By Bob Yax
Just got back
from a cold rainy day (Wednesday) of tracking.
This afternoon I had to shoot a 12pt non-typical 18 hours after the hit,
and that wasn’t the most interesting track of the day!
The track we started this morning at 9:00 has
a long backstory. The Hunter, Charlie,
had hit a big buck this past Saturday morning (11/5) at 9:30. He thought his arrow had entered low in the
ribs, about 6 inches back of the front leg on the right side. The white hair at the hit site indicated that
the exit was near the bottom of the deer. Being pretty new to bowhunting, he
waited about 1.5 hours to begin tracking.
He and his hunting friend tracked the deer about 300 yards, when they
jumped it. They then backed out for
about an hour and continued tracking a dwindling blood trail. After several hundred more yards, they jumped
it again. Finally, after about 3 hours
of tracking, they jumped it a 3rd time and then tracked it a few
hundred more yards to the last blood sign at the edge of a golf course, on a
cart path. At this point they’d tracked
about ¾ of a mile. After the cart path,
the buck headed across a fairway and then along the woods on the other
side. Charlie was able to track the buck’s
hoof prints in the soft dirt. About 100 yards
past the cart path, they lost all signs of the buck. From that point on, Charlie and his hunting
friend grid searched the woods on that side of the fairway for another hour to
no avail.
Two days
later, on Monday 11/7 at 8:30 am, Charlie called into Deer Search asking for
help. The rut in our area, as well as cross
bow hunting began this weekend. As a
result, we had 30 to 40 calls waiting in our system. We don’t have the manpower to handle all
those calls, so on Monday evening I began deleting calls older than 36 hours
and then calling those hunters back to say sorry and to discuss their
hits. Charlie hunts in an area far from
most of our trackers and it was now 59 hours after the hit, so I deleted his
call and then called him. After hearing
the story of his hit and track (jumping the buck 3x) it certainly sounded like
a liver hit. It went a long way between
beds, but it was being pushed. I knew
the deer was dead, and Charlie made it clear how much he wanted to recover it,
his best buck to date. I thought that a
body search, to smell the dead deer might have a chance of working – but they
usually don’t! I told Charlie, that I
might be in his area on Tuesday and that I might want to give it a try. Well, Tuesday didn’t work out, but I did
catch a call for Wednesday that would be nearby. Charlie and I traded a bunch of text messages
Tuesday night, and he even emailed me a Google Maps photo of the area with his
deer track marked on it. At that point I didn’t realize that the track
so far, was ¾ mile long. The photo
showed that the area was very large with diverse vegetation. I agreed to meet up with him on Wednesday
morning at 9 am – 4 days after the hit.
From Saturday thru Tuesday it had been sunny, warm (65deg) and breezy,
but Tuesday evening and Wednesday AM the forecast was for rain. Sure enough it started raining about 9 pm
Tuesday evening. At that time, the
thought hit me that with this moisture, Thor might actually be able to follow
the 4 day old track!
Wednesday
morning, as I made the 60-mile drive to Hume, Allegany County, the rain was
pretty heavy, but luckily just about stopped as I met up with Charlie. After doing our paper work, Charlie showed me
his arrow & Rage 2 blade broad head.
The arrow and fletching showed not much blood, and the first 10 inches
had a coating of white fat / suet on it.
Likely from passing thru the fat on the bottom of the chest. I decided
we should start the track at the hit site in the hope that Thor could actually
pick up and carry the track beyond where the hunters had lost it. I started Thor where we thought the hit
occurred and headed off in the direction the buck went. I never saw any blood, but Charlie convinced
me that Thor seemed to be going the right way.
After a short time, I was convinced that Thor did have the track.
To make a long story shorter, for about the
next hour, we followed Thor down what seemed to be the right track through the
mixed hardwoods. On 3 or 4 occasions
along the way, Thor got into a circling pattern 30 or 40 yards in diameter,
obviously trying to figure out which direction the buck went after it stopped and
circled. Once we got to within about 200
yards of the golf course, Thor got stuck in a circling pattern for about 15
minutes. He was working hard, but couldn’t get out of it. It could have been
the Hunters bloody boots that complicated that area. The 3rd bed was ahead in the thick
brush between us and the golf course. We
were now about an hour into the track and still hadn’t gotten to where the hunters
had lost the track. At that point, I
asked Charlie to take us to the last sign of blood at the edge of the golf
course, 200 yards ahead. Soon we were at
the cart path where the buck came out of the woods. Still in the path, was a
dime sized blood clot. The 1st
blood I’d seen so far. Thor caught the
scent again and headed off hard across the fairway towards another
woodlot. A short time later, Charlie confirmed that
Thor was on the path of hoof prints in the fairway that they had followed 4
days earlier. 75 yards further along the
edge of the fairway and we were now at the point where Charlie lost the trail
for good. At that point, Charlie and his
friend went on to search the woods on that side of the fairway, and the woods
beyond. Now I was hoping / praying that
Thor would take us in a totally new direction.
Soon after, he was in the middle of the fairway, heading back across
towards the cart path and woods beyond. Yes!
Charlie, had never searched in this area.
It was totally clean and Thor was heading hard into it. That buck should
be lying, dead ahead within a few hundred yards. So, I hoped!
Well, we continued into the new section of woods for another 200 yards
with Thor seemingly, still on the trail – I sure thought so. Then, just as I was beginning to doubt him
(I shouldn’t do that!) I spotted what I thought was a blood spot on a wet
leaf. I stopped and dabbed it with a
white paper towel – BLOOD! The last
blood sign I’d see on this entire track.
A short time later, Thor was in his 4th or 5th
area of circling. I stood by for 5 minutes
trying to be patient – it’s hard!
Finally, he was off on another 200 yard line thru the woods. I expected to see the dead Buck ahead of us
at any moment. We’d been in this woods
for at least 400 yards, the buck should have bedded by now. After another 100 yards we were at the
corner of the woods and a clover field.
Here, Thor spent at least 10 minutes circling a 30-yard diameter area in
the woods. This is torture! Multiple times, he would seem to head off
on a line out of the area, only to come circling back! In our early tracking days, I couldn’t take
it, and would pull him off in a direction I wanted to go. Now, I’ve learned that he almost always
figures it out, if I give him the time he needs. Finally, Thor headed into the
clover field and then took a good straight line, for about 100 yards, across it
to the woods beyond. He quickly got
thru the woods and then we headed into a large thick brushy basin. We were now more than a half mile beyond the
last bed, with no sign of the deer. I
began to have my doubts, but Thor was still determined as we headed down the
narrow deer trails in the dense brush.
After a 200-yard arch thru the brush, Thor’s nose was suddenly up,
scenting hard. 10 yards later I caught a
whiff and a few yards later I saw half a rack poking out of the weeds ahead –
we had him!!! The buck was a big 6Pt,
and the shot was just about where Charlie thought. The broad head looked to hit the bottom of
the liver. Unfortunately, after 4 days,
only the rack was salvageable. But that,
and the track it took to find him, will provide memories of this Buck well into
the future… Photo below shows Charlie
and his Buck. Map shows total track
route. Red portion is where Charlie
tracked the Buck, Thor tracked the
entire route. I learn more and am amazed
more every day!
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