A big thank you to Brady Hesington, a United Blood Trackers member from Missouri, for sharing his recent tracking experience.
I'd like to share one of our more memorable tracks of the
year. I received a call on a Monday afternoon from a gentleman who lives
about an hour from me. He related that his son had shot a nice buck the
previous evening, and they needed help locating it. Unfortunately, I was
working and wouldn't be available until the following morning. After
taking a phone survey of the shot, I felt that we had a reasonable chance at
recovery. I was also impressed that the father shared his desire to
instill in his children the importance of making every effort of recovering
animals that they shot as a way of honoring God, their Creator. The
details were as follows...
The father and son were hunting together on a ridge,
with the father sitting not far behind his son, Luke. A buck came up
along the opposite ridgeline, along the edge of a field, and Luke took the
shot. The buck ran into the field and the hunters could hear him taking
loud, sucking breaths. Luke asked his dad if he should take another shot,
but his father, Jayson, an experienced hunter, told Luke that the shot was
through the lungs and that no further shot was necessary. The buck then
dropped his head and laid down. After several minutes the two stood up to
go look at the deer, and much to their surprise it rose and took off into the
woods. Expecting the deer to be down, they followed the blood trail for
about 100 yards and heard more crashing, which prompted them to back out.
The following morning, they scoured the woods along with two additional
searchers. They progressed the trail by about 200 yards, but did not find
the deer. Later that day a large rainstorm blew through washing away all
the blood. That's when I got the call. The track had led them
within 75 yards of a small river, and they had not searched on the opposite
side, as they had not received permission. My hope was that the deer was
not far on the other side, and that we would be able to find it quickly if they
received permission. I told Jayson to do his best to gain permission, and
an hour later he called back to tell me that he had it. Later that night he
called me back to tell me that his daughter, Sydney, had also shot a deer and
after tracking for about 100 yards they decided to back out since I would be
arriving in the morning...good idea! He was unsure of where young Sydney
had struck the deer, but informed me that there seemed to be a lot of blood.
The next morning I arrived at the sight with both my
wachtelhund, Caliber, and my BMH, Chloe. Most of my time tracking this
year has been spent with Chloe, as I am trying to develop her skills.
Caliber, sadly, has not gotten a lot of tracking time in the woods, and I
was anxious to get him on the 15 hour old track and save Chloe for the 40+ hour
old track. Caliber has shown great ability on tracks of all ages, but is
not as motivated on really old tracks with no or minimal sign. Chloe on
the other hand, will dig for scent to track no matter the age of the track.
The problem is she is less discriminating on what scent she takes at
times, which is why I have spent so much time working with her this season.
We decided to start with the "easy" track. I started
Caliber at the hit sight, and true to the report, there was plenty of blood.
Caliber took off without a hitch. We covered the first 100 yards
easily, then progressed the trail another couple of hundred yards past the
point of loss. There was intermittent blood along the way to reassure us.
At that point, Caliber began acting like he was on a hot scent and really
began to track fast. I slowed him down and restarted him a couple of
times to get him to focus. He took the trail to about 600 yards into a
field, then made an abrupt turn along the field edge. After another 100
yards I hadn't seen any sign, so I set him down and searched the field edge for
a bit. Unable to find any confirmation, I allowed him to work the field
edge into a thick, brushy area. He was searching through the area when I
heard a LOUD crash up ahead of us. My brain immediately screamed "leg
shot deer" because of all the racket. Then I saw him jump up out of a
deadfall and run into a field. It was obvious that he was wounded when he
ran, and I felt certain that it was a leg shot, but could not see his wound.
Caliber and I took off in pursuit, and after a short chase, I allowed
Caliber to bay and hold the deer so that I could put it down. Caliber was
able to pull it down, but suffered a cut along one leg in the process. He
held it while I quickly dispatched it. A quick inspection showed that the
deer was hit just inside the hind leg, dislocating the joint and entering the
groin area. The deer, no doubt, would have had a lingering death had we
not recovered it. This was Sydney's first deer, and she was very excited
by the whole experience...as were we all! When Jayson approached, he
initially thought that this was a different deer than what Sydney had shot
because one of the deer's antlers had broken off somewhere along the way.
When everyone was gathered, Jayson and Sydney said a prayer of thanks for
the deer and for the recovery. It was special to be a part of this
family's traditions.
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| Sydney and Caliber with her first buck |
After loading the deer, we loaded up and headed to the sight
where Luke had shot his deer. I started Chloe on the track and she followed
it "perfectly" along the trail where they had previously tracked the
deer. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no sign remaining after the
previous day's deluge, and the hunters had not flagged the trail. Still,
there were plenty of landmarks, and by accounts Chloe was doing a good job of
staying on trail. We proceeded up to the area where the hunters had lost
the blood previously. At this point, there was some confusion about where
the deer had made a hard left had turn. Chloe wanted to track straight
where they thought the deer had turned, so I redirected her into that area.
She tracked around in the area, but didn't make me very confident that
she was on the deer. I then let her track in the area where she wanted to
go and we ambled along the woods for a ways, and ended up at the end of the
small peninsula of land along the river...no deer. After several restarts
we weren't making any progress. As Jayson had obtained permission to
cross the river, he and the rest of his crew went back to the house to pick up
a canoe to help us cross.
I decided to put Chloe in the kennel box and
give Caliber a shot at the trail while I waited for them to return. It
took little time for Caliber to pick up the trail and begin tracking aggressively.
He was very motivated after getting to catch the other deer.
Caliber would prefer to bay deer and wild hogs than just about anything
in life, so he was highly motivated on the track. I wondered if he was
"cheating" and following our footprints rather than tracking the 2
day old blood scent, but that was soon put to rest. The deer had run
through a large downed tree which had a 4 foot section cut away. It was
an obvious landmark where they had actually found blood on their second
tracking attempt. Chloe, had missed that section and tracked a line 20
yards around it before coming back onto the correct trail. Caliber,
however, nailed the track without missing a beat. He was definitely not
tracking us as we had not walked that route! Like Chloe, Caliber, also didn't
take the hard turn where the hunters had thought the deer may have detoured,
but rather took me about 50 yards further before making a sharp left into an
area that looked similar. He then led me straight down to the river.
As he searched our edge of the river bank, I began looking at the far
edge for an area where a deer may have exited the creek. The river wall
was nearly vertical on the opposite side, so there was no way that a deer was
going to climb out at that point. That's when I noticed the brown lump
laying on the gravel bank. I was so excited, that I took off my shoes,
rolled up my pants, and waded across the river in 35 degree weather!
Caliber followed along as well. When I got to the deer, I couldn't
see a wound, but upon further examination there was a bullet hole low in the
chest just in front of the near leg...a low lung shot. This would explain
the "sucking" sound that Jayson had described to me, and the low
forward shot would explain why the deer had not expired more quickly.
There
was just one problem. Jayson had told me that his son had shot a
"big buck," "at least an 8 point, but possibly a 10 or 12, and I was standing over a 3 point. The deer was untouched by any
predator or birds (prior to Caliber pulling out all its hair), but looked to
have been dead about the right amount of time. I called Jayson to
confirm, and he assured me that it could not be the right deer. When he
arrived on the river by canoe, he again assured me that this could not be the
right deer. Oddly, if this deer had been shot on the opposite side of the
river it would have had to jump to its death off a 10 foot sheer bank with a
maze of exposed tree roots below. Not impossible, but questionable.
We did walk down the bank to a point where we were able to climb up and
searched the area for a bit, but did not recover another deer. It's
difficult to believe that a seasoned hunter like Jayson would have thought that
a 3 point was a 8, 10, or 12 in the heat of the moment, but equally difficult
to believe that Caliber would lead me straight down a track that would end up
at someone else's wounded deer. Either way, it made for a great day of
tracking!
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| Caliber and the 3 point...his buck |
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