A blood track to remember for Darren Doran and Karl from New Jersey

This is Darren Doren’s account of a tough call he took in New Jersey with  his wirehaired dachshund Karl. In New Jersey wounded deer tracking with a leashed dog is currently  legal only on a research permit basis. Daren is the leader of the group of handlers involved in the experiment, which will determine whether a more general legalization can be arranged. Daren has a long experience with dogs dating back to his Air Force service when he handled dogs that guarded combat planes.

Karl, his dachshund had found a few deer, but like some other dogs I have known, he could be a little rough and wild. Daren has the skill and perseverance  to  develop this dog that a lesser man would have given up on.

Darren’s story makes us realize that in a suburbanized state like New Jersey tracking can be tough in its own way. There are many small property owners, who are often anti-hunting and ready to refuse access to a handler and his tracking dog. And the cover can be just as thick as in northern alder swamps and southern privet. Here’s Darren’s story in his own words; it extends over two days.

Day One

 “A young hunter called Carmelo hit a big buck Saturday morning: a pass through that looked like a liver hit. Karl tracked it to an empty bed. I had Carmelo looking for sign as I tracked on through a briar patch. All of a sudden the boy yelled, There he goes.” We put him out of the briars.

 I went back to the bed and wanted to make sure it was the right deer. Carmelo assured me that it was. I started Karl where the deer had been seen and I saw blood. I was marking sign on the GPS when all of sudden I looked up and Karl had the buck by a hind quarter. The deer had laid down within 50 yards of us at the top of a weed field. The deer shook Karl off and ran across the field. This was the first time I saw the buck and believe me, it was big buck. We were now tracking hot and the deer was on its feet  and bleeding. 

 We went another 1.5 miles on the GPS and the deer crossed a property line; we needed permission to enter. This evening I'm hoping that Ron, Carmelo's dad, can get access. If so I'm going back.  Karl's work is really improving. I saw yesterday that I can start believing him more. We still have a rough patch at the start, but that's improving. Once he gets going he’s locked in. His tracking and his search pattern are improving as well. I'll let you know if I get back on the deer today.”

Day Two

“Ron spent Sunday morning going house to house to try to track down the property owner. As luck would have it he found him around 10:30 and permission to track was granted. As soon as Ron called I took off. It would take an hour and a half to get there, and I was anxious to get tracking.

We were going in by a different way today. We were going to follow an old railroad track that now served as public access to the Pequannock River, one of New Jersey’s trout streams. This public access split the private land to the east from the public to the west. I had the pick up spot marked on the GPS and getting to it from the right of way was easy. We got through the old wire fence and I got Karl hooked up and was preparing to start tracking.

 Karl can be a little difficult to start and today was no different. I hadn't been seeing much blood towards the end of the track last night so I started him further back on the track. He tracked off to the side of the flag and I didn't think he had it. I let him go awhile to let him settle down some, and then I restarted him. He was working too fast and having a hard time. I started to direct his searching in circles over the line, and he slowed down. At one point his actions changed. He tracked to and past the flag and then he had it. He tracked to an overgrown woods road and down towards the access road we had just walked in on. The fence was gone here and Karl went right across the access road and into this swampy brush between the right-of-way and the river.

We tracked to the river then down the bank. Karl circled back through the brush towards the access road and back across it into the private land. As we were going across the ditch  I saw a single drop of blood on a leaf. I called up Carmelo and asked him to look around for more. The fence here was not completely down and Karl was having trouble with it. I lifted him over it and he didn’t seem to have the line.

 Karl then went back to the old woods road and took me back across the access road towards the river. He took a slightly different line this time and ended up at the river bank. The river here was about knee deep in one of the more shallow spots. Karl whined a little and then jumped in. The current started taking him down stream, and I kept feeding out his tracking line. I was hoping he would get to the other side before I ran out of line. He did with about a yard to spare, but he was at a spot with a steep high-bank that he couldn’t climb.

Carmelo and his sister Megan were right behind me. All of a sudden Megan yelled out, “There he is!” and pointed to a log pile on the far bank. We could just make out his white belly and an antler sticking up. We jumped in the river and started wading across to the deer. Karl started up the shallows on the far side and met us at the deer. We had one heck of a celebration. I'll never forget the expression on Carmelo's face when he grabbed that deer. He's 13 and this was by far the biggest deer he's ever taken. We got the deer back across the river and back to the truck and Karl received a hero’s welcome.

I learned a lot about my dog this weekend, and I think we turned a corner with our tracking. I'm not sure what the blood on the leaf was from but Karl figured out that it wasn't from the buck. He went back to the woods road and restarted on his own, figured out the right track and found the deer. This is what I've been waiting for and for the second and final time in two days Karl got to bite that deer’s butt.”    

Darren