Kevin Armstrong's Karma recovers a wounded bear

Exciting news from Kevin Armstrong from Naples, NY:
This Steuben bear was paunch shot late in the day on Thursday. It snowed several inches overnight completely covering the sparse blood trail. The bear went into a dense pine thicket where it took several beds. Apparently it died as we approached on Friday morning. It was still warm with no rigor mortis. This was Karma's first bear recovery.

Another deer recovered by Karma. Some thoughts on recovery rates.

My apologies to the readers for a long silence but I was away from home for a week and found it impossible (too busy) to post while on the road. Ten days ago this report from Kevin Armstrong from Deer Search came:

Fresh snow on the trail made problems for the hunter who shot this nice Bristol, NY 11 pointer. No problem for Karma. She found the deer in less than 1/2 hour. No. 4 for the season.

I knew that Kevin has taken 29 calls at the time and asked him what in his opinion was the reason for the fact that he recovered only four deer. Thank you Kevin for your insights:

Jola, Karma did outstanding work. In my opinion this years low recovery rate is due to poor call quality. In addition, in three cases the deer was taken by someone else before we got to it. In one case, which is under investigation by en con police, the antlers will probably be the 4th biggest buck ever taken in NYS. In another case my hunter tracked down the guys who took the deer and got a photo. That was an 8 pointer who would have probably scored around 160. In a third case we were under observation by a stranger in a car on a nearby road throughout the track. No doubt the deer was removed with a motor vehicle and stashed somewhere nearby. Some people will do awful things to own a really big buck. Unfortunate. In most of the other trails we ultimately jumped the deer and in most cases chased it for significant distances before abandoning the trail. If we include the three deer that were taken before we got there I think we had a 100% success rate at recovering all the mortally wounded deer we went after. I believe that if the deer is out there, dead, Karma and I will find it. That said it is hard to hold such a positive attitude after 9 or 10 trails without a recovery. I suppose we all have to expect some good years, some bad years, and some average years. I just hate to have below average years while my little dog is in her prime.

The season isn't over yet. Anything could happen. My goal is always 25% with a stretched goal of 33%. If I recover the next couple deer I go after I suppose I'm doing OK. We had a master tracker with an outstanding dog in FLC DSI last year who only recovered 1 in 28 or some such figure. No fault of his, just the way it rolls.

Deer Search trackers recover two deer

Last few days I was away at field trials in New Jersey, and now, again, will have to catch up with the blood tracking reports coming from busy trackers. It is great to see so many dogs being used to help hunters find their wounded game.


It was good to hear from Kevin Armstrong from Deer Search. Kevin and his friend Ron Betts track with two wirehaired dachshunds, sisters Karma (born in 2005) and Effie (born in 2008), who are out of Billy/Gilda breeding. In Kevin words:

I was out of town for the first week of archery season so I never got out tracking till last Sunday. Ron Betts called me to ask if I wanted to join him on the 18 hour old track of a paunch shot doe. 100 yards into the trail
Karma wanted to go one way but Effie wanted to go the other way. We let them have their nose. About the time I pulled Karma out to restart my cell phone was vibrating. Effie had found the deer. Unfortunately the coyotes had found it first. That did not matter to the girls they celebrated a recovery anyway.

Ron Betts with Effie (left) and Kevin Armstrong with Karma. The doe that Effie recovered had been already found by coyotes.

Kevin with Karma

Another call involved Karma and Radar (a beagle). We put them on this buck 23 hours after the hit. The
hunter only had about 75 yards of sparse blood marked. The dry conditions made tracking very difficult for the dogs but we eventually got Karma on the right trail. After several hundred yards of very thick cover we found two beds. One of the beds had dry blood in it. Karma went from cold trailing to hot trailing. With daylight fast fading the chase was on. We went through several hundred more yards of thick cover. As we approached the tangled banks of Arrowhead Creek I had a feeling that the deer was trying to give us the slip. As I gained the bank I spotted the buck, alive, 20 yards ahead of me lying in the creek with his head up. I hollered to the hunter to "GET UP HERE, QUICK!" He held the dog while I shot the buck with my .44 mag. The buck leapt from the creek and went up the opposite bank. I knew I had put a good hit in him with the pistol so I had the hunter hold the dog while I crossed the creek, went up the opposite bank, found the buck and finished him off. It doesn't get much more exciting than that!

My favorite article on passion for tracking dogs

The article written by Kevin Armstrong is one my favorite ones. Originally it was published in 2006 in New York Bowhunters Full Draw, and later reposted on Deer Search's website. Regular readers of this blog are familiar with Kevin, a former President of New York Bowhunters, and his tracking dog Karma, who soon will celebrate her 5th birthday.

Karma, a sister to our Keena, was born on April 7, 2005. I remember the date very well as John's birthday is on April 7 too.The sire of this litter was our Billy, who back then was a very young dog himself. The dam was Gilda. This combination proved to be very successful, and we repeated this breeding later two more times. The two pictures show Kevin and his wife Kathy when they came to our place to pick up their puppy.

 ------

Passages of a Well Seasoned Hunter and a Little Rooky Dog

by Kevin Armstrong,  for Full Draw 2006

There have been two constants in my life. Number one is a nearly obsessive interest in deer and deer hunting; the other is an abiding love for dogs, especially hunting dogs. Unfortunately, for the first fifty three years of my life these pastimes had to remain distinctly separate. In my world it was taboo to think of dogs and deer hunting together.

A connoisseur of hunting literature I had thrilled to the nineteenth century accounts of hounding deer in the Adirondack Mountains. I’ve spent countless fireside hours captivated by the deer hounding yarns of “Old Flintlock” (Archibald Rutledge) and his Christmas morning horseback deer drives. Where aided by a pack of fine deer hounds he and his cronies chased great stags through dense southern swamps, harvesting the noble bucks with heavy loads of buckshot fired through fine double barreled shotguns. I savored the works of Robert Ruark and William Faulkner, picturing in my mind the colorful characters, lanky tri-colored hounds and great bucks that inhabit their tales.

In the late 20th century New York sportsmen had the notion that deer and dogs mixed like oil and water, but despite this I long harbored a secret desire to blend my two loves. Alas, my deer/dog fantasies were doomed to remain in the closet. In most deer hunting circles I dared not even express my heretical interest.

Over the decades I assuaged my interest in dogs by hunting small game and upland birds. For rabbits and hares, I used my trusty, stubborn, little beagles. For upland birds I began with English Springer Spaniels eventually coming to favor pointing dogs, especially Brittany Spaniels.

I pursued big game, especially deer, with an assortment of firearms but early on developed a preference for the bow and arrow. After 15 years of deer hunting with compound bows equipped with all the bells and whistles I ended up where I began; using a bare recurve bow and heavy arrows. Life was good. I was nearly content. As the years went by I surrounded myself with serious bowhunters. I spent my autumns in deer camps and springs in bear camps where I gained a good deal of experience and a degree of expertise as a tracker.

Sometime in the early 1980’s I attended a New York State Conservation Council Big Game Committee meeting where Don Hickman and Roger Humeston gave a presentation on a revolutionary new concept: Deer Search. A perfect gentleman, Don laid out a very professional presentation. After the meeting Roger and I talked about recovering arrow wounded deer. I asked him a loaded question; what did he consider “the best” broadhead? Without hesitation he gave me an unambiguous answer. His answer and his reasoning delighted me. These guys were the real McCoy. They were savvy deer hunters and they were doing it! They had found an honorable, ethical way to combine dogs and deer hunting. The seed was planted.

Years passed, and as they passed I met other sportsmen and women who were finding great fulfillment in tracking wounded deer with their funny looking little dogs. I pestered Walt Dixon, John Engelken and others for stories of their tracking seasons. The devotion these folks showed for tracking impressed me. Unwilling to forgo my own bowhunting time I hesitated to get involved for nearly two decades. Then in 2004 John Jeanneney donated a copy of his new book Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer to New York Bowhunters, Inc. (NYB) to be used as a fund raiser. I was the lucky high bidder for the book. Before I was half way through I was sending John and Jolanta email. I found myself spending time on the Deer Search Inc. (DSI) web site and the Born-to-Track web site. I filled out an application and got myself on the waiting list for a puppy.

The Jeanneneys and I agreed that a female pup would keep peace in my pack of male housedog/hunting dogs. She was from the Jeanneney’s “2005 K litter”. My wife (Kathy) and I spent weeks before we brought the puppy home discussing various names, knowing all the time that puppies have a way of naming themselves. A couple of days before we were to pick up the pup Jolanta told us we needed a name beginning with K so she could fill out the pedigree papers. I asked Kathy for a name beginning with a K. Without hesitation she said “Karma”, Jolanta replied “that’s a wonderful name” and so it was.

The name stuck. In July 2005 I brought Karma home and introduced her to her new family; Punky the beagle, Magic the Brit, and Mohawk the bull/boxer mutt.

I was determined to get my DSI certification in the fall of 2005. In June we attended a DSI seminar. In August Kathy and I passed our New York tracking dog license certification tests. Gary Huber took me under his wing and became my Master Tracker. We started out the first weekend of the archery season. On our third call we found a nice eight pointer for a happy bowhunter in East Otto, New York. I was handling the more experienced lead dog when we made the find. What a thrill! After a difficult trail I spotted the dead buck first. “We’ve got your deer up here!”

As the bow season passed we followed quite a few trails. Most of them were clearly superficially wounded deer. I met and tracked with a number of fine dogs and experienced trackers as the weeks went by. I learned from each of them.

It was growing late in the bow season when I decided I had better get serious and shoot something or go skunked this year. On a sunny Saturday morning a spike horn that I had been passing up all season looked mighty good. He was ten yards away when I passed a razor sharp Woodsman broadhead between his ribs. Even though I knew he was fatally wounded and even though I had heard the deer crash fifty yards into the thicket, and even though the blood and arrow told the tale of a solid lung hit I could not resist the opportunity to go home and get Karma. After the last ten trails without a reward at the end I wanted her to follow a trail with a deer at the end of it. After the requisite calls to the Environmental Conservation Officer, Karma and I took up the short, hot, trail. Kathy tagged along and took photos. Karma found the deer in minutes fiercely attacking the carcass.

We had a couple more fruitless calls that week. Then one late afternoon near the end of the bow season the phone rang. The hunter had heard I was training a pup for deer search. He had a fatal hit on a nice buck but he had no blood. Rain was in the overnight forecast and the deer was in a coyote infested valley. Prudence dictated we wait at least six hours before taking up the trail. At 10:30 PM Karma and I met the hunter. At the hit sight the hair told us the arrow had entered the deer’s back and exited the paunch. The arrow showed evidence of a paunch hit but there were also a few tiny air bubbles near the fletching. There was not a drop of blood to be found.

The night air was cool, damp, and still. Seven month old Karma was straining to go as I switched her from her everyday collar to her tracking collar. As soon as I gave her a bit of slack she was off. The hunter confirmed that she was going in the right direction. My instinct told me to let her have her way for awhile. I asked the hunters to hang back a little way and look for blood. Karma nearly dragged me one hundred yards up hill through acres of dense thorny rose and wild grape tangles. Then at a low ridge she turned a hard right angle. We fought our way through another fifty yards of thorn and vine when my headlight caught the reflection of a deer’s eye. There he is! A fine buck lay crumpled between twin blow-down tree trunks, his antlers entangled in vines where he died on the run. “I’ve got your deer up here!” I called.

The next hour was one of the most pleasant hours of 2005. Photos were taken, tags were cut out and filled out, the deer was dressed and dragged and Karma and I basked in the praise of the hunters and the glory of the moment. That was the hour where I came to understand why the men and women of Deer Search so willingly give of themselves. Young Karma had passed a milestone with her first serious solo find. I had passed a milestone where I realized that my time spent working with my funny looking little dog, in service to a fellow hunter, to help find their deer, was at least as rewarding as my own hunting time. My deer/dog preoccupation had found a healthy outlet. Now I knew why all the DSI folks I had met along the way so happily go to such extremes to track deer. It had been a passage for the well seasoned hunter and the little rookie dog.

As I write the story she rests quietly at my side, both of us longing for the next season and our next trail together.

Kevin and Karma with Gary Huber and Keeta flank a hunter and his deer.

This was our first recovery of the 2005 bow season. 

 Kevin and Karma with the hunter at Karma’s first serious solo find.

A long and exciting track for Kevin Armstrong and Karma

Karma's #7 recovery this season was a long exciting track. The hunter swore that he had a chest hit. He followed bright blood 100 yards to a bed and jumped the deer. After jumping the deer he followed blood for another 100 yards then lost the trail.

When Chris Martinek and I arrived we found paunch hair and bright blood at the hit site. We got off to a poor start due to many other deer in the area, walking on the same trails as our wounded buck. Eventually we followed our deer the 200 yards the hunter had marked. Then we added another 50 yards of trail out to a paved road. We lost the trail at the road. After 1/2 hour of searching we began to suspect a back track. Sure enough, when we went back we found blood spatters going back on the trail. Karma soon found the turn and took me through suburban door yards and across driveways. The hunter confirmed that we had tracking permission as we went from one property to another.

The trail was confirmed by an occasional drop of blood. After 1/2 mile the deer was veering to the west, away from the homes. Karma soon found a second bed. The blood leaving this bed was much fresher than the blood leading to it, so I knew we had jumped the deer. Now Karma was locked on to this deer. I knew that nothing could break her concentration. Rather than back off I decided to try to run the deer down. Away we went through swamp and thicket for over a mile. From time to time the trail was confirmed by a drop of blood. From time to time I would find a drop of blood with the fingers pointing back at us, indicating that the deer was moving in front of us and watching his back trail. In another 1/2 mile we were going through water nearly to the tops of my 18 inch pac boots. I took this to be a last ditch effort of a desperate deer trying to lose the trackers.

I was right. As we came out of the swamp and up a bank covered in rose, wood vine, and thorns, there lay our buck. He was still alive but his head was drooping as in sleep. The deer was 10 yards from Karma when I spotted him. I gave the hunter my dog lead and pruners to hold as I moved in for a killing shot. At 5 yards I cocked the hammer of my .44 mag. Hearing this the buck leaped to his feet and fled. The laser was on his chest so I squeezed.

The lucky bullet severed his spine, knocking him down and allowing me to dispatch him as humanely as possible.

Breathless, the hunter and tracker watched in celebration as Karma claimed her buck. We walked exactly 1 mile from where we dragged the buck to the road and the where the truck was parked. So, if we straitened out the trail we had probably tracked the deer from 1.5 to 2 miles. Maybe more.

The once skeptical, now totally impressed hunter, gave Deer Search a very generous donation.

Sorry about the poor quality picture. I had forgotten my camera and have to be content with a cell phone pic.

Kevin

Karma finds a paunch-shot deer that was pushed too early

Kevin Armstrong wrote that "it was an interesting recovery. The hunter had pushed the paunch shot deer way too early and drove him several hundred yards on the afternoon and evening of 11/15/09. In the morning on 11/16/09 the trail was lost where the deer entered a standing corn field. By the time Karma and I arrived, in the mid afternoon the cornfield had been cut. Karma picked up the deer's trail on the marked line from the evening before and interestingly followed it from 20 to 40 yards off the bloodline. We went 1/4 mile with Karma pulling hard all the way, out of the clover, through a thicket, through the hardwoods to the standing corn which was now a field of corn stubble. Karma pulled hard down and across the corn stubble. At the opposite edge of the stubble field and the edge of another thicket lay the prize just feet from where the tractor and corn harvester had gone.

The elated hunter and I praised Karma as we had a little photo session.

The more I track with Karma the more I'm coming to believe that the scent trail is more a broad plume of scent rather than a narrow line of scent. Like wood smoke from a neighbors fireplace wafting through the neighborhood.

At times Karma was nearly 50 yards from the known blood line but she clearly had the scent in her nose and was just as excited as she would have been running through puddles of blood."

Two gut-shot deer recovered by Karma in one morning

Kevin Armstrong with Karma (recovery #4 above, recovery #5 below)

Karma has had a red letter morning on 11/8/09; in the evening of 11/7 I had two calls at home from hunters who believed they had paunch shot deer. I advised both to leave the deer alone over night and that I would meet the first hunter at day light. Thank goodness both hunters followed my advise and did not disturb the deer.

We found 2009/4 (trail 18) in less than 15 minutes, about 200 yards from the hit location. As soon as the deer was tagged Karma and I were off to Canandaigua for trail 19/2009. That deer was a bit more difficult due to the very thick swamp cover but it was still an easy recovery, less than 400 yards from the hit site. That deer was not bloated at all, indicating that the deer had been alive most of the night.

Karma and I had our celebration at Dunkin Donuts by 9:00 AM!

It doesn't get much better than this for a deer tracking team. It is so nice when the hunter listens to our advise.

This is Karma's 4th tracking season. I know better than to brag on my dog during hunting season but I have so much faith in her at this point that I rarely doubt her. It is a joy to see this wonderful little dog blossom into a first rate tracking dog.

Karma recovers a gut-shot deer for Kevin Armstrong

At 8 AM on 11/5/09 I had a good shot at a nice doe and took it. The hit looked good; low in the ribs. The deer left tail low at a hard run. After 1/2 hour I got out of the stand and followed a fair blood trail for 80 yards to where I found my arrow. To my surprise there was paunch material on the arrow shaft so I backed out for the day. At home there was a call from a neighbor that he had a buck hit in the shoulder. Though all evidence indicated a shoulder hit the hunter was positive he had killed the deer and would not believe the evidence. Trail #15 of the season ended with a frustrated hunter and a tracker frustrated with the hunter.

At 4 PM, in a freezing drizzle, after an 8 hour wait, I took up the trail (#16/2009) of my deer. Karma took me 300 yards where we jumped the three other deer that had been traveling with my doe. We cruised through the bedding area to a deep gully where, thinking she was tracking the healthy deer, I pulled her off and took her back to the first 80 yards of marked trail. This time she followed the same trail to the deep gully. Grudgingly I followed Karma's insistent advise and there in the bottom of the gully was our deer, still alive, but very sick. I dispatched the deer and the celebration began. I wish I had a better photo but I guess this the best an excited old, worn out, sweated up, hunter in a gully bottom, in the freezing rain can do.

Some times Karma has to track one for The Gipper.

Kevin

Kevin and Karma - Deer Search at its best

Gunn, Kevin Armstrong & and his wirehaired dachshund Karma pose with Karma's first recovery of 2009 and with Gunn's first DSI recovery. Kevin and Karma took seven trails this week until we finally got a reward for our efforts. Eventually they jumped all the deer on the other six trails. Only one of them seemed to have a serious wound. They all earned this one!

Below is the second recovery of the season celebrated by Karma and her sister Effie.

Effie passes a Deer Search pre-certification test

We got this very nice e-mail from Kevin Armstrong from the Finger Lakes Chapter of Deer Search. Kevin tracks with Karma v Moosbach-Zuzelek, and his friend Ron Betts works with Effie, Karma's younger sister.

"Ron asked me to email you to let you know that Effie passes her pre-certification test yesterday on a measured 500 meter, 20+ hour old 1/2 cup blood trail with 2X90 degree turns. The weather was 72f, sunny and dry, hardly ideal conditions. Effie would have aced the trail in 10 minutes had a flock of turkey not roosted above the trail over night and flown down to scratch around below the roost a few hours earlier. The hot turkey scent put her off for a few minutes but the handler recognized the situation just as Effie was called back. Back on the trail she ran the remaining 100 yards to the reward in a minute or two. An absolutely outstanding job! Ron Betts is a mighty proud man today, as he should be! At 1.5 years old Effie is on her way to becoming another Billy/Gilda wonder dog!"

Congratulations to Ron and Effie!

Appreciation for Deer Search tracking services

The letter below was written by Kevin Harris to Kevin Armstrong from Deer Search. Kevin and Ron Betts recovered a trophy buck (159 5/8 score) on November 11, 2008.

May 14, 2009

Kevin,

Here is a copy of the official score sheet I just submitted to New York State Big Buck Club for their next record book. I hope it makes a nice addition to Karma's scrapbook which I know is full of great success stories and adventures.

No words can express my gratitude to You, Karma, Ron, and DEER SEARCH for helping me recover that magnificent buck. It is an experience I will never forget as long as I live! The work you do on behalf of hunters and the wonderful creatures they pursue is priceless.

The support you provided to me after the recovery is most appreciated as well. Your guidance and advice helped me pursue things the honorable way, and all has worked out positively. (We) have a record book buck to show for our honest ethical efforts! You have been a great mentor and friend. Thanks.

Sincerely -

Kevin Harris"

Kevin Armstrong with Karma and Ron Betts with Effi

Karma passes Deer Search certification test

Yesterday we heard from Kevin Armstrong that his Karma passed Deer Search certification test. Our congratulations to Kevin and his blood tracking dachshund Karma who got Prize II and 65 points. Karma is one of those dogs who are very good natural trackers but are not that turned on on artificial lines. The line was 21 hours old, 1000 yards long. Karma did it in 70 minutes. The judges were Bob Hageman, Ronald Hausfelder and Gary Neal.

Kevin wrote: "Winter kill carcasses all over the place (there were remains of at least 4 or 5 dead deer scattered all around the 3rd turn. At one point Karma picked up a hoof attached to a leg bone and hip bone and looked back at me as if to say - is this what you want?). The carcasses gave us quite a bit of trouble at the third turn but the thermal was carrying scent from the reward in our direction. Once we made it through the carcass area and made the third turn she had it down as solid as on the first leg of the track.

The advice the judges gave me is to "trust your dog". Karma was on the trail 90% of the time. Though she often tracked 10 to 20 yards down wind of the trail, she was steady the entire way except at one point where she was slightly distracted by a flock of turkey and live deer that crossed the trail during the day and when she was in the area where the carcasses were.

I interrupted her several times because I was trying to verify the track with blood or a track. The errors were handler errors. The dog was a solid, steady tracker. They told me to watch her body language. When she lost the trail she would stop, lift her head and look back at me. When she was at her best her tail was straight back. When she was very hot on the scent her straight tail wagged. When she was not on the trail her tail drooped. I found the advice VERY helpful. I'll use it a great deal in the future."

Karma and Effi do it again!

Kevin Armstrong from the Finger Lakes Chapter of Deer Search wrote:

2008 no. 8 was an interesting trail! The deer was paunch shot at 4:30 PM on 11-18. The hunter watched the deer watched the deer hunch up and walk 30 yards and stand there with his head down until dark, about 5:15 PM. The hunter recognized the reaction as a paunch hit and backed out quietly until morning. In the morning 2 inches of fresh snow covered any trace of a trail. After 2 hours of searching the hunter called me for help. Ron Betts brought Effi and by 10:45 AM with their little hobbit feet coated with canola oil, Karma and Effi took up the track. Karma got sidetracked on another deer track for awhile but Effi go on the track right away and took it to a series of beds with blood in them. She followed the trail out of the beds for a couple of hundred yards but got a bit confused where the tracks crossed a logging road. By that time Karma was back and took up the tracks from the beds. She crossed the road and verified blood at the edge of Honeoye Creek. After a search she again found the tracks leading through the brush parallel with the creek, then to a series of beds, all with blood, down to the creek edge again. At the creek I scanned the opposite bank, then in both directions on my bank. Nothing. Glancing through the brush directly in front of me on my bank I noticed the tip of an antler. Then the whole image of a submerged deer came into view. The girls claimed their prize, 20 hours after the hit.

Ron Betts (left) and Kevinn Armstrong (right) with Karma (left) and Effi (right)

Coyotes, dachshunds and deer

Kevin Armstrong wrote:

"Karma will accept trailing credit for 2008 no. 7 but Effie Betts gets credit for the find! The evidence showed that this poor animal had been harassed by coyotes for hours. He covered a circle about a mile through the center before succumbing to his wounds and tormentors. 20 hours after the hit he was still warm when found."

Kevin Armstrong with Karma and Ron Betts with Effi

The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry is a good source of info on coyotes in NY:

These days coyotes are omnipresent and firmly established in New York State. Their numbers have been estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000. The eastern coyote is considerably larger than its southwestern cousin, and the largest individuals are as big as smaller timber wolves. Adults may range from 35-45 pounds and some large males may exceed 50 or 60 pounds in body weight.

Coyotes gradually extended their range eastward after wolves became extinct in the eastern U.S. and southern portions of Canada. Coyotes first appeared in the early 1900s in western Ontario, in the 1920s in New York and progressively later across New England until their appearance in New Brunswick in 1975. Recent studies using DNA analyses clearly show that hybridization with wolves has occurred, most probably in southern Canada where populations of wolves and coyotes adjoin each other.

John wrote the below article in 2001. Since then coyotes actually have become an even more serious problem. In the Northeast if a wounded deer is left in the woods overnight, very often in the morning the only thing that can be recovered is its carcass. The picture below was taken in October 2007. The deer was shot in the evening and this is what we found next morning:

COYOTES, DACHSHUNDS AND DEER
© 2001 John Jeanneney

When large numbers of coyotes began to appear in New York State about 15 years ago, it really changed life for hunters and not for the better. The new, northeastern coyote was a bigger animal than the one found out west, and DNA studies suggest that there were some timber wolf genes in the background. Dachshunds, beagles and feists were at risk, particularly at night and even bigger dogs were ganged up upon. My days of using my blood tracking dachshunds for coon hunting soon ended, and this was one of the reasons that I purchased my black mouth cur. At the time I also had a little Jack Russell, and I took the chance of taking him out one night with the big cur dog in a place where I thought there were no coyotes. Coyotes did nail him when he ranged off about 150 yards. Little Banner gave one yelp, the coyotes gave a chattering, laughing bark and I never saw him again. All I found was some white terrier hair. It was hard to lose a game little den dog, but it would have been a disaster to lose a dachshund blood tracker with years of experience.

I am no lover of coyotes, which spoiled some of the good night-time fun that I had in the 60's and 70's. There are a lot of good ways to take revenge. Where it is legal try a .223 rifle and a fawn bleat call in June. You can also get satisfaction by depriving coyotes of undeserved venison feasts during the deer season.

In Grampa's youth a deer shot in late afternoon and not immediately found was left until morning. The coyote invaders changed all that. Nowadays you can't leave the wounded or dead deer out over night in many parts of the Northeast. Now it's a race to find the deer before the coyotes do. A good tracking dachshund, or a good tracker of another breed, will find that deer quickly in situations where the deer goes too far for an infra-red deer finder, and hours of eye tracking only take you to the end of the visible blood trail.

If a deer is shot just before evening we like to get on the line with a good dachshund within two or three hours. Ideally it would be better to wait longer in the case of a gut shot deer, but we are between a rock and a hard place. A) If we don't wait and we jump the deer while it is still too "green," then we may be in for a long ramble through the hills. B) If we wait, the trail may be shorter, but there may well be a fresh deer skeleton at the end. Scenario A has less risk and exercise is a good thing for almost everyone.

My adventures at the Wade hunting camp in Schoharie County, over two years, are a good example of how things work, or don't work, on wily coyote's new turf. In 2000 I got a phone call from the Wades during bow season. They had shot a nice buck and had tracked him a mile before losing him at dusk. I got there within another couple of hours and my dachshund had no trouble taking the line another half mile to the deer, or at least half of the deer. The hindquarters were already gone. This was the work of more than one or two coyotes.

This season (2001) I got another call from the Wades. A family friend staying with them had a similar problem. Mindful of what had happened the previous year, I dropped my own plans to bow hunt and hustled over well before dark. Seven hours earlier the buck had been hit low and too far back, and this time we wanted to beat the coyotes to their dinner. My dachshund Sabina took the line 300 yards beyond the hunter's point of loss to jump the deer still alive and strong. Well we had a ramble up hill, down hill for almost five miles. All blood sign soon ended but because of the nature of the wound there was plenty of scent. At 7:30 PM we had been close to the deer several times according to Sabina, but the buck began to walk in circles about 200 yards across. He went around twice on the same trail in a dense pine forest. In this situation when you are close behind the deer, there is a danger of losing him. Your dog is tracking through a tunnel of floating body scent. After a couple of loops the deer can break off to the side and fool the dog... at least for a while. We weren't catching up to the deer; coyotes or no we decided to break off and take up the trail the next morning.

About 12 hours later we were back on the trail. As we suspected the buck had tried to pull a fast one, breaking out of the circle on the third loop, traveling over the diameter of the circle and out across a large overgrown field. There was no blood but the line was still easy for the dog to follow. Actually it was easier because by this time there was a scent line instead of a scent cloud. At the far edge of the field the land pitched down through hardwoods for several 100 yards. The wind was flowing up the hill into our faces. First Sabina's head came up and she pulled straight down the hill; next I saw a light gray carpet of deer hair spread out under the trees and finally I saw the deer... or three quarters of the deer. The coyotes had beaten us again, but not quite as badly this time. The young hunter was delighted with the rack and the remaining venison. Antlers add a delicate flavor to venison soup.

The coyotes do not always do as well at the expense of deer hunters. Usually we find the deer first; more than once we have come upon the deer just as the coyotes were breaking in. They seem to like to first eat the "salad" in the paunch, so if your timing is just right you can still save everything of value. Deprived of "their" kill the coyotes bark and chatter back in the brush as we drag the deer out. I have noticed that dachshunds don't act scared in this situation, but you don't see them pulling to get at the coyotes either. The dachshund is not a fool.

This trophy buck was found... but not at the end of blood trail

Kevin Armstrong shared this story with us. Thank you Kevin!


As strange as it gets!

At first light in the morning on 11-1-08 Karma and I embarked on the trail of this big Ontario County buck. We had tracked (and recovered a deer) for this hunter before. We knew him to be a serious trophy hunter. He had the lethal arrow and a detailed story of the hit. All evidence indicated a classic paunch hit; 3 inches too far back, mid body. The hunter knew immediately that he had a paunch hit. He knew the blood trail would be sparse, so he quietly backed out of the woods and called Karma and I for help. He and I agreed that the deer should in no way be pushed. We agreed to take up the trail first thing in the morning.

As is the norm with paunch shots the blood trail stopped after 100 yards or so. After 200 yards we came upon a large empty bed and a small puddle of blood. From the bed Karma continued on with undiminished enthusiasm.

The trail wove on and on and on through beach woods, through a thick logged over area, down a deep gully then gradually back up out of the gully, across a harvested corn field, then through a thicket. After 2 hours of trailing and well over a mile we were at the door yard of a rural home on the "next road over" from where we began. We were 2/3 of the way through a circle of about 1.5 miles in diameter. Without permission from the land owner, and without the knowledge of who to even ask for permission we abandoned the trail.

As I stood there telling the hunter that "something has pushed this deer". We noticed a tractor and manure spreader leaving the field on the other side of the home owner's door yard.

The hunter explained that a neighbor regularly ran coon dogs through that woods at night. We were sure something like that must have happened.

To be on the safe side we started Karma on the trail at the very start again. "Maybe she missed a turn..." Little Karma took us exactly the same long, serpentine route all over again. For the second time we halted the trail at the same dooryard. Now we spent a couple more hours doing a fruitless area search.

In mid afternoon, physically and emotionally drained we agreed to call off the search. I knew the hunter would comb that woods for a week, or for as long as it took. He had hunted this particular deer too long and too hard to give up.

When I came in from a tracking call this afternoon there was a message on my tape from the hunter. He had found the deer!

As it turned out he had not only canvassed the woods for the last 10 days exhausting all of his vacation and personal time but he had also canvassed the neighborhood. Word got out that he was looking for the lost buck. It seems one of the neighbors knew where it was.

Do you remember the tractor and manure spreader we had seen? Well, it turns out the farm hand who was spreading manure on the field where we had stopped the trail had found the buck, freshly killed, and half eaten by coyotes, laying at the edge of the field and dooryard; 50 yards from where we had stopped! On his way back to the barn he loaded the remains of the buck in his spreader and took it home as a conversation piece.

Word had gotten back to the hunter where the buck was. The hunter called on the farm hand. The hand willingly surrendered the antlers to their rightful owner.

Now if anyone has a better tracking story than that this season I want to hear it!

Kevin & Karma

Trophy bucks recovered by wirehaired dachshunds in NY and Texas

Kudos to Kevin Armstrong, Ron Betts and Carey Sutterfield for helping fellow hunters in the recovery of these beautiful trophy bucks. Carey drove 215 miles to track a wounded deer in Texas (he lives in Oklahoma). Coincidentally, Karma and Effi are half-sisters to Otto (as they were all sired by our Billy).

Kevin Armstrong, a Deer Search members wrote:

Yesterday Karma and Effi teamed upon this paunch shot 15 point trophy in Enfield, NY. The deer was still alive 21 hours after the hit and had to be dispatched. He had taken a bed less than 200 yards from the hit sight but had been bumped from the bed after 3 hours. He was left alone over night. The trail was begun at 8:00 AM. It went on for more than a mile before we caught up to him at 10:00 AM. A wonderful trophy for the hunter, the trackers, and the dogs.

Kevin Armstrong with Karma and Ron Betts with Effi

Carey Sutterfield, a member of the United Blood Trackers, wrote:

Last Friday I received a phone call from Cameron Mclain near Mclean, Texas. He had found my number on the UBT website. He said he had shot a nice buck at 8am with a bow. Quartering away shot he thought was a little far back. Arrow was a complete passthrough. He was sure that one lung had been hit and they had been looking all day. They had good blood for about 30 yards and then nothing. This was around 2:30pm and I was just getting back to Oklahoma City. It was 215 miles to where this deer was shot, but the hunter sounded like a good guy and also mentioned it was his first deer with a bow. I was also the closest person they could find. I decided to make the trip and try to help this guy out. I told them to back out of the area and wait for me.

Otto and myself arrived at around 6pm. It was just getting good and dark. The hunter had mentioned that it was rough terrain. Well, it was pretty much the Grand Canyon! I told the hunter to stay behind us and look for blood if Otto got on the trail. It took 3 restarts as the deer was initially shot under a feeder and there were some deer hanging around.

To the south there was open terrain and to the north there were canyons. Of course, Otto got hot on the trail straight into the canyons. I am talking 100 feet rock cliffs and dry creek beds at the bottom. Sometimes Otto's lead would be pointing straight up in front of me. I think he might have dragged me up a few of the canyons. After about 200 yards, I started seeing blood and the hunter was confirming it from behind me. Just a big splotch about an inch in diameter every 20 or 30 yards. We then hit a big dry sandy creek bed and Otto overshot into it. It took him a couple of minutes to work it out, but once he found the trail it was obvious he was hot again. We found the buck about 900 yards from where he was shot.

Not that awful far, but this terrain was amazing. The buck was also amazing. The hunter was very grateful and I felt really proud of Otto as I was kind've worried about the dry terrain and the cliffs. It was amazing this deer went that far with one lung and the liver. He went up and down some cliffs I would have never imagined a healthy deer attempting.

Carey with Otto and the buck they recovered in Texas.

Good boy Otto!

Little dogs with big noses

Kevin Armstrong's Karma and her sire Billy had a chance to use their noses in pursuit of wounded deer again.

Kevin writes: "It was 70F, sunny and dry today when my neighbor (and cousin) stopped by to tell me that at 7:00 AM he had hit a buck too far back. He only had about 50 yards of blood trail. Thinking he might have a liver hit Karma and I took up the 7.5 hour old trail in my tee shirt. The little 8 pointer made 6 hard turns on his 350 yard trail. The thick cover, hard turns, and scent from other deer in the area combined with the hot dry weather added difficulty to our tracking mission. On the third start Karma picked up a particularly sharp turn and raced the last 100 yards to her prize. Gooood girl Karma! This is Karma's 4th recovery so far this season."

In the last few days Billy and John recovered two more deer.

Above: This deer ‘s hind leg was broken, but Billy and his handler caught up with it in less than a mile. Lucky! The picture shows the hunter with his deer; Billy is tied to a tree.

The sixth recovery for John and Billy. This is a hard working team. Yesterday they were out tracking all day long. They could not catch up with the deer they tracked, and the conclusion was reached that the deer is going to be OK.

A busy season for two Deer Search handlers - Karma and Effi's two recoveries

Kevin Armstrong and Ron Betts are members of the Finger Lakes Chapter of Deer Search. They both are tracking with wirehaired dachshunds, Karma and Effi, who in fact are sisters. Karma is 3.5 years old now and Effi is just 8 months, and they are out of Billy and Gilda. These are their last two recoveries:

Kevin wrote: Karma's little sister Effi Betts joined her to recover this paunch shot doe. The deer traveled from 500 to 700 yards without taking a bed. This is #2 for the season for both Kevin & Karma (left) and Ron and Effi (right).


According to Kevin: Karma & Effi teamed up to make their 3ed recovery this season with this nice 9 pointer in Dundee, NY on Saturday night. The buck was hit in the hind quarter with an angle into the paunch. The trail was short and easy. Karma raced down the trail, swan a 15 yard wide creek and found the prize on the opposite bank. Effi is learning what her world is all about. She pursues her work with great enthusiasm. Good Girls!

The information about contacting Deer Search for tracking services in New York is listed here.

Odds and ends

The conversation about Kevin and Karma's recovery has continued today.

John wrote to Kevin: "Congratulations on that 80+ hours find! Now we have to make new trackers realize that this is not a routine thing that they can expect to pull off with their puppy."

Kevin replied: "This find was far from routine. The way we found this deer was because we refused to not find the deer. Karma gave us good leads but the scent line was at the limits of her abilities. I refused to give up because the hunter had convinced me that he had a body hit and all the evidence we had indicated a body hit. I knew the deer could not have gone far. I hope I've not set unrealistic expectations for new trackers and/or young dogs. Had I not gained a lot of experience tracking hundreds of wounded deer before I ever had a dog it is somewhat doubtful we could have made this recovery with the dog alone. "

*****

I said "First snow storm of the season - no deer tracking today and tomorrow", and I was wrong. Last evening, during the snow storm, a call came from a deer hunter who lives in Westerlo; he needed help in finding the deer he had shot. I learned long time ago that hunters and trackers can be irrational creatures but I just could not believe that somebody would be hunting in the weather conditions we had. And John... well... it took some convincing to keep him home.

Today, in the morning our yard looked like this. We got a foot of wet and heavy snow.

After a quick breakfast and his "dog chores" John drove to Westerlo to look for the deer. He did not find it, but he certainly got his exercise for the day (or two).

*****

Our blog got a nice plug at Terrierman's Daily Dose. Thank you Patrick!

Kevin and Karma recover the deer 87 hours after it was shot

I got the below e-mail from Kevin Armstrong, a Deer Search tracker. Kevin has been tracking for a couple of years with Karma (Karma von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who is a 3.5 years old daughter of Billy and Gilda.

I talked to the hunter on the phone yesterday and told him that a chance of finding this deer was next to zero. Boy, was I wrong. Congratulations Kevin on this great recovery!


"We found this deer 87 hours after it was hit! The hunter hit the deer last Friday (10-24-08) and gave it up for lost on Saturday. Over the weekend he read about tracking dogs in Deer & Deer Hunting magazine. Through contact information in the magazine he managed to get the call narrowed down to me. Tuesday morning I left at daylight in a hard cold rain with little hope of recovering the deer nearly 4 days after the hit. The hunter was sure he had a body hit and he was willing to tag the deer if we found it. It took 2.5 hours of cold trailing, then area search and wind whiffing. Our adventure included an unplanned dip in the Clyde River but what the heck. Anyone crazy enough to take up a 4 day old trail is crazy enough to ... well. Long story short, we found him. Hunter, human tracker, and K9 tracker are all cold, wet, and tired. None of us could be happier!

Happy trails!

Kevin & Karma "