And I agree with that. I actually told my son these words, “If I knew you had a grazing non lethal shot on this deer then I wouldn’t call a dog. We’d just have to try him on another day and hope for another opportunity. Last thing I want to do is go dog hunting for a deer that will otherwise live.” So yes I do draw the line on those deer that are going to survive if left alone. I do want every deer that’s recoverable found though. I hate to think about losing deer. Unfortunately on a lot of them, you don’t know if the shot was lethal until the dogs bay them.

You gonna get in trouble marsh talking bout you think the deer would of been ok, if you draw blood you deserve to run them down and finish em off! Well actually let someone else finish it off and you can claim it

”Marksmanship” on the range is fairly simple and something you can teach even most kids to be decent at within a single box of shells…..Buck fever is far and away the biggest culprit of bad shots……Not being able to hold it together under pressure in order to make good decisions and preform the shot when “horns” walk out. You can do all the practice you want on the range but unless you’re smoking crack rock while you’re doing it then you just can’t simulate the massive adrenaline dump that most folks are having to contend with when shooting at a good buck……That’s what leads to most bad shots. In addition to that, or compounding the issue, would be folks shooting guns that they arent comfortable shooting

These types of comments come mostly from folks who have never been on a single track where a deer has been bayed and they’re just making assumptions…..If healthy deer could be run down and bayed up then dog hunters would have been doing it years ago…..Even if we go with what you say being true in that it was a non-lethal hit, you’re still just cherry picking a handful of tracks that represent less than 1% of the total to make a stink about…..Its kinda like a Karen just searching for something she can bitch about. Look at ALL the recoveries you see being made on here and on Facebook and show me which ones are even questionable…..I don’t think I’ve seen a single one this year that’s even close.

Watch the video again and look at that deer’s right leg instead of the one the little boy points at……I’m pretty sure its broken and floppy….you can see blood to the hoof. Whatever the case may be though, I can assure you that if the buck cant get away from that single dog their using…..then it doesn’t stand a chance against a pack of coyotes.

I have a DJI Mavic 3T drone. The drone an extra 3 batteries and a spotlight cost me $7K. My flight time is 35 mins not using the light and my top speed is 46 MPH. I have the return home set at 20% battery life and it returns and lands exactly where it took off from. I can buzz 3-400 acres in less then 35 mins. I can see in young pines up to about 15 years and then it become a little difficult but I can still find the deer and by the time the pines reach 20 years it's easy to see into them again. In hardwoods I can find squirrels and coons and any deer bedded.
Here a video posted today on Face Book from a drone recovery service about his profits this year.

AAAS All American Adventures Services

Agreed, I don't post much about the ones that get away but have plenty of them. It's pretty obvious that deer has a broke leg in the video

If you want to talk about flirting with the line of being questionable then a drone is much more so…….With a dog you have the measuring stick of “can the buck get away?”…..The dog assesses that for you. With a drone its simply locate the deer and then “can I get a shot?”…..

I had a situation earlier this year that was very iffy where we tracked a buck shot through the backstrap with a bow and the dog didn’t show much interest in the track as if it was non-fatal……Two days later the hunter located it with a drone bedded in a pine prairie and shot it with a rifle….Was the original shot fatal or did he just ambush a buck out of his bed with the aid of a drone??.....I don’t know…..but that’s where it starts getting pretty questionable and you start opening up pandora’s box to a potential whole new paradigm for what we’re gonna call hunting. If we’re gonna start locating deer with drones and then using the info to ambush them, then you really have to start questioning if we’re crossing the line of fair chase. Part of me thinks that maybe that’s being a little Karenish as well and over hyping something that isnt really significant…….but the other half of me sees the reality of what’s now occurring and it makes me wonder what we’ll be calling hunting 5 years from now if everyone has one of these in their hunting camp. I kinda think though that deer are pretty much seen as a tolerated nuisance in this state so at the end of the day the powers that be arent really that concerned with how we kill them as long as we keep their numbers under control

I’m not knocking tracking dogs. I think it’s one of the best things to happen in deer recovery. Also I love to watch a good dog work. I also said it appeared to me that it looked like a flesh wound. I didn’t see anything that showed a broken leg. If you saw it then it’s there. I didn’t. I still believe even with a broken leg it’s not a lethal shot. However I’m glad they were able to put the deer down even if it was with the aid of a dog. But at least the tracker let the hunter finish it off. I’m cherry picking this track because it was put out there for everyone to see. I hate that I wrinkled your pantries but my opinion is that deer would have survived if not for the dog. I’ve seen and caused way worse injuries to deer, only to see them or kill them at a later time.

The one thing about a drone is you have video evidence of everything you do. The drones have transponders so they can be tracked back to the owner.

Your opinion is wrong though and spreading misinformation that’s based mostly on assumptions…….Leg shots are one of the most common calls trackers get during gun season…..There are literally hundreds if not thousands of leg shots that occur all over the state each season……yet you would be very hard pressed to come up with a single picture of a three legged deer that has survived a broken leg from a gun shot……Sure, there will be a handful of anomalies but the reality of it from a numbers standpoint would be 99% fatal…..1% non-fatal or something of that nature….. The vast majority of them don’t survive…..Coyotes take them out…..

Damn things ought to be illegal. Saw a hunting show where they were spotting bedded bucks out in crop fields with one and then stalking them, ought to be illegal, f em.

How about this one that was on our place for a couple years. Looks like a 3 legged survivor to me.

I've got a picture of a three legged deer as well......ONE...........Again for those in the back row

As far as the video goes, you’re making a lot of assumptions there as well……You’re taking very little real information and turning into a for gone conclusion…..All you know is that little boy pointed toward a wound on the brisket of the deer……You don’t know whether or not that deer’s opposite site leg is broken….If you watch though it appears very much like it is……

Also, any tracker that’s been doing this for any length of time will tell you that there aint no way in hell a deer bays up from nothing but a flesh wounded brisket..…..Maybe someone has that one story about once upon a time some crazy chit happened but that’s about all you could hope for…..That’s first hand knowledge from guys who do it every day and not just someone making an assumption who has never been on the first one. Just look at the folks who have these opinions and the common theme is that few if any have ever actually watched a dog bay a deer to understand what is and isnt possible. They just create a false reality in their head and form an opinion about it from there.

You believe what you want and I’ll believe what I want.

You know what actually ends up taking down a lot of your leg shot deer……Its that when a dog or a coyote(s) forces the deer to run to get away, they eventually end up injuring one of the other legs trying to run up and down a steep creek bank or something of that nature. They blow out a muscle or snap a bone. Any deer that survives a leg shot for any length of time….especially a rear leg……is an extreme anomaly that just gets really, really lucky

And any deer with a non fatal wounds that gets bayed be a dog and shot by the tracker or the hunter definitely won’t make it. As I said, I’m 100% behind tracking dogs but don’t come on here and try to tell us that y’all are the Grand Poobah of deer hunting because y’all find deer for people who make bad shots or don’t know how to track blood. Using dogs is nothing new. Some of us been using dogs to find deer long before it was legal. But dogs were only used as a last resort. I think it should still be used only when all other options have been exhausted. Not called because you only find a few drops of blood the first 20 yards and give up. I really admire what y’all do for people. But I think it changed the way people hunt now. People know that if they make a bad shot, they have the tracking dog on speed dial and the dog will find the deer so it can be shot while bayed up. This is my opinion and I firmly believe it.

I will agree with Harold that deer that aren’t hurt pretty bad won’t bay up. I never saw a deer that wasn’t hurt caught up to by a pack of deer dogs. If you take 5 walkers, blue ticks, red bones or plots and put them on a deer that isn’t hurt bad enough it will take hrs and miles and still be running. If Otis can bay one up it’s pretty hurt yes some will recover but some will become coyote turds

I did have one that a neighbor shot in the leg and it lived behind my house for a while when healing. It made it to the next season but I never saw him again. I did have my son shoot at a buck youth season he was back whacked in December by the neighbor then graved by my wife all in the same year. Not sure what happened to him though.