A twelve-year-old hunter Madison gets her liver-shot deer thanks to Dan and Keena

Two years ago Tommy and I found a deer for a young local hunter Dan Hardin. Last year Dan got his tracking license, and started to track with our Keena. Ultimately Keena will go to live with Dan (she is totally in love with him), but in the meantime he comes here to pick her up when there is a deer call that he can take.

This is Dan's report from the call he took several days ago.

By Dan Hardin

I got the call for my second track of the year just before 7 PM as I was on my way out of the woods. This was the first deer for a young hunter Madison (12 years old) who made the 15 yard shot with her compound bow. Her father Jim was in the stand with her and saw the arrow hit the middle of the deer but a little far back, while still being within the rib cage. The arrow, which wasn’t found, was sticking out as the doe took off, but the blood showed an exit wound. There was an easy blood trail visually and Keena took off intently. Heavy fog and a light drizzle previously made scenting conditions good but the stillness of the air seemed to spread the scent over a wider area.

The trail took us through a sparse forest with mixed trees and heavy thorn bush undergrowth. We made the 300 yard track to Madison’s last blood and practice arrow. Keena tried several directions but didn’t seem sure so we went back to last blood where Madison spotted blood on the opposite side of a tree. It showed that the deer had looped around the tree and backtracked. We continued crawling under thorn bushes finding steady dime to pea sized drops when the blood really picked up. Keena in her excitement had cut her ear on a thorn that opened a blood vessel, which bled quite a bit.
 

After the bleeding stopped we were waiting for Jim to return with some tape and paper towel.  Keena would shake her head and reopen the scratch, which was stopped each time by applying moss and light pressure.

 

Madison had gone ahead on the blood trail to confirm that we were still on the right path and advanced the trail an additional 40 feet on her own. Jim returned with the medical supplies and we wrapped Keena’s ear which was a task since she was pulling hard to run down the line again. It was only another 10-20 yards when I saw the doe down by a fallen tree maybe a little over 100 yards from where Madison and Jim had lost the blood trail.

Jim gutted the deer right away, kindly donating the liver and some blood for training purposes, and didn’t think that the meat would be lost. The paunch was intact and the liver starred by the Muzzy 100. Congratulations Madison on your first deer and Keena on her fist find of the season!

 As a side note this was my first track using my 1000lumen Cree headlamp for tracking. It lasted the three hours advertised on full power, which made the blood stand right out. I had attached the battery pack to the headpiece and it was comfortable to wear. One issue that is to be expected with a light of this power is the heat generated, which could cause a burn if you are not careful. (There is no risk of this on low power from my experience.) The other issue is that there isn’t a noticeable dimming of the light before the battery runs out. It just stops working and that is it. They don’t sell replacement batteries, but I was able to find an equivalent online and install the needed socket.