road. We spent at least the first hour working up and down it trying to determine where he might have turned off into the woods….That eventually turned into gridding and we literally gridded every stand on the map AND searched the creek before hitting the clear cut last and finding him there…..The combination of having no scent on the ground and not knowing if he ran down the road we just drove down made it tough to sort out….

I’m gonna insert a little bit of an op ed into the mix after that last track……I get asked the question all the time now from hunters….”Does your dog track that interdigital scent??”…….I’ve long been a skeptic about that theory and have gotten to where I just tell folks that I'm not 100% sure on what all they follow....but after tracking hundreds of real tracks in his life, I'm confident that the black dog is following whatever is there to be followed

My opinion is that this interdigital scent a deer puts out is likely only detectable for “X” amount of hours after they pass through an area…..If you look at how high up on the deer’s leg above the hoof that gland is located….The amount that is being put on the ground naturally you would think is a really small amount…..I think this combined with a short scent life of maybe 2-3 hours makes it to where its not there to be tracked when we show up the next morning 12 hrs later…If you think about it, that wouldnt make a whole lot of sense for a deer to go around putting down a scent trail for predators to follow 12 hrs after it passed through......If the theory were true that deer will throw off heavy amounts of this scent when they’re mortally wounded then that gut shot buck should have sure enough been putting it out…..Otis never picked up on any definite scent trail of that individual deer until we hit the clear cut….

What I think the dogs are actually following most of the time that’s getting credited for being interdigital scent is actually ground disturbance…..Its where a hard running deer that has just been shot and/or one that’s running awkwardly because it only has 3 functioning legs, etc……its where those deer are churning up soil microbes as they tear out through the woods…..I think this is why leg shots are usually pretty easy to track to….A deer struggling to run without one leg functioning is digging hard with those other three.

The reason I think that track was so hard to follow Saturday was because once that gut shot deer got out of the field he likely stopped and then walked most of the way to the bed we found him…..He did this through a water oak thicket that was nothing but leaves and sticks on the ground (no vegetation to wipe against)….and it was in an area where a lot of other deer feet had likely been “disturbing” the ground……I think those were the factors that played into the scenting conditions and it likely had nothing to do with an interdigital scent trail…..I've just seen scenarios play out like this enough over the years that the interdigital idea just doesnt add up when applied to many of these real situations

Waiting on the hunter to go look for a gut hit from this morning.....Jumped him a couple hundred yards from the hit site.....Gonna see what Lu-lu can do with it

We got him but it wasn’t the easy gut shot I was expecting……It actually ended up being low behind the shoulder……Not much sign past where he was jumped and went through a water hole in the creek…..Ended up finding him 300 yards from the jump site and 500 total from where he was shot…..

That’s a good example on that last one of how just the matter an inch or so can be the difference in one that’s smoked versus one that needs some time…..If you don’t see it go down its always a good idea to give one a little bit of time even if you think you smoked him…..What you saw may not have been what happened……Another 30 minutes (hour total) and the hunter is probably finding that last deer dead in the first bed….After the jump it would have never been found without a dog…….That buck was across the creek and way over the hill in another thicket without much sign to follow to get there after it clotted in the bed…….

That's crazy, looks like a good shot. Deer are tough!

That's the entry side you see in the pic.....It came out slightly lower on the off side....It bled good at first but he sho nuff clotted up when he bedded

Well dang it man…..It doesn’t happen often but I got hit with the old zero tip yesterday……Drove an hour down to zone E to help a gun hunter look for one he had shot at facing straight at him from about 125 yards……No sign of a hit and no deer to be found…….The hunter felt like it was out there though and we just weren’t finding it……It just be like that sometimes……..Moving on to the next one…….


Its Yute Season this weekend!!!....

No tip is pretty classless. Good stories. Thanks for posting.

Wonder if that fella realizes he has been forever blackballed. Dog guys are a pretty tight knit group and that kind of information spreads far & wide. I doubt he can ever get a tracking dog to show up again.

Its extremely rare to have happen but you do run across “that guy” every once in a while……I’ll admit that we’re not perfect and we could very well be missing something on any given track…..but this wasn’t likely one of them……There’s a weird psychological thing that goes on with hunters after a shot where they often want to perceive a situation in the best possible light even though everything about the evidence points to the opposite…..There was nothing about this situation that would lead someone to believe that the deer was hit……from the lack of evidence left on the ground to the way the deer reacted…..nothing…..but the hunter was convinced that he was just laying out there close by somewhere piled up and we weren’t finding him…..

This is one of the “cons” to taking any and every call that comes in….I’ve learned over the years that the ones that have little hope of being recovered are likely to end with a disappointed hunter who due to the psychology involved is questioning in the back of their mind if it’s the dog’s fault even though most of the time its probably the hunters shooting that’s to blame…..Its a little bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t type situation…..Just part of the gig though I guess…..Thought I’d add it to the stories…….

Another Michigan toad recovered by Otis's brother.........

That’s just wrong, entitlement generation at its worst. I think you are spot on, we see what we want to see no matter the evidence, in a lot more than deer hunting. Most trackers see more wounded deer in a season that hunters do in a lifetime. Makes zero sense why a hunter wouldn’t listen to and respect what the tracker tells them!

Well to any hunters defense all trackers are wrong sometimes so that’s where the psychology of the situation allows doubt to creep in even if it’s unlikely……For some hunters it’s a tough hurdle to overcome in the moment when they’re having to rectify to themselves that what they just believed to be true is probably not……”I missed or made a bad shot” is often at the very tail end of the list of possibilities… ..Even at the best you can do as the tracker you’re the bearer of bad news……At worst you suck and just cant find their deer…… When trackers have the debate over whether you should take every call or not its not just as simple as some folks make it out to be when they say..."Heck yeah you should take 'em all!!!!!".......This ^^^^^ is what you get on some of the "bad" ones..........just sayin.

I sure agree with Cousneddy that fellow was just wrong.

CNC -Question.....What is a good amount for a tracker to charge or expect in a tip? I guess it matters a lot in how far you have to travel, how long you and your dogs works, and other stuff but I do not have any idea what is an "average" amount. If I need tracking services I would want to treat the tracker right.
Thanks.

If someone comes out and seems professional about what they do and all I'd give them at least $100......

I'm just gonna leave this right here........... I havent told the stories on the last few because there really hasnt been much to tell on them......