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Sunday, August 25, 2013

A Kentucky trophy buck recovered by Joe Mason and his wirehaired dachshund Shome


Shome gets the first buck of the season and what a buck it is!

Yesterday we received this letter from Shome's owner Joe Mason. BTW, Shome is a two year-old littermate of our Sky.

Great day for Shome and me. I am so excited. My granddaughter's husband has a high fence hunting club in our county. I don't know if it is this way nationally or not but in KY once you get the permit from the state to run a high fence club you set your own laws as far as when and how you hunt. He has had a few pay hunters come in already.
 
He called me this morning about 11:00 and said he had a hunter shoot a 200" deer late yesterday and they couldn't find it and wanted to know if I would bring Shome down and try. It was about a 150 yd. shot and it was so late they couldn't tell where the deer was hit and were only able to find one little area of blood about 40 yds from where the deer had been standing.

Well it was 84 degrees and the trail was going to be 16 hrs old by the time I could get there. I told Marlene I probably didn't have a Chinamans chance but I wanted to work Shome anyway so I was going. I tried to start him at the spot where they thought the deer was standing and didn't seem to have much luck so I picked him up and carried him to where the little bit of blood was that they had found. Bingo. I was holding the leash and I was sure he was tracking. In about 30 yds I saw a little more blood and that sure made me feel good.
 
After another 40-50 yds he went through some junk to where I just had to let go of the rope and he was gone. Almost as soon as I had let go of the leash I looked down and saw 2 drops of blood on a leaf on a vine so I knew he was still tracking. I use a bell on his collar and just within a minute he was out of hearing range. I began to blow my whistle and call but just like the day I lost him he didn't come back. After a few minutes of calling we heard him barking way back behind us. I first thought he had circled back looking for me. I blew my whistle and called a few more times but we could tell he wasn't coming toward us. Sam asked me if I thought he had tracked the deer back and had found him. I told him I didn't know but I was going back to see what was going on.
 
It sounded like he was back where we had left his vehicle. When I got back there he wasn't there and the barking was out in a big corn field that ran parallel to the woods. I got really excited then because I knew he was barking at something down out there. When I got to him there was the deer and Shome was having a ball. The deer was still alive but couldn't get up. I don't know if he would have barked had the deer been dead or not. What do you think? If he hadn't been barking or if he had come back to me when I was calling we would never have found the deer. After today I am definitely buying a GPS collar.