wake up CNC.... you got some stories to tell.

No luck this morning on the buckshot buck. It turned out there was a very good reason for it though. The hunter pulled some camera cards while we were out and just sent me a text of the buck feeding at 12:20 last night. They must have just scratched him up.

No calls from this morning so far..... and to be honest, I’m not that disappointed about it. The dogs still seem raring to go.....but CNC’s legs could use a break.

Call just came in from the morning hunt.....luckily it's not far from home. All I know right now is that they have a lot of blood and tracked it for 200 yards before losing the trail. No bone, no hair.

To be continued......

I guess we all have a little different of idea of “a lot of blood”. It was definitely not what I’d call a lot of blood. The track turned out to just be another classic back slap. When I got there the hunter told me that the deer had hit the ground and then got up and run off. The blood that was being found was small spots smaller than your fist where the deer would stop and stand. He probably did that 4-5 times within the first 300 yards and then it pretty much just quit. We tracked him for about 700 yards just to make sure before calling it off.

On a positive note, it would awesome if every track were less than 10 miles from home like that one. I could get used to that.

CNC if you don’t mind me asking do you track full time during deer season? Not trying to pry but if you work a job as well you have to be one tired fella as much as you stay on the road tracking! I thoroughly enjoy this thread and look forward your stories each day.

On these backslaps, have you asked the shooter how his gun is sighted in? Are they 3 inches high at 100yd in order to be dead on at 200, or something like that? If shooting say high shoulder shots at 100 or less they may not be compensating for bullet rise thus the "backslap". Just a thought.

Enjoy the tales. Hope you and the dog crew are getting plenty of water and rest. looking forward to the next track.

On top of tracking I also do some modeling work……… as well as being a part owner with Outback in a high end brothel/speakeasy. I’m actually sitting here at the bar of the brothel now, drinking beer with hot trim running around everywhere.

That’s an interesting thought. I haven’t asked anyone that question though. I think most of it is just buck fever and/or poor shot choice. I also feel like many people likely shoot guns that they’re not truly comfortable with.

I'm not sure if you would call what I did last night sleeping or a mild coma. It's the first time since I worked at the distribution center nearly twenty years ago that I can remember being asleep before 8:00.....Glad to see the rain falling this morning.

Good, you will need it, still over a month of tracking to go!

Oh, yeah.....and we're just on the front end of the busiest time. It's like when you're a die hard hunter and the season finally comes to an end. You're sad to see it go but at the same time you're glad its over. I have a feeling I'll be to that point in another month.

While I'm thinking about it. Shelby has made some big strides over the last week or two. She's not coming back to me nearly as much now and she's starting to stay out front with Otis tracking. I'm excited to she how she matures over the next year as she turns 2 in late spring.

I had a call come in just after dark yesterday afternoon. The caller said that his brother had shot the biggest buck he had ever seen in the woods. The buck jumped straight up in the air off all fours and took off. All they had found so far was a wad of brown and white hair at the hite site and nothing else. He was pretty sure it was a low gut hit. He said his brother was still out in the woods looking for the deer and wanted to know if I could come out there and recover it for them. He was just sick about it. I told the caller that I would be glad to come out first thing in the morning but that I wouldn’t come out right then. I advised them that if the buck was shot low in the guts then they needed to back out and give him some time anyways……To which the caller responded…..”but its supposed to rain in the moring!”…. I told him that I understood his concerns but that we could likely still track it even if it did rain. He said ok and that they’d call me back later……

I never heard back from them and it’s all good. I’m not telling this story to rail on this particular caller but rather to make a bigger point. When you make a bad shot on a deer....then what’s done is done. There’s nothing you can do after the fact that will make the shot any better. Al you can do is make it worse. It makes me grin every time I see someone post up a thread or message on FB saying “Need a dog ASAP!!!”……..In the vast majority of situations, no you don’t need a dog ASAP!......You need to go home ASAP and stop wandering around the woods looking for a deer that ain’t even dead yet. The excitement of the moment and the desperation that’s felt when "the big one gets away" leads many people to make bad decisions after the shot.

We’ve talked a lot about this in the past but I’m gonna say it again as we enter the rut and the war ensues……Recognize when you’ve made a bad shot and back out. There’s no amount of searching that will make that deer die if you’ve shot him low in the guts. I can’t come out there two hours later and make your deer be dead just because you have to work in the morning or because it might rain. If you leave him alone though then there’s a good chance that he won’t go very far and we may still be able to recover him.

I think this thread alone has educated A LOT of folks on how to handle the recovery of a deer. We hunters spend so much time, effort and money on the front end of deer hunting only to completely screw up after we’ve shot the buck we’ve been after.

I know it has me, and I appreciate the time the handlers take on here to write about the tracks. I got to go the the trackers seminar last year and meet most of these guys and gals that track (and their dogs, Otis is awesome by the way). You can gain a lot of insight from them, they see more wounded deer in a season than most of us do in a lifetime of hunting!

I'll third that forsure...honestly before reading this thread, I had never even thought about using a dog. Especially after we called one for my buddy, I'm a full believer in not pushing a deer on a bad shot and calling in the Calvary! Thanks CNC!

Thanks fellas!.....I’m glad y’all are enjoying the stories and finding them informative.

Restocked on legs this morning for the offseason. They’re supposed to be saving me some livers as well. Otis probably won’t run many training tracks over the summer but as soon as deer season is over I’ll continue running Shelby on them weekly or at least every other week.



Shout out the Hudson’s Deer Processing in Hurtsboro…..This chit right here is some count. I hope eating the whole stick in one day won’t kill you or I may be in bad shape here in a few hours.



I looked through all the legs out of curiosity and this was about the worst curled hoof I could find.

The crippled coon and dirt roads thread immediately came to mind.