Cabelas jacket kept Mike warm but it was a tracking dog who found his deer

The picture is taken from the Cabelas online catalog. It was sent to me by Larry Gohlke whose tracking dog Nix was instrumental in recovery of this buck. I asked Larry to write more about how it had happened.

"Mike Sr hunts a piece of land where he sees lots of deer during bow season including the week before our Wisconsin deer rifle season. He then puts his son Mike Jr in what should be the very best spot for the nine day rifle season. The result has been that almost no deer show up for the kid. Last year his luck changed a lot. Unfortunately, when this large buck showed up just before closing time another 10 deer did too. Mike thought he made a good shot on the buck but when it took off there were tails going every direction.

I was called in to find the buck which was one of eleven deer in the area before the shot. There is no telling how many other deer showed up after dark and before we started tracking. There was no blood and Mike only knew that none of the deer had run toward him. I have had to look for a number of deer with similar starts. My two year old dog Nix and I work together pretty well in these situations.

We started at one side checking the possible escape routes and followed many trails without finding any blood. At one point we actually chased some deer across a wooden foot bridge. What a racket! After many trails that didn't have any blood on them we took a trail which one of the hunters had just inspected. We found one drop of blood that the hunter had missed. After a distance we came to a blown down tree and the next blood. The deer had stopped before the tree leaving a blood trail and then walked to the other side of the tree and died in the tree branches and tall marsh grass.

I am convinced that a lot of deer could be found with dogs, the deer that the hunter would never be able to confirm were hit. Mike is a believer!


Larry Gohlke"

Larry Gohlke with Nix

Blood tracking in Wisconsin

Larry Gohlke from Neshkoro, WI, has been tracking wounded deer with his wirehaired dachshunds for many years. He is a Life Member of Deer Search and a co-founding member of United Blood Trackers. These days he is tracking with a young male out of his own breeding - FC Nix vom Nordlicht.

Larry Gohlke with Nix

In Wisconsin a tracker is not allowed to carry a weapon while tracking. Of course, some wounded deer are not dead when they are found, and they have to be finished off. We are not going to get into details how to go about it, but it is certain that sooner rather than later somebody is going to hurt.

This is Larry's latest adventure.

I tracked this buck for a hunter that only had permission to go further onto his neighbor's land if my dog was able to confirm that the blood trail had actually crossed the creek into the neighbor's hunting refuge. The buck had been shot in the morning and had walked to a town blacktopped road where it stopped and bled more than most road kills do!

The deer than walked onto the neighbor's land and down to a creek where it circled. The hunter and the landowner searched for any sign of where the buck left the circle until it was time for the landowner to go hunting. After hunting hours I was allowed to search. Nix was able to immediately continue the trail and make a large half circle back to the creek. The buck was bedded in the creek in some brush. I had the hunter hold my dog, his friend hold my light, and I walked in front of the buck so I could throw my rope around his antlers. (The brush was too thick behind the buck.) The buck got up, started walking up stream, and attempted to climb out on the opposite bank. I got the rope tangled in his antlers on the second toss. I was wearing the frog legs that you and John gave me and was standing in the stream. The buck turned and started walking RIGHT AT ME. I quickly put my body in REVERSE. Most of my body moved BUT my feet were stuck in the mud and not going anywhere. When my butt hit the water the buck stopped and I crawled out of the mud as fast as a could go.

Wouldn't it have been sweet justice if the buck had fallen on me, holding me under mud to drown? I got out and tied the buck down with a second rope before allowing the hunters to finish it off.

I can tell you that a buck's antlers apparent size increases exponentially when it is moving toward you and you are on your back. The difference is much greater than the ground shrinkage that hunters experience when the huge bucks they shoot are found to be much smaller when in their hands.

I didn't stick around for pictures. I let them drag the deer out and when home to put on some dry clothes and stop shaking! Larry