They make battery powered collars that light up. Makes it much easier to see them in the dark when orange isn't much good.

problem is some of these damn beagle shooters would shoot his trespassing azz if he got off the right land...or if some dufus on THAT club didn't know about the tracking going on and was a certified beagle shooter.

I used an reflective orange tracking harness on my Mal...lots of orange to see.

Thanks 3FF……I’m really pleased with how Otis is progressing. Next year is really going to get fun I believe. After this season we should have most of the “training” behind us.

Here’s the vest I run on Otis for orange. I bought it when I was still trying to track on lead. One of the guys at the tracking convention recommended trying a harness instead of hooking up to his collar. I bought this one from Petco and then sewed the orange onto it myself. Even though I’m tracking off lead now I still use the vest for safety purposes. It shows up really well when he’s moving through the woods, especially when he's coming straight at you. If someone ever shoots him wearing this vest and with an antennae sticking up in the air off his neck……I may go off the deep end on somebody.

looks dang good CNC. Someone shoots that dog call me and I'll stomp his azz for ya.

I've spent a lot of time reading up on tracking dogs across the country . You would be amazed at the number that have been shot by idiots who prolly shoot any dog they see running thru the woods.

Thanks Troy.

Lets pray it never comes down to that. That’s one of my bigger concerns though. A lot of trackers that I’ve talked to have a bad story about the day they ran across an idiot in the woods. One of the well known trackers from north Alabama said they caught up to the dog one time and found a hunter in the process of taking the tracking collar off the dog. It sounded like azz whippins were involved in that story too.

I thought I would show this for the other trackers out there. It’s one of the handiest pieces of equipment that I’ve used so far. It’s actually a vest that foresters use for cruising timber but it works perfect for a tracking vest. It has built in eyelets to attach my lanyards for my whistle and GPS unit. My cell phone fits perfect in one of the upper pockets and the other upper pocket I use to hold a small first aid packet. Mostly just a few small things for minor cuts or in case I get blisters on my heels…..along with some medication for Otis if he were to get snake bit. The lower pockets work well to hold water, gloves, toilet paper, etc…..Whatever you might want to take with you. I always stick some water in mine along with a little bowl for Otis to drink from. The inside of the vest also has two large pockets on either side that work great for holding my leash after I turn Otis loose. The other side holds half a roll of toilet paper just in case. The best part is that I can keep everything together in this one vest and have it ready to just put on when it’s time to track, without having to gather up all the individual pieces each time. Its also conveniently hunter orange in color.

This one came for Forestry Suppliers Inc.

Took care of my glove situation yesterday. I went with deer skin leather. Its soft enough so it still gives me plenty of dexterity to work my GPS unit. No more picking thorns out of my hands now. I also attached a stylus on to my lanyard so I don’t have to try and work the touchscreen with fat glove fingers. Now I just gotta figure out what I want to do about my hat situation. A regular baseball cap gets pulled off my head too often when we go through some real thick areas. You dang nearly need a football helmet!

When I was a kid I grew up across the road from my aunt and uncles chicken farm. I use to help pick up eggs all the time because the faster my older cousin got done with his chores, the faster he and I could take off and go fishing or riding horses or whatever other mischief we were getting into at the time. Back then the chicken houses weren’t as automated as they are now and you had to actually walk down through the houses gathering the eggs out of each nest….sometimes having to get them out from under a really pissed off old hen. After a while you had to learn how to just ignore them pecking your hands and do what you were there to do.

There were thousands of chickens in those houses and for the most part they were all just clucking around going about their business. It never failed though every time…..out of all those thousands of chickens, there was always a few roosters that seemed to not want to do anything other than run around with their neck feathers ruffled up causing a scene No sooner than you turned your back on them, one of them would run up and flog you on the back of the leg. If they weren’t doing that then they were squared off with each other cock fighting.

There’s several folks on here that remind me of those stray roosters that just wanted to run around looking for a cock fight all the time. It’s one of the things that really brings this forum down and keeps it from being a place where folks can freely share ideas and opinions. This Idahomike thread is a good example. Folks have asked that everyone let it go and move on…..and while Mike and I have actually already contacted one another outside of the forum, shared stories and pics, and have zero beef with one another as far as I’m concerned…..there’s still guys on here with no real clue about what’s going on that just want to cock fight with someone. I have no doubt that some of you guys will keep on for the rest of the season trying to make it out to be something it ain’t every time someone makes a post. That’s what’s really sad. I’m glad to see the ban hammer being swung more freely here lately cause this place could use a change in attitude. It's a lot easier to pick up eggs when there ain’t those few stray roosters that are just running around looking to flog someone.

That being said……I know some of you got to be layin ‘em down this morning. Maybe its just cause its been so crappy to this point but the weather feels awesome outside today. Hunting season is finally here. Woo! Hoooo!!!!

You called people drama queens in the other thread after it was pointed out that your post rubbed people the wrong way. Why not just be humble and admitting that post was a mistake and stop stoking the fire. I'm sure the "roosters" will be taking any minute to dust it up, but you started it.....again.

CNC,

I know a little about roosters and I know a little about ducks too.

When ducks get water on them it just rolls right on off. They don't absorb it. It's the way God designed them.

Just a bit of unsolicited advice to you from me. When those roosters come around, you need to be like the duck. Don't pay it any attention and just let it roll on off.

Otherwise, you are just making yourself look no better than them and it doesn't do a thing to help your fledgling tracking business. It only hurts you.

I'm sure you are a great guy and I know you have a great dog in the making. Keep your focus on that and not on Aldeer pissing matches.

Don't start them yourself and don't contribute to any that anyone else starts.

Remember, mimic the duck's physical attribute.

Glad to see that you contacted Mike and things are okay there.

This is a big State. Room for both of you here.

Keep the stories coming.

Over 3 hrs of tracking ends as the deer crossed the highway onto other land. That really sucks. More details later. Headed to next track.

Looking forward to reading your next tale...

Are you able to see on your GPS when Otis is getting close to a road and are you able to remotely or whistle stop him to keep him from getting hit? I was thinking about that when reading Matt's post about 3.2 mile track crossing the highway, haven't posted on there yet to ask this same question.

There wasn’t really anything about today’s track that was all that exciting to be writing into the pages of legends. No big bucks jumping out of thickets, no smiles from first time hunters, and not even a deer to reward us all at the end of the searching. To me and Otis though, this might have been one of our best tracks of the year from the standpoint of us learning one another.

What I’m figuring out is that these deer will very often run a little ways then get in a thicket and circle around and around in very erratic patterns before moving onto another area. On a number of the tracks we’ve been on I’ve noticed that Otis would hit a line hot and heavy….make it out to 100-125 yards from me and then progress the track on for several hundred yards. It was baffling me though as to why sometimes it would seem like he would run into a brick wall and just lose a track that only moments before he was tearing up. He would go from running a good straight line for 300-400 yards to just throwing on the breaks and all of sudden acting like he couldn’t figure out which way it went. I'm pretty sure that he is running into the equivalent of scent line figure 8’s. This is also what I've heard from several experienced trackers reporting the same thing. Sometimes it may take 5 minutes to get going again and sometimes it may take 20 minutes. Sometimes Otis is eager to figure it out on his own and sometimes he comes back to my feet with that look of shame like dogs give.

Up until today I’ve felt frustrated when Otis would hang up in some of these areas and I would try to pressure him into to hunting up the clean line leaving that area. We found ourselves in that same situation today after pushing the line out to 1/2 mile or so. After having worked through a couple spots and tracked on, we had been on a good clean run for 400 yards or better as fast as I could keep up with him when Otis threw on the brakes…..ran around in several circles and then got confused. After 10-15 minutes of trying to coax him through it, I decided to just take a break for a while, give Otis some water, and regroup. I gave him praise while we sat there and tried to get his mind right again letting him know that I wasn't upset with him. This time when we restarted I didn’t even try to ask Otis to “find it”. I just got up and started searching on the ground myself like I was looking for blood. I completely let him do his own thing and didn’t put any pressure on him. After a few minutes he began to go off on his own a little ways and start hunting. A few minutes later he picked up a good whiff of scent in his nose and just like that he was off again on the scent line.

Something else he did today that made me very happy to see progressing in him is that when we were running those clean stretches of scent line, I never had to tone him to get him to wait up on me. Toning is beeping the collar to command him the "come back". At one point he got out to about 175 yards from me and I decided to keep letting him dig instead of distracting him. All of sudden he stopped in his tracks turned around and ran back to me. When he closed the gap to about 30-40 yards and could see me, I told him to “hunt it up” and he turned right back around and started digging again without missing a beat. That’s what I want him to do and it was cool to see happen.

I haven’t even downloaded the data out of my GPS yet and looked at any of it but I figure we went ¾ of a mile today with the dog probably going twice that far. The deer ended up going to the highway and we called it off instead of going any farther. I’m pretty sure we had the deer up and running in front of us there toward the end because I saw several spots that looked like big running buck tracks making deep impressions and spread really far apart. The ones that tear up the ground more than usual. There was moderate blood here and there but nothing major. Still not sure where this deer may have been hit.

A lot of tracking is the team work between the tracker and his dog. Reading your dog and understanding how to talk to one another without the dog ever saying a word. I think Otis and I are going to end up being pretty good teammates before this is all over.

BTW……The second call I was headed to got called off. I think the hunter got a little impatient and went ahead and tried to find the deer with a pet dog. It sounded really iffy and after Otis having already tracked a long ways, we just called it a day. We rode around and talked to hunters for the rest of the afternoon, handing out 40 or so business cards.

Yes. I'm looking at a topo map on my GPS screen along with all the roads. The first thing I do at every track is zoom out and locate any major or minor roads. Otis wears a Garmin Alpha unit which is equipped to shock as well as beep. I can beep him and command him to come back to me. If he won't listen the I have 18 levels of zap to convince him. He doesn't even question it though. I've pulled him off of live deer with only the beep.

I was curious, I figured you could...just made me nervous thinking about a your dog being way out front and getting hit by a car.

That’s actually a really big concern for trackers who run “off lead” and why many folks won’t do it. I’ve heard stories of several dogs being run over just this year. The Garmin Alpha Unit is a pretty new setup I believe. I think it’s only been out a few years and it seems to just be catching on amongst the tracking community. Up until it came out I think the only way to call your dog back was with a whistle or voice command. The bad thing about that though is that a dog, especially a young one, still has the choice to obey or not. When the dogs get their prey drive triggered or they get really into the tracking…..it becomes a lot harder to get them to listen to you. I saw that with Otis when he would get after squirrels here at the house and why I was very nervous to track off lead. With that Alpha Unit though, you can control the dog out to long distances and the ones I’ve seen worked on it don’t even question it for a second. It’s about like having push button brakes on your dog.