Sipping coffee and getting ready to head back out again this morning. The cool weather has been great for tracking. I'll try to get caught up on the stories later today.

So in the interest of getting us caught up I’m gonna give the cliff notes for the rest of yesterday’s adventure. When we left off I had said that three more calls had come in……..

One was earlier that morning from a hunter I had tracked for a couple weeks ago. He had found a lot of blood and gut blown from the buck and wanted to know how long he should wait and if I’d be available later in the day. He waited 3-4 hrs and found it on his own so we didn’t have to go to that one.

Another one came in a little later around lunch from a hunter who had tracked his buck for several hundred yards and was just finding specks at that point. He said it was headed across the main road and onto the neighbors. I told him to get permission to go across the road and I’d meet him later that day or in the morning. He never called back so I assume he didn’t figure it out.

The final track of the day wasn’t a very promising track at all but it was on my way home anyways and I wanted to meet and make contact with the landowners. The buck was actually shot the day before and we were over 30 hrs old at this point. They had already searched for it with a 4 or 5 man party for several hours with no luck so the area was good and mucked up.

It was in a unique habitat for this part of the world. It looked more like I was in Kansas than Alabama. Large rolling sedgefields with cedars scattered here and there throughout it. It was cool to see. I don’t really think this deer was hurt much at all though. They had only found a one or two small spots of blood and the hunter had reported seeing the buck stop and stand in some cedars for a long time after the shot before just trotting off. He said he couldn't see it's body enough to get another shot.

Just to add an extra challenge to the situation, the wind decided to pick up and blow about 20 mph across those open “plains”. Otis tracked it like a champ under the conditions and for his 4th track of the day for about 400-500 yards..... before his battery just ran out of juice. He came back to me with his tongue hanging out….giving me a look like “I’m done boss.” I knew it was time to call it.... so I did.

The cool thing though is that the 400-500 yards where we tracked it went in a completely different direction than what the hunter had thought. They had been blindly searching in the direct opposite direction. The buck had left out traveling toward where they searched but once he got out of the hunter’s sight, he looped back around and went right back the way he had come from. We grid searched a big section of prairie in the direction Otis was taking us but like I originally said….I’m pretty sure that there wasn’t any deer to be found on this one. I ended up just doing that track for free.

So much for cliff notes….. ..... but that catches us up to today’s stories anyways. Let’s start with pics first and then I’ll post the story later…….

Now for today’s stories…….

Actually let’s back up to last night. Three calls came in last night all literally within a 3-4 mile circle. The first one was the buck in the picture. That hunter had shot the buck with a 300 mag from about 300 yards. The sign at the hit site was classic low belly shot. Big wad of white hair. They had found two decent spots of blood but nothing past about 75 yards.

Otis was really slow and meticulous on this track. The deer was only bleeding speck here and there. He took us on a slow steady line though for 475 yards right to the deer. It only took us about 15-20 minutes. I was proud of the quick find to start the morning.

The second call that came in last night didn’t have too many details. They had tracked really good blood for a couple hundred yards before losing it. I found out when I got there this morning that they had also found bone too so I knew we were likely dealing with a leg hit. Otis picked right up on this one and took it on a trot about 600 yards to the paved road where it crossed over onto a well known hunting plantation. We found blood leading right up to the road.

The hunter had already talked to the folks the night before and got us the go ahead but he called them again this morning to let them know that it had for sure crossed. We tracked it another couple hundred yards onto the hunting plantation when we came upon where the deer had bedded for the night. There was a pretty damn good bit of blood in the bed.

I found it odd that we didn’t at least get the deer up out of that bed but I want to believe that coyotes got after this deer. He came up out of his bed and did a complete loop before entering in some hardwoods running parallel with the road we had crossed earlier. We found blood confirming it but it completely shut off after that point compared to what we were finding before the bed. Otis tracked it parallel with the road for another 400-500 yards before crossing BACK over the road again onto the original property. To make a long story short, we followed this deer a LONG ways before finally just calling it off so the hunters could get on the road headed home. They had a several hour drive. It was just surprising to me that we never came up on this deer at all. He should have been in that bed but something got him up out of before we got there and pushed him WAY down the trail. It never seemed like the track went hot.

One really cool thing about the track was that we came across an old cemetery along our route. I didn’t snap the best pic in the world but if you look the dates are Born 1821…..Died 1854. That pretty old there. Maybe some of first families in Alabama?? Many of the other tombstones could barely be read.

Oh, yeah…..the third call. This one was from a high fence property. The exciting conclusion still to come. To be continued………..

The XL big pen I assume.

Indeed.

Hmmmm...I thought he had missed earlier in the big pen.

Congrats on the finds, Otis. Enjoyed catching up.

Thanks 3FF!.....Sorry for the delay in stories. I think I literally fell asleep last night at 7:30.

Now the epic conclusion to yesterday’s tracking adventure……..

So the hunter’s brother called me last night and told me that they had shot one of the biggest, oldest bucks on the property. One that they had been hunting for several years and estimated to be 8 years old or better. A huge bodied buck thought to easily be 225 lbs.

The shot was made at around 200 yards as the buck crossed over a lane. They had found no blood or hair but felt like the deer was hit hard from its reaction as it ran out of the lane. They felt like they it could very well be a deer just like the one a couple pics back that had one little entry hole and no exit. They had looked for an hour or so with flashlights and decided to just back out and call in a dog.

Well…they sent me a text this morning (yesterday) saying he had shown right back up on camera and it was a clean miss……he was still alive.

The End.

Congrats Harold, really enjoy following your thread!!

Thanks!....Tell your dad that the dog box is being put to good use. I remember him saying that I was hauling off a lot of good memories with that box. By the time this dog box is finally retired, I think it’ll have one heck of a story to tell.

Yes you will for sure,I can remember trying to reach up and unhook the latches and them bird dogs knockin me down jumpin off the tailgate.. great memories for sure, enjoy

The phone rings about 7:30 this morning and on the other end is the unmistakable voice of a local outfitter I’ve gotten to know over the last couple of years. It sounds like you’re talking to Sam Elliot on the other end of the line……the long gray haired guy from Roadhouse that does all the truck commercials and stuff….deep voice. He asks me if I can come track one this morning for them. I didn’t even ask any details other than whether it was shot this morning or last night. When he said last night I told him I was on my way.

The hunter shot this deer yesterday afternoon with some kind of bazooka. I may have this wrong but I think he said it was a .417 or something of that nature. They said it was used for bear defense when they went to Alaska. It was shooting a 400 grain bullet I believe they said. I’m not a real gun guru so it was a first for me. He was trying to shoot hogs with it and saw a shooter buck instead.

He shot the deer at around 100 yards slightly quartering to him. The bullet entered fairly low on the body in the guts and exited out the deer’s hindquarter. It only ran about 250 yards but they didn’t have much of a blood trail to follow so they backed out and called for Otis. This one was a pretty easy find. Otis made a couple loops at the hit site and then went on a straight line right to it. Its kind of a cliché thing to say but the pic really doesn’t do the deer justice. It had some really nice mass on it. An old gray faced buck.

GOOD JOB CONGRATS!

Never heard of a 417. Possible could have been the 416 rigby

That very well may have been it....It was 4 something for sure.

As soon as I posted the story about this morning’s track I had two more calls come in back to back within about 10 minutes of each other. I took the first one and referred the second one to another tracker. The first one was from Bamaeyedoc’s club. The same member I tracked for back earlier in the season called me and said his girlfriend had shot a big one…they had good blood on it….but it just stopped.

We don’t go on too many tracks that just leave me scratching my head but I’ll admit that I’m not real sure what the hell happened on this one. They had tracked it with 3 folks out to about 250 yards in some real thick understory. In the field there was a small patch of light grayish hair. Definitely not white belly hair but not really dark hair either. There would be great blood that a blind man could follow for a short distance and then a gap….another good stretch and then a gap….You could tell the deer was going and stopping...going and stopping.

Well, when it got out to about the 250 yard mark there were erratic spots where it looked like the deer was just standing here for a moment and then moving 10 yards…..standing and then moving…..around in circles. That’s where they lost the blood and it’s the same place we got muddled down in as well. Otis ran circle after circle after circle in that area for a good little while until I finally told the hunter that we better try a different tactic before Otis wears his self out in that one area. It was pretty warm this afternoon.

I marked it on the map and we started trying to loop around it. We spent the next 2 hrs covering every possible way the deer could have went…..blind searching and looking for Otis to pick up the trail for several hundred yards out in every direction. Nothing. Not a spot of blood….nothing. All I can figure is that the deer went straight back the same way it came from and the search area was just too stepped on for Otis to figure it out. This one really leaves me scratching my head. The best guess I have is that they hit the deer in the neck or across the chest. The more I’ve though about it the more I’m leaning toward neck but hell I really just don't know on this one.

That's a pretty, old deer you found this morning, good job.