By Bob Yax
I learned a big lesson on these last two recoveries. The 1st
on Nov 2nd (my birthday and the 4th year in a row
that we’ve recovered one on that day!) was a suspected liver hit pass
thru. The hunter waited two hours and then jumped the deer out of its 1st
bed after about 200 yards of good blood. He went a little further thru the
woods until he came out to crop fields that extended about as far as the eye
could see. At that point, he turned around and called Deer Search.
We came in the next morning, 18 hrs after the hit.
It had
rained hard overnight, so there was very little visible blood sign up to
the 1st bed and none visible after the bed. Thor covered the first
200 yards, thru the hardwood to the first bed, with no problem.
When we came out of the woods and I saw the huge crop fields
ahead, I was concerned. Besides the standing corn field to the right, the
only heavy cover was about a half mile in front of us – big woods off to the
left and a thick brushy gully a half mile ahead on the right. In between all of
these were large clover fields (about 10 inches high) and large
standing soybean fields (about two feet high).
Thor continued strong out of
the woods and into the clover field. He jogged the full 600 yard length of
the clover field, with only a short circle into the nearby soybean field.
At the end of the clover field was a paved road which he quickly crossed.
On the other side of the road was another standing soybean field with the thick
brushy gully off to our right. As this was the only nearby thick stuff,
I was hopeful that Thor would take us in that direction where we would find our
buck dead in its 2nd bed. After entering this 2nd
soybean field, Thor proceeded about another 150 yards down the middle of it
before finally heading down towards the brushy gully. Here we go I
thought! but instead of going into the thick brush, Thor took a farm road
into and out of the gully. On the other side he continued down the farm
road another 100 yards as it passed between brush on one side and a standing corn field on the other.
He, and hopefully the deer, seemed to be taking the easiest path
possible, but he still seemed very determined on the trail. Once we
got past the end of the cornfield, another huge standing soybean field lay
ahead of us for another 400 yards! A wood lot was at the far end of
it.
Thor again headed into the soybeans and at one point took an exactly
straight path down the same row of soybeans for about 150 yards. During
this part I really had my doubts. Since we were now about a mile from the
last bed, I’m sure the hunter behind me also had his doubts. We
continued down the soybean field towards the woods for about another 150 yards when Thor turned and headed uphill toward the standing corn lot. While
crossing the rows of soy beans I looked towards the woods and saw an unusual
bump between the rows about 50 yards ahead. I stopped and pointed it out to
the hunter. “What’s that” I said, a few seconds later we figured out it
was his nice 9 pt. Thor continued up to the edge of the corn
lot and then back down to the buck. From the torn up dirt and downed
soybeans, it was obvious that’s exactly the way the buck had gone. (See
Gorham photo attached – you can see the woods that I think the buck was trying
to get to at the far end). Upon examination, we found that the 2 blade
Rage had clearly passed thru the liver. Thor was dead on this buck the entire way, no matter how unusual the buck's path had seemed. I
thought, “I really should trust Thor more than I do”.
 |
| A complicated track that ended in a recovery of this liver-shot buck |
Well,
this new found trust came to burn me the very next morning! We took a
call in Scottsville for what sounded like a pure intestine hit. After
hitting the buck and watching it slowly walk out of sight, the
traditional archery hunter had quietly backed out without following the buck at
all. We started on the trail, Monday morning,
25 hrs after the hit. After the hit, the buck had walked down
a mowed 4 wheeler trail for about 50 yards until the hunter lost sight of it.
We started at the hit site and found no arrow and no blood. As Thor
tracked down the 4 wheeler trail, I searched for any sign of blood, but
didn’t find any.
At the curve in the trail where the hunter had lost sight of
the deer, Thor veered left down a trail into thick brush. For the
next half hour, as Thor eagerly tracked through thick brush and a standing corn
field, I kept saying to myself “trust the dog”. After the previous day,
it was obvious that he knows what he’s doing, but after he started yipping
(which he only does when he’s close behind a live moving deer) I decide to pull
him off the trail and head back to the hit site. On the way back, he put
his nose high in the air and headed off into another area of thick brush; 20 minutes later when he started yipping, I again pulled him off and headed back
to the hit site.
Back at the hit site, we again started down the
initial 50 yards of the 4 wheeler trail. This time when we got to the curve
in the trail, I made sure he took his time checking all the directions the deer
might have gone. I was happy when he chose to go in a new direction into
the thick brush. After only about 30 yards in the brush, he showed me
a bed. I thought I saw a little blood on a leaf, and was thrilled when I
dabbed the leaf with a wet paper towel and came up with blood. A few
yards later we found another bed and after another quick 50 yards we
found the dead buck – about 125 yards from the hunters tree stand.
How could it be that Thor was so wrong
on this one ? Then it hit me. This was the 3rd
pure intestine hit that Thor has recovered in the past few years. On the
other two, the hunters also immediately backed out, there was no blood trail,
and Thor did exactly the same thing. He initially went way off on
the wrong trails before I brought him back to the deer’s last known
location. There, after a short area search we found the deer within
200 yards of the hit site.
My
revelation was – without any blood trail to get started on, Thor didn’t know
which deer scent to follow. Not sure why it took me so long to figure
this out. I discussed this with Gary Neal and he confirmed the same thing. He said that his past three dogs have needed at least 40 or 50 yards of a
known blood trail before they get hooked on the correct /wounded deer.
In the future, with pure intestine hits and no blood,
I’ll assume that Thor won’t lock onto the deer and we will instead
focus on doing an air scenting area search around the deer’s last known
location.
 |
| This buck left no blood and it proved to be a challenge for Thor |
nice read
ReplyDelete