Finding bone and blood only at the scene of shot and and maybe 50 yards or so of drops...bad shot/no penetration. Finding bone and good blood for 150 yards....optimistic.

Good luck! Enjoy reading about these tracking stories. Find myself checking every chance I get to see the updates.

Got Ol' Red warming up outside. Lots of frost on the windshield this morning. Suppose to meet the hunter at 8:00.

Well, it was what we thought it was. I just measured here on my computer and we tracked the deer for an even ½ mile…..which is roughly 800-900 yards. The deer was bleeding pretty heavy for the first few hundred yards. We made it to where the deer had bedded up last night though and I think it must have laid there and clotted up. Not much sign of blood past that point. Otis did outstanding on this track. He took it and ran with it, never really checking up until we had made it out to around 800 yards where he ran into a deep holler with steep creek banks. That’s where we caught up to him and ended up calling it off.

The best part about the track was that Otis had to work through an area inside a thicket where I'm pretty sure the deer milled around for a while. Otis had run a pretty clean line up until that point but he stopped out in front of us and started circling. He circled and circled around in this little patch of brush for 5-10 minutes before finally picking up on the direction that the deer had exited on off we went again. I’m proud of him for not coming back to me and for working through that himself. I watched him on the GPS…..he circled the area and kept getting a little larger and larger with his circles until he found the clean line. I’m happy to see him do that on his own. I wish I had a picture of a big buck to show y’all but coming up empty handed was kind of to be expected on this one. Usually finding bone is not a great sign.

How many tracks have you been on this year, so far?

I think that was track #16. Roughly I think we've found 7 dead....jumped up 3 still alive......tracked 3 for long distances like this morning before calling it off.....and had 3 tracks where Otis struggled and couldn't do much with it. That may not be exactly right but its pretty close. I'm really hesitant to even keep up with "stats". It seems like men can turn anything into a competition and that's not what I want to do at all. I've been through that stage with deer hunting and I found it to be much more enjoyable once I let that go and just went hunting for the enjoyment of it. I'd like to do the same with tracking.

Had a buddy call me yesterday with a lost buck.He and his brother had looked but lost blood.I was at the mall looking for a gift for my wife.Told him I would change and get my 7 mo old Blue Heeler and drive to him..Pup has been around one dead 8 point while I was cleaning it..Never been on a track before.After arriving the pup found the next blood and kept me on blood until we found the deer in the creek 400 yds from where we started..Never would have found this deer without my dog.Not bad for a pup on his first track.He seemed to know exactly what I wanted from him and should get better with practice..I was very proud of his effort.

Not trying to hijack your thread..Just sharing a good day!

It's all good!

That's awesome for your pup. Save some liver/blood out of your next deer and start working him on some training lines. Looking back on it, I would have made my training lines a lot more complicated than I did with Otis. Real deer tracts do some funny things. I've had other trackers tell me about how a wounded deer would get in a little thicket and mill around in circles and this morning I watched that very thing unfold.

I hope to just use him for myself and friends..Dog is in the truck or by my side most of the time.It was easy to tell when he was on track and easy to tell when he had lost it.That said he would put his nose in the air or circle and zig zag until he found the track again.When he was on it he was going straight and on a mission..Like I said he kept me on blood when blood was hard to find.

I got 2 mason jars of blood and 4 legs from this Am. My 7 month lab uses her nose real well. I've hid some chew ez bones dipped in blood and drug on a string already this am and she's nailed every one of them. His them well too

Bucks have been on their feet between Decatur and Courtland the last couple of days.

Yes they have. Another group I hunt with in court land saw over 20 different bucks yesterday.

I know exactly what you’re talking about when you describe the dog either being on the scent or searching for it. Otis is the same way. The more you work your dog on these tracks then the more you learn to read them and almost be able to communicate with each other. I’m beginning to be able to read the situation by watching Otis’s body language or how he’s working a track. The GPS collar really helps a lot too. I can watch him even when I can’t see him. He hunts much better too when I give him some space. A good training line to try and run with your pups would be to run a straight line into a thicket……then cut some figure 8’s inside the thicket and exit the area at a 90 degree angle from the original line. Another one would be to run a line out a little ways….stop in your tracks and backtrack the line 20-30 yards and exit at a 90 to the original line. I think these lines will simulate real situations. Getting them to think through these puzzles is your biggest challenge.

Deer have been on their feet all over with this cold air moving in. We must have both been off down in some hollers this morning and not getting good cell service cause as soon as I came out of the woods I got a message from the other tracker in my area to work some of his overflow. By the time I got done with this morning’s track and talked to him though….. he was already headed to it. Lots of folks are slinging lead at 'em this weekend. I wouldn't be surprised to get another call this evening.

That was a stud of a buck 257….Congrats!

Thanks man

Something else I’d recommend is running your pups across some terrain obstacles. Take and find the steepest damn creek crossing you can find where deer are crossing and run part of your training line across it. Leave the treat on the other side of the obstacle......run it across a creek...a steep bank...across a dirt road…..anywhere that poses an obstacle for them to work around or through. Real deer tracks are not going to be across your food plot and into the nice open hardwoods where everything plays out nice and pretty. Its going to run through the nastiest, thickest stuff on the property….up ditch banks and down ravines. These are the areas where your dog is going to hang up. It won’t be on the nice clean scent line that you run in your back yard. Practice the hard stuff.

You can tell it's Christmas time around here. Y'all gonna be sharing planting techniques next.

I've enjoyed following Otis' first season in this thread. Each track is like a new chapter and I can't wait to see what happens.

And yes, 257, a fine buck kill this morning!

The fact that I am using a Blue Heeler pup will tell you I didn't get him to track deer.Just thought we would give him a try and had nothing to lose.Turns out he has a pretty good nose and is very smart and trains easy for is age.Also very stubborn with no quit in him.If I do much of this I will need a tracking collar.I lost him in thick privet a couple of times when he was really on it and had to call him back to me and start again.We went through fairly open woods,to crossing powerlines into a thick piece of woods,came out of them and crossed a logging road into some thick woods down to a beaver dam swamp where we found the buck in the swamp..

if yer going to run em off leash then put a LOT of orange on them....a simple collar won't do....

Already thought about that..So far he work pretty close.Just lost him when it got really thick..Gonna find some orange and a bell..haha