First, this thread is great...I’ve never noticed it before.

Second, I’m not positive that y’all aren’t joking about this empty space business, but I gotta say...there isn’t an empty space. The visual is tempting, but lungs maintain pressure on the thoracic cavity at all times. It’s why the rib cage expands upon inhalation rather than remaining static.

The most poignant thing to me about all these tracking stories is the undeniable lethality of a gut shot. The place no one wants to hit...doesn’t mean they’ll be easy to find, but they’ll be dead

Thanks Ike!.....Good anatomy lesson.....


We were able to recover two nice deer over the last couple days. One was for a bow hunter and the other for a youth gun hunter.

The gun hunter was a youth hunter who had shot one yesterday evening….They said the deer jumped up in the air and then crashed down on the ground before taking off. They couldn’t find any blood but thought they heard a deer take off when they were searching. We tracked to it and found it still alive at just over 300 yards this morning. I pulled the dogs off and the little boy was able to finish him off. It turned out to be a low shot that took both front legs out. It still amazes me how these dogs area able to smell the scent after it's rained. It had rained just about all night and was still lightly raining when we tracked the deer. We really just caught a slight break between heavier showers.


The bow hunter knew he had hit too far back and decided to give the deer overnight. It made for a pretty straight forward 250 yard track right to the deer yesterday morning. We actually ran a coyote off of this one when we found it. We saw it take off from the thicket up ahead of us as the dogs approached....

I should have snapped a pic of it but something interesting about that leg shot buck was that his tail was missing and he already had a fist sized hole eaten out of his rump where his tail attached. He was up on his belly looking at us when we found him and he never even attempted to get up other than a couple very weak kicks from his back legs. I think we likely ran yotes off of him that were in the process of eating him alive. I think they had already completely wore him down.

Definitely following this thread this year. Awesome reads here.

I guess the use of specially trained blood trail dogs for deer recovery is one of the biggest changes in deer hunting I can think of. Back in the 70's, 80's and 90's we would always have a dog or two we would throw on a blood trail, but usually the dog was used too soon and off leash and the deer would be 3 miles down the road when the dog was caught off of it. If there wasn't good blood it was assumed the deer was not hit, a gut shot usually was lost.

It’s really gained popularity over the last 5-6 years due to social media and tracking conventions being held in AL and GA…..It’s a good thing for the sport long term in my opinion but it’ll have its issues that have to be worked out like anything else. Everybody and his brother is getting a dog now…..you’ll really have to watch about who you call if you ever need one and make sure you’re getting someone with a reasonably experienced dog versus one that's just been used to find a handful of easy ones and then advertised as a tracking dog. Not trying to knock anyone.....it just is what it is.....Word of mouth and reputations will sort a lot of it out over time.

things sure to pic up on the story board with all the lead about to fly starting tomorrow. Good luck everyone.

I’ve been happy to see a little lull in action with all the rain. Otis has had some hot spots break out around his neck that I’m trying to get healed up before all of the craziness of gun season starts. He does this just about every season around this time. I’m pretty sure its allergy issues from us being in these cutovers and sage praries, etc….

It’s also given me a few days to break in a new pair of boots. After finding that leg hit buck the other morning in the rain….we left that track and went to look for a shoulder shot buck from the prior evening's hunt that ran off into a gigantic beaver swamp. We’re talking about 40+ acres of some stuff that duck hunters dream about. We tracked it well there for several hundred yards but we eventually ended up in waist deep water with the dogs swimming between high spots and nothing but an abyss of even deeper swamp ahead of us. All the rain had it flooded out even worse than normal and it was still raining at the time. We eventually just lost the track in deep water and had to call it off as the rain set in heavier. I'm pretty sure the deer was going to still be alive even if we were able to locate him. They had broken off part of a bolt in his shoulder and he was likely just injured.

Well.....it was while wading waist deep water that the sole of my boot decided to come off and leave me with nothing but a moccasin on my foot for the rest of the track. It actually worked out better than I thought it was going to. We’ve got us a new pair now though…..just gotta get the leather loosened up a little on ‘em……

The real fun starts tomorrow boys!!.......Wooo! Hooooo!

Nice looking wood on that gun, does it get used much or is it a safe queen?

It’s been a little bit of both over the years…..Killed my first deer with that gun when I was 13 and a bunch since then with it. A lot of those scars came from all them rocks up in Jackson Co. I retired it to the safe for a number of years but brought her back out to use as my tracking gun. Its such a sweet shooting little gun. I can quickly draw a bead on something free handed and still be really steady. It carries well down the middle of your back too.....

Just picking with the safe queen comment CNC. When I see a gun that looks like that, the first thing I think is, "now that gun has seen serious use and been used for exactly what it was designed for." Keep on keeping on with it.

I've got a 742 that I used to use on dog hunts back in the late 70's early 80's. Killed an absolute pile of deer with it and treated it about like you would a shovel. Stock looks pretty much identical to yours from getting banged on dog boxes and drug through swamps a rabbit wouldnt enter. It has been sitting in the safe for about 20 yrs now but if you told me tomorrow, that I was going on a dog hunt and had to kill one, I'd leave all the one hole, bolt guns in there and the 742 would come out of retirement.

This may be the story I tell about until I die……. but I’d so give my left nut to be able to go back and have that big 8 bayed up again and have my 30-30 in my hands instead of that .45…... I mean, you live and you learn and that experience is what has gotten me honed in on what I feel like is my best option for a weapon to tote….but I would have smoked his arse and had that one in a picture with the dogs if I would have had my rifle in my hand that day. It was a freakin toad too.....To each their own…..but screw a pistol.

Your stories make me want to gut shoot a deer just to see y’all in action. I wish you could’ve made it to track the buck my daughter leg shot earlier this year but fully understand why you couldn’t. Keep the stories coming!!

Yeah, I would have liked to have given that one a try. We’ve been swamped with calls this year and having to turn away some of them just because we can’t get to them in a timely manner. We tracked three this morning and are gonna call it day. The first one was still alive….we bayed it up for about 10 seconds but it broke before I got there and never checked back up. The second wasn’t even hit and just had a little bit of white hair knocked off of its belly. The third was an super easy find…..We pulled up and no sooner than we started tracking you could see buzzards in the distance up ahead of us. It was a decent 8 point but there wasn’t much left of it. I forgot to even take a pic of this one. I'll try to do better next time.

Went on 2 ½ tracks today………

The first call came in this morning on a buck a young boy shot yesterday evening. They thought he’d been gut shot and they just weren’t finding much blood. It turned out to be a pretty tough track for a gut shot. We lost the track a couple different times but kept progressing it a little farther and a little farther.... Finally, after about 500 yards we saw buzzards up ahead of us and they led us the rest of the way home……….



The second track was for a bowhunter who said that he’d shot a really nice buck but took a marginal shot he wasn’t sure about. The deer was quartered to him and he said it looked like he had stuck it in the front of the shoulder. The deer ran off with a lot of arrow sticking out and he didn’t see much blood. He backed out and called in the dogs. He got pretty fortunate on this one got just enough penetration to get into the vitals…..It made for a routine find on this really nice 9 point…….



After we recovered the 9 pt the guy started trying to call his FIL who had just went and got in his stand for the afternoon hun to tell him he needed to come get the 4-wheeler...... but he never got any answer. He kept calling and texting but never got any response. Finally, the FIL calls back and says “Damn, I just stuck a big one too!”….The reason he didn’t respond was because the deer was in under him and he said it could hear all the buzzing coming from his phone..... Unfortunately though, he stabbed it down through the top of the shoulder with an expandable broadhead and only got about 4-5 inches of penetration. We found the broke off part of the arrow only 20 yards into the track. This was shot out of a tenpoint crossbow at 12 yards too…..Expandables suck.... We put the dogs on it but it was obvious what we were dealing with. We tracked it for several hundred yards never finding a drop of blood before calling it off.

How longwas it between the shot and putting the dogs on the half track? I hate expandables almost as bad as I hate ballistic tips.

It was about an hour after the shot.....It wasn't an ideal situation but the FIL pretty much knew what he had done and just asked me if I'd check it before we left. As soon as we found his broken arrow it pretty much confirmed a high shoulder hit. I'm really shocked by how little penetration he got out of a crossbow at only 12 yards.

Nice work Harold!!! I need to grab some flyers/business cards from you to put in our shack there at camp. I'm not always there,and would want the other members to reach out to you if needed. I was thoroughly impressed last year and plan on giving you a call if need be. If you're ever in the area,just swing by the camp and drop them in the shack