We talked last Thursday-you were on the road. Mack McGowen came over from Mnpls to track my buck. His lacy - Jake - found it!! He would have found it sooner but I told Mack it was going in the wrong direction - I watched the deer run east - Jake wanted to go North. Soooo, we searched going east for over 2 hours - nothing. Later, Mack decided to just give the dog his head to go wherever he wanted. No blood trail at all, anywhere, by the way. So, in 10 minutes, Jake found the deer. It had made a 90 degree turn - no blood at all, ever. If I had believed the dog, we would have found it in 10 minutes. My fault! Per the laser rangefinder it was 439 yards from my blind to where Jake and Mack found the buck.
Mack is a VERY patient, very professional young man. Obviously Jake is very competent. I would recommend them to anyone - and I will! You may pass this along to Mack - he is a credit to your organization. I did not have a camera, but Mack took cellphone pics - you may use them on your website if you want.
Again, Thanks!!
John Hepfler
P.S. It was a very nice, heavy racked 10 pointer! Actually, this was more exciting than the hunt itself!
I asked Mack for permission to post the e-mail on the blog and received his reply:
Thanks for the email, it's quite a treat hearing from you, your husband's book made a huge impact in the way I trained Jake!
This was Jake's second track of his second season, he's a 2 year old Blue Lacy, we tracked last year on my deer lease in Coleman County, Texas as well as attending a UBT training day hosted by Marlo Riley. He did really well, although he had to learn the hard way not to growl at Marlo! Tracking in Texas is a lot different than up here in Wisconsin!
There really was no visible blood, barely any under the deer where Jake found him. With hardly any wind to speak of, when Jake went hard north down the hill and John was absolutely positive the deer had headed up the ridge and through a stand of trees on the fence line, I brought Jake back up to the point of loss (Trust your dog!). I worked him all the way up the top of the ridge, hoping to pick up a blood trail along the fence line. He didn't show much interest in anything, except one crossing on the fence line down the hill from where John saw his buck cross. We started working that area, and Jake made two fence crossings and we wound up in the middle of a field with tall grass, he was checking scent on the tops of the grasses as we worked along, dipping his head to the trail. He checked himself twice when his trail crossed deer paths, both times I asked him, "Are you sure Jake, are you sure?" Both times he responded with a definite, "Yes!" which for Jake is a hard pull in the right direction. He went down to the corner of the pasture, through some nasty brush and back through the fence. The lead went slack and I could hear him growling to himself. When I peeked up over the fence and saw that big Wisconsin deer lying there I let out a whoop! Jake, the only Texas Blue Lacy in Wisconsin had just found the largest deer we've ever tracked, with no visible blood!
John was a real pleasure to track with, he was very patient with us and held back any doubts he had in Jake's ability. He very generously took me out for a beer, burger, filled my truck up with gas and with enough money to buy plenty of kibbles for my Tracking buddy! It's being able to help guys out like John that keep me coming back for more!
Huge congratulations to Jake and Mack!
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