Another one just slapped on the back. This has to be one of the most common calls that we trackers get. It makes sense though. From the hunter’s perspective it probably looks like they’ve slammed it hard but when they look for it….there’s no deer to be found. Not a whole lot to the story on this one. We tracked it out to about the 1000 yard mark and then called it off.

It’s all good though. I got to meet another fellow Aldeer member and it gave him some piece of mind knowing that the deer is still alive and going. That’s one of the reasons I choose to operate the way I do and charge a fee for coming out. If someone wants to check a shot like that and verify what happened, then I want to be able to go check it for them….deer or no deer.

The main tracking book that most of us all read when we start teaches you to screen your calls and choose the ones that are more likely to be recoverable deer….it has a whole chapter on it I believe. Therefore, many trackers won’t go out on back slapped deer. I understand where the book is coming from because it takes the stance as if you’re tracking for free or just tips. I just don’t like picking and choosing in that fashion and telling some folks no just because I don’t think we’ll find it. Most of these tracks are very close to home and for clubs and landowners that I’ll likely track for multiple times as the years go by. If they want me to come out then I’ll go win, lose, or draw.

That is probably a much better philosophy imo. They know the deer may not be recoverable - it's a chance we take doing what we do.

From what I’ve seen on just about all of these types of shots is that the hunter’s perspective and the tracker’s perspective of the situation is completely different…..I’m speaking of the time period just after the shot when they call for a dog. Most hunters are sure that the deer is gonna just be laying within a short distance and aren’t gonna hear it when you tell them that’s it’s likely a high back shot. Heck, I don’t blame them a bit though. If I were the shooter and saw a big one hit the ground and flop like that…..I’d be wanting to make sure too. I’d be like Jim Carrey when they told me that 9/10 with that story aren’t recovered…….

Call just came in for tomorrow morning. The hunter said he was bow hunting and shot a buck at 20 yards broadside but hit high and back. He found decent blood for about 75 yards and then it petered out to nothing. Hopefully the arrow angled down into the deer and got a lung or liver. This ought to be a dead deer but I’m not gonna bet the farm on it just yet. We’ll find out in the morning…………

To be continued………..

Lol another high back. After a couple of hundred yards I was thinking mine was a goner. But it happens and gotta move on.

We got the monkey off our back this morning with a recovery. Surprisingly though, it wasn’t on the bow shot I went to track at daylight. We tracked that deer for over a mile in one big circle…..passing back by within just a couple hundred yards of where it was originally shot and right back into the bedding area it had originally come from. The track seemed to go hotter in the bedding area but not to the point that I felt like we were right behind him. I think he bedded for part of the night and then got up and started moving again this morning. The deer was shot yesterday at 10 am so it had been awhile since he was hit. He apparently wasn’t hurt nearly as bad as we had hoped. The hunter said he saw where the arra hit and it was just under the spine about midways back. I think he hit no man’s land. I’ve seen pics from other trackers of deer that were hit right there with a bow and were right back out in the greenfield feeding again within a few days with a hole in ‘em. We were approaching 1 ½ miles when we decided to call it.

As soon as I left that track another call came in for some folks I just tracked for a couple weeks ago. The same young lady that shot the doe a few stories back had shot her first buck this morning. Dad said that the shot looked good but the buck just wasn’t bleeding much and it just petered out after 100 yards. He wanted to for sure find it so they just backed out and called me. This ended up being a pretty routine find. The deer was hit good but just wasn’t bleeding much at all. I’m not sure what she was shooting but it may have been a small caliber of some sort. The deer went around 250 yards from the hit site and piled up. Otis ran right to this one. A heck of a buck for someone’s first.

I sure wish I could make these pics smaller.......

It happens to a lot of folks man. Don't sweat it too much. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he doesn't just show right back up in the same field.

Call just came in for tomorrow morning. It sounds like a pretty promising call except for the fact that they’re only a couple hundred yards from the property line and it sounds like the deer may be headed that way. The shot was about 75 yards quartering away. The deer jumped up in the air and took off out of the field. They found a lot of white hair in the field. They picked up on blood a little ways into the woods and followed it for a 100 yards or so before petering out. They’ve found a couple “good spots” of blood.

I suspect that this is a low belly hit about mid ways back and they’ve hit high enough to get into the body cavity. I think there’s a good chance that the deer will be bedded up dead but it’s likely to be 300-400+ yards. This one may end in a five minute run to the property line I’m afraid. Fingers crossed that the deer went in a different direction or they can contact the neighbors.

Good luck on this one. I'm think low grazing shot no body cavity penetration,, hope I'm wrong and you put it on the truck.

I hope so too. They described the "good spots" of blood as being about like a pie pan so it leads me to believe that this one may be hit pretty decent. That sounds about like the ones that usually have their guts hanging out the back. Those are the ones that tend to live for a while and can go for a good little ways sometimes if pushed. About to head out now after this cup of coffee.

To be continued........

CNC is going to be a tired puppy pardon the pun if he hasn't responded from this morning! Hope he is getting them all! Show us the meat Otis!

The bucks are definitely moving this weekend.

I’ve noticed a definite pattern through all of this. Many of the hunters when they call feel like they’ve hit the deer well……even though very few are more than scratched up and only maybe half are actually hit well enough to recover. Our perceptions of things in the heat of the moment will lie to us. You will tend to see things the way you want to see it.

Anyways, enough with the psychoanalysis……BigEd called the first one right. It wasn’t quite the pie plate sized blood spots I was hoping to see but this deer was actually bleeding what I would consider decent for a few short stretches of the track. They blew a good bit of white hair off of it too at the hit site. It looked about like the hit site pic in this thread a page of two back. The buck went straight onto the neighbors into a huge clearcut that was grown back up in sedge waist to chest high.

Fortunately they had the neighbors numbers ready to go and we got permission to go within a matter of minutes. That went way smoother than I anticipated. Unfortunately though, we tracked the deer all the way across that property before calling it off at the 1500 yard mark as it crossed over into yet another property owner. That was disappointing as hell because I really had high hopes for this one. I suppose they just blew the belly hair off because the deer had all kinds of places it could have bedded up and never did.

After we called it off we were walking back to the truck when another call came in from the morning hunt. The hunter reported that a buck ran a doe across the powerline at about 75 yards and he had to make a quick shot. He felt confident about the shot but could only find what they think might be a speck of blood. The had searched for over an hour and couldn’t find anything.

This deer was shot at what looked to be a slightly “quartering to” angle in the front of the shoulder with a 30-06. Look close in the pic and you’ll see it. There was only a tiny entry hole and no exit. The deer didn’t go 75 yards and piled up in a little thicket with no blood trail. The hunters said they had walked circles around him within 20 yards and just didn’t see him. It took Otis about 4-5 minutes. More to come later. To be continued………

Been checking in regularly today...glad to hear the updates. Tuned in for the "continued" part!

So actually before I even left the first track a third hunter called me from the same hunting club that I was currently tracking on. He was just on another track of land a couple miles down the road. He had one he needed me to track but I had already told the other folks I was on my way so I told him I’d have to come back. So after the second track was over I came back to the same hunting club where I started the morning.

There wasn’t much to this track. The hunter was up on a hill in a cutover and had a buck passing (feeding) through at about 150 yards or so. He said that he thought he smoked it and that the deer had run off favoring one leg. I’m pretty sure he just took a gash out of the deer’s leg. This track was only a few hours old so it wasn't hard to follow. There was a little bit of dark blood for 60-70 yards but nothing else other than that. No bone or anything so I don't even think the hunter blew the leg up too bad. We took the track out to 800-850 yards before calling it off after we came to the conclusion that the deer wasn't smoked and was just a little scratched up.

I did see Otis do something on this track though that really showed he’s maturing. We were tracking through a little bottom when Otis jumped a rabbit right in front of his face. He took off after it for about 5-10 yards and then locked on the brakes….left it alone….and went right back to tracking the deer. I was proud to see that because rabbits are about the most enticing thing other than live deer that can distract a tracking dog.

So by this time it about lunch time and 3 more calls have come in…….


Stories to be continued…….

Go getem Otis!

Lookin forward to the stories. Glad the weather is cooler.