On Sunday I (Jolanta) had a chance to see Daren and Theo when they dropped by at field trial grounds for a short visit. |
On Saturday I got a call from a hunter who had hit a mature
buck and needed help. His shot was slightly quartering to and he believed he
hit one lung and hopefully the liver on the way out. While tracking, his deer
entered another property and when he called for permission to track there he found
out that the owners of that property were looking for a deer as well. That buck
had been quartering away, and when the hunter shot, the deer took a step and the
arrow hit it in the ham and entered forward never exiting. Both of these deer
were shot Saturday morning.
Here’s where it starts to get interesting. The hunters
believed that the blood trail of the two deer crossed. Hunter 1’s POL (Point of Loss) was about
50 yards from the blood trail of hunter 2. Hunter 2 had advanced their trail
about 500 yards from that point to the beginning of a wide green briar choked
hedge row between 2 large rye fields.
The call was about an hour and a half away, and I figured
both calls had a good chance of recovery if what the hunter had told me was
correct. It also gave me a chance to work Theo in a situation that I had never
experienced before. If the blood trails did cross, how would he handle it?
Could Theo figure it out and find the deer?
I got there about 2:30 and both groups of hunters were
together. I started Theo at hunter 1’s hit site, which was on the edge of a
green field. The deer had crossed the field and entered the woods about 80 yards away and this is where the hunter found his first blood. I let Theo smell the
arrow and told him to “search” and “find the blood”. Theo worked a circle around
the hit site that took a line towards the woods. Theo showed me blood and took
the line through the woods across a road and into hunter 2’s property. He
tracked to the POL and from there on it was all Theo. Hunter 2 said that he was
tracking towards his line and at one point hunter 2 said Theo was on his blood
line. At this point I couldn’t confirm the fact that the two deer didn’t take
the same trail. We had not seen any more blood after hunter 1’s POL so I allowed Theo
to continue. After a while it was apparent that Theo had left deer 1 and was
now tracking deer 2. We came to the green briar hedge row at hunter 2’s POL and
here it got hard for Theo. These guys and stomped all over looking for this
deer, and I’m sure there was scent tracked all over in this area.
These hunters had no experience with a tracking dog and at
the POL they continued to “help” by looking for more blood. I had asked them to
stay with me or behind me, but pretty soon I was by myself. The logical place
this deer went was into the briars in the hedge row. I worked Theo in this area and at one point
he tracked into the rye field on one side. I could see foot prints in the rye
and it looked like Theo was tracking the hunters. I restarted him at the POL
and he went into the briars. He was tracking but I couldn’t find any blood. I
saw a deer cross the rye field about 300 yards away; I couldn’t see a rack and I
didn’t really know where the deer came from. I assumed we had put out a doe
while searching the hedge row.
I re-started Theo a couple of times and he
always took the same line through the briars and at one point he went hot and
wanted to track into the rye field the way I had seen the deer go. I didn’t
believe him and I pulled him off. I just didn’t think a hurt deer would cross a
500 yard open field. I had hunter 1 back with me by now. I restarted Theo again and he tracked the same
way and this time I saw some blood, then a bed and then a drop of blood at the
edge of the rye field. I told hunter 1 about the deer I had seen and that we
were going to follow the dog. Theo tracked across the rye field to a little
wooded island and showed me a drop of blood. We went through the island, across
another field and into the woods. Theo was showing me blood every so often and
we had tracked to the edge of a small weedy standing corn field. All of a
sudden Theo went hot. We were tracking along the corn and then turned into a
swampy area of reeds and brush. I could see smears of blood on the reeds and
visibility was limited. The next thing I know Theo is coming back at me and I
see the buck get up. I sent hunter 1 around the brush to hopefully cut the deer
off if he came out. Theo’s barking now, I’m holding him back and we’re right on
the deer. Theo held up and then I saw the buck down in the high weeds. I called
hunter 1 up and he finished the deer. We got on the phone and called hunter 2
and let him know where we were and that we had his deer.
We had deer 2 but needed to try to get deer 1. I told hunter
1 we were going back to our original start to restart Theo and see what we
could do. The property owner was coming with us and after what they just
witnessed there was no more second guessing me or the dog.
I started Theo and he took us right to hunter 1’s POL. I was
watching the GPS to see what was going to happen. Theo was tracking the exact
same line and went right over our first line and started tracking a different
way. After messing up and pulling him off at the rye field, I was going
wherever he took me. After a while I saw a drop of blood. I checked the GPS and
we were on a new line. Theo had deer 1. We tracked to a large bed and Theo went
hot. I didn’t see any blood but I knew Theo was right and went with him. After
some time I started to mark blood. Theo was tracking hard at the end of the
leash and we went right over deer 2’s line about 50 yards from the POL and into
the second large rye field. Theo tracked across the field, across a road and
into another woods. I was marking blood and I knew he was right. We went
through the woods and tracked to a lake. Theo went into the water and was
standing on a log looking across. I knew the deer went across. One thing I’ve
learned about tracking mature bucks is once they know you’re after them they
become very difficult to recover. They will use every bit of energy and smarts
to put something between them and you that they think will stop you, roads,
rivers, houses, horse corrals, lakes anything to stop you.
Theo went into the water and was standing on a log looking across. |
I marked the spot on
the GPS and the hunters said we could go to the road and cross the lake at a
bridge. We had enough daylight to try and it was about ¾ of a mile to get to
the other side so off we went. When I got to about where I thought the deer
crossed I started a controlled search with Theo and told him to “search and
find the blood”. He knew what we were doing and immediately started searching
the lake bank. Pretty soon he took a line away from the lake. I didn’t see any
blood but at this point I wasn’t second guessing him. In about 100 yards he
tracked to a large bed exactly like the one we found earlier and went hot. I
told the hunter that we would go for a while and hopefully mark blood. We were
losing daylight and I hadn’t seen any more blood and I told the hunter that
we were done. I knew Theo was right, but this deer wasn’t dead and we weren’t
going to catch it. They agreed and we headed back. We put on some miles today
and I had some great dog work. Thankfully Theo over looked my handling mistakes
at the rye field and we got the one deer. These hunters had never seen a
tracking dog work before and both agreed that they would never found the deer
we got or advanced the second one the way we did without a dog.
Darren Doran with Theo and Hunter 2's buck. |
2 comments:
Way to go Darren. Great accomplishment for a Jersey boy...and his dog!
Good experiance
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