I was trying to get her to sit down in that little hole in front of the deer but she was so excited that just getting her to “sit and stay” long enough to take a picture was a challenge in itself. I just went with it.

Just got home from recovering this one. You wouldn't believe how far it went after being hit where you see in the pic. It reminded me of Shaw's doe he lost. I'll write a little story in the morning to go along with the pic...........

Get'em Otis

So here’s the tale……….

The call came in around noon yesterday. The hunter told me that two bucks had come in and he had shot one of them but his arrow grazed a limb before it got to the deer and caused it to go off course. He said he was pretty sure he saw it hit behind the shoulder though and pass through the deer. He said there was pretty good blood out to about 100 yards and then it just stopped. The hunter also stated that there was white tallow on his arrow which usually means brisket hit. There were two searchers looking for the deer and one of them said that a deer they couldn’t see jumped up and took off in the cutover but they couldn’t see it and didn’t know if it was the buck he shot or not.

When we arrived I got Otis suited up and we went to work. He immediately picked up on the blood trail and took it out of the hardwood bottom where the hunter was set up and into a 3-4 year old pine stand that was so thick we were pretty much just plowing through briars and brush. We made it just inside the cutover where they lost blood and Otis continued to take the track on. I don’t know what he was tracking because we never found another single drop of blood past that point. I figure the deer they jumped was the buck and he clotted up while laying there in the bed. I never saw a bed but Otis worked a 40 yard circle for about 10-15 minutes before finally taking the track on.

The track continued on through the cutover until we came to an interior hunting club road. At that point Otis turned and went straight down the road for close to 200 yards and even went 70 or 80 yards through a plowed food plot of bare dirt. For some reason this seemed like the easiest part of the track for him and the way he worked the road so fast made me start questioning him. I remembered what Randy and others have told me over and over though and I trusted my dog. When I got in sight of Otis I could see that he was definitely still working a scent trail. He came to a stop in the road, turned around and checked both sides before entering back into the cutover.

Again, this whole time we’re looking for blood and not finding anything. I couldn’t believe we couldn’t even find some on some sedge or something that the deer had brushed up against because we were going through some seriously thick arse stuff. Otis took us back into the cutover though and after another 200 yards or so there he was. The deer had traveled a total distance of somewhere around 500-600 yards. I measured a straight line on my GPS of 480 yards from the hit site but we had ended up making a semi circle with the track so it was a lot longer than that straight line. The buck was actually headed right back to where he had originally came from. That’s something I’m seeing as a pattern. The deer very often times head back to their bedding spot even if they originally take off in the opposite direction.

This was not the longest track we’ve ever been on but it’s probably the proudest I’ve been of Otis. I really learned not to doubt him anymore and if he’s telling me the deer went this way then that’s what happened whether I’m finding blood or not. I think this was a big confidence booster for both of us. The hunter had never seen a tracking dog work before and he was blown away when all of sudden there his deer was laying in front of us. I’ll admit that I was a little blown away too.

Anyways….I could keep writing but I’ll try to keep it short enough so that everyone doesn’t have to read a novel. It’s opening day of the youth season this morning and I’m just waiting on another call to come in. This should be a fun weekend.

Congrats to you and Otis CNC!

Thanks!.....You know we run into all kinds of situations while tracking and I’ll admit that there’s been a few deer where I thought to myself that the hunter might have possibly found their deer without out a dog……but they would have had a better chance of winning the lottery than finding this deer. I think that’s what amazed me and the hunter so much. After we both walked down their interior road for such a long ways I could see it in his eyes. He was like…..”Really? Ok, if you say so I’ll keep following you……”

So that was the story……..If I could think of anything we could take away from that track it would probably be to not take any bow shot for granted. I know I’ve said this over and over but unless you see your deer go down or hear it crash……give your deer some time after the shot no matter what. Bow hunting is a sport of inches and really gun hunting is too even though you have a little more room for error. If we would have placed bets on it…..I’d probably go all in on saying that a deer shot right where this one was hit was a smoked arse.....but it wasn't.

This deer was semi-stiff when we found it so it had been dead for a little while. I’m in no way trying to criticize the hunter here but more just analyzing the game film. Had the deer been given a few hours though after the shot, then it would have likely been in that bed at 150 yards instead of the one at 500-600. That would have resulted in a much more likely find whether you called in a dog or not. It actually looked like he had just died in the middle of the deer trail like he just couldn’t go any farther. He wasn’t bedded or anything. I bet he died on the run after they jumped him.



Couple more things…..

- White tallow on your arrow is highly likely brisket hit
- The amount of blood or lack there-of really doesn’t mean anything. I’ve seen tracks now with no blood to lots of blood and places in between…..it matters where you hit the deer as to whether it’s out there dead or not.

Good story. I'm finding that I'm learning more about tracking and my dog on every track. We tracked a deer for a guy yesterday that shot a deer facing him at 25 yards.
Said he felt good about the shot . Found the arrow,it was covered in blood but it didn't have a strong smell to it. We looked for blood and could not find any. We track on lead and I was letting rim smell around but he wasn't going in the direction the hunter said it ran.
I was getting frustrated with rim so I just took the leash off of him and let him run around. About 30 seconds later I could tell he picked up on the sent and took off. We followed and started finding blood about 80 yds from the seen of the crime. I didn't have a GPS on rim so I called him back and we got back on track on lead.
we where seeing decent blood and steady but not pumping out in spots like you see normally on a deadly shoot. I started believe it was a leg shot. When eventually tracked 1.4 miles !! We got to the property line and stopped. I hated to not find the deer for all involved. I think the deer is still alive.

Yeah, it’s pretty common to run into property line situations. If a deer goes far enough, then it’s bound to eventually happen. I’ll keep saying this…….deer that are really hurt will try to bed up somewhere within a few hundred yards. Most of the time it’s when their pushed that they leave out.

Not a whole lot of a story to go along with this morning’s track. It was a pretty text book gut shot with a bow. The deer went maybe 300-350 yards total but the hunter just didn’t have any blood to follow after 60-70 yards. They said they could smell gut on the arrow and even thought they got a whoof of gut smell while they were tracking. This deer was shot yesterday evening by the way. They did an initial search last night about 2 hrs after the shot and after not finding anymore blood on a second search this morning…..they called in the dogs.

Otis ran this one like he could smell it from the truck. I haven’t seen him this excited in a while. He cut 4 or 5 doughnuts when I cut him loose and after 3 or 4 minutes of doing back flips he settled down and went to tracking. I don’t know if something has just clicked for him or if the gut smell was just so strong that he could follow it with no problem but he didn’t even act like there had been a search area to work through on this track. There were a few minor checks here and there but he pretty well trotted right to it. A really nice 6 pt that the hunter had gotten pics of for the last 3 years. The funniest part of the track was when we found it. I saw Otis up ahead chewing on it and I turned around, stuck my hand out, and told the guy congradulations……He looked at my hand with a surprised look and grin from ear to ear and said….”Brother, if that’s my deer up there then I ain’t shaking your hand…..I’m fixin to bear hug you!”…….and he did.

That says a lot about otis' nose that he was able to pick up the scent nearly 24 hours after the shot . In these dry conditions and hunters making 2 attempts to find the deer... Sounds like he's hitting his stride . Very rewarding. Thing's are about to busy.

I'm not trying to high Jack you're thread but I figured I would share a story or two as well. We just got back from a track. It was a liver gut shot. The arrow actually came out of the front of the Hind quarter. We didn't find blood initially but I let rim work. He was all over the place for about 80 yards and I hadn't seen ant blood and I could tell he wants on sent so we went back to the shot sight and started over . this time I could tell he was on it and we found the deer after about 150 yards thru a bunch of thick river birch.

Good deal!....Just keep going on as many tracks as you can he'll get better and better. They're fun to watch work. It's fun to watch the amazement and excitement of the hunter when you find the deer too. That may be my favorite part of the whole thing. I'm still new enough that I'm just as genuinely as amazed as they are....It makes me think back on the good ones that I've lost in the past and wish I would have known to call in a dog. I shot a 5+ year old buck a couple years before I got Otis from about 250 yards and I hit him dead in the guts.....never found. It kind of makes me a little sick now knowing how easily I could have recovered him had I just known.

So here’s yesterday evenings story……..

(Part 1)

A family member of mine called me about 30 minutes before dark and tells me that my little cousin just knocked down a pretty good one. He said it hit the ground, flopped around for a minute, and then got itself back to its feet and drug itself into the woods backwards. So I tell him….”Y’all just back out immediately and I’m on my way…..we’ll give it a while and assess the situation when I get there.”

So, I get my stuff gathered up and I’m just walking out the door to take a handful of stuff to the truck when jlbuc calls me about coming to track a deer for him. Well, we’re talking back and forth about what happened while I head for my truck. About half way to my truck I look in the back of my field and see a big black spot….”It’s that damn hog!!!” I thought to myself…..I tell jlbuc….”Pigs!!...I’ll call you back!”….He replies….”Bust their ass!!!....Bye!”

I run back inside and grabbed my 30-06, trotted back out, and got propped against a post. The shot was about 230 yards and I didn’t have the best prop but it was a big arse target so I was comfortable with it…….. Powwww!!!!....Reeee!!! Reeee!!!!!. Reeee!!!....It hit the ground and went to flopping and when it did freakin pigs scattered everywhere. I peeled back to try to get on a second one and rounded off another shot at one entering the woods. The first pig is just laying there now motionless. I call jlbuc back and say….”Alright, go ahead now….you were saying.... ”……and with that I head out to help my little cousin on his track.

…………to be continued.

(Part 2)

So, I arrived at my cousin’s club and we started an initial search to assess what we were dealing with a little better. I just left the dogs in the box until we knew what we had. At the hit site, there was a little bit of dark blood, some dark hair, and a wallowed out spot on the ground where the deer had flopped. You could also see on the ground where he struggled to his feet getting into the woods…..but there was not another drop of blood for to be found inside the woods.

I told them that I thought we were dealing with a classic back slap and I wasn’t very optimistic about it. I wanted to double check though so I got Otis out and suited him up to track on lead. I don’t normally track at night too much but I was really familiar with the area we were tracking in and felt comfortable with it. I did want to keep Otis on lead though because I suspected the deer would still be alive out there and I didn’t want him to run up on it in the thicket at night with the buck at full strength.

This was the first time we have tracked on lead in a long time. I was pleasantly surprised though. Now that he’s older and really understands the game….being on lead didn’t seem to distract him it all like it once did. We took the track around 250 yards only finding a couple more small spots of blood. After we crossed over a little creek branch with some steep banks I called it off as it headed into the thick abyss of some young planted pines. I saw enough in my mind to verify it being a back slap. I was really pleased though at how Otis worked on lead this time. I feel confident that if we ever need to…we can go on lead and be productive. They went back in this morning and combed the area just to be sure but didn’t find anything new. I suspect the deer will likely live and show back up on their cameras within a few days.

After finishing up the track I loaded Otis back up in the box with Shelby and we headed back home to clean pigs. Well, I pull in my property and decide to just go ahead and pick up the one laying in the back of the field as I’m coming in. As I get closer and closer though, I notice that there was no longer a pig laying in the field. All I know is the damn thing must have done exactly like the deer my little cousin shot and eventually got up and staggered off. I thought for sure I had hammered it. I was aiming right behind the head in a spot that usually drops them in their tracks. I was so disappointed. I looked for blood but couldn’t find a single drop.

There in here on me now though. I have a nice water hole fro them and enough water oak acorns on the ground to fill up a dump truck. I’m surprised its taken them this long to show up. Folks within just a mile of me have been battling them for years now. I suppose this drought has them expanding their range looking for resources. Their about to find a lot of lead here on my property. I’m guessing they’ll be right back within a day or two…they ain’t leaving that water. If they go completely nocturnal, I guess I’ll build a trap…….cause bacon’s good….pork chops are good....

BTW.....The track with jlbuc in the story got called off after they found the deer themselves last night. Congrats to them!

Dang.hate the whole story. By back slap do you mean grazing the top of its back?

Yes....most likely high on the shoulder/lower neck area. If you look at a deer's anatomy....the spinal column has a dip in it right in that area that leaves a chunk of meat above the spine that can pretty much be blown off but the deer still get up and walk away from. It just shocks their spinal chord and causes them to have temporary paralysis or maybe even partial paralysis. The shock eventually wears off and they get their legs up in under themselves again. A lot of folks aim for dead center of the shoulder and when they miss high, they hit this area. Any deer that hits the ground, lays there for a while, and then gets up and runs off is not likely to be recovered. Some will but just going on percentages that is a very, very low percentage find. Very often the deer just shows back up on camera.

November 14, 2016.........


I didn’t take Otis or Shelby out yesterday to where I shot the hog because I didn’t want them to even attempt to track it and me have to tell them no. We did go out there this morning though to let them run around and play. They also like to scent check everything in the field each morning to inspect what went on the night before. I look at it as just good practice allowing them to use their nose to gather input…..I figure it’s just like letting them practice using a tool. There’s deer, coons, possums, armadillos, coyotes,…..all kinds of stuff that comes through at night. Apparently now we can add hogs to the list.

Anyways, getting on with what I was gonna say…..it’s been 38 hrs now since I shot the hog and I watched both dogs throw on the brakes and hit on the area where the hog had laid. I don’t know if they could have really tracked it that old but it does give me a better idea of how good both noses are.... Shelby’s nose especially. I knew Otis was supposed to have a good hound nose….and he’s proving it to be true…… but I was afraid Shelby was just gonna be a real hot nosed dog with a lot of drive. I believe she’s gonna be ok though. I see here hitting on old scents enough that I think she's got plenty of nose power to run old tracks.

Someone will inevitably call or come on here before the season is over with a deer that they shot Saturday and it’s now Sunday night or Monday morning and they decide they want to call for a dog. Before the season is over I’d like to try to run Otis on one of these tracks to challenge him and really just to see if he can do it. It's probably gonna have to rain first before we could try something like that. I'd like to start trying some though so I'll better know the limitations of what we can do when folks call.

Thanks for taking the time to type out the stories. Really enjoy reading them!