Short track and recovery for Thor: Important deer anatomy lesson

By Bob Yax

On Nov. 8^th, Thor and I took a track in Geneseo.  The hunter, Josh, hit the buck about 4 pm the previous day.  While interviewing Josh about the hit, not long after he shot it, he said that the buck was broadside when he hit it and the arrow passed thru near the center of the deer.  Surprisingly, the buck bedded within 20 yards of the hit, then got up shortly after and bedded 2 more times in the next 50 yards before getting up and walking off.   

Josh waited awhile and then inspected the hit site and arrow along with a few yards of the early trail.  He saw a reasonable blood trail and then backed out and called Deer Search.  The quick, frequent bedding, signaled a liver hit, but then Josh described the arrow as having heavy intestinal matter on it.  With a broadside shot it’s hard to hit both liver and intestine.   I told Josh that the options were to go after it late that evening, like 11 pm (assuming it was liver), or to wait to later in the morning assuming it was intestine only.  It was a tough decision.  A liver-hit deer could be dead in less than an hour (typically 7 hrs covers 95% of liver hits), but an intestine-hit deer can go for over 24 hrs.  We had to worry that it might spoil if it died early or we might jump it if we go too early.  We decided that we’d wait till late morning to start the track.  

We started at about 11 am, 19 hrs after the hit.  I inspected Josh’s arrow and confirmed it was covered with intestinal matter and a little blood.  We started the track and quickly got through the first 100 yards where blood sign was still visible along the way.  Soon we came out to a standing cornfield, where Thor spent about 10 minutes circling around in about 20 rows of corn.  I was happy to find 1 spec of blood on a corn stalk, while he was circling.  Finally, Thor came out of the corn and headed off pretty hard across a clover field for about 125 yards, until he entered the woods that surrounded a 1 acre pond.  Soon, he was walking through the shallow water at the corner of the pond.  He came out of the pond and climbed up a short bank.  There I found a single drop of blood.  Thor then took a path through the brush along the edge of the pond, and again ended up along the water’s edge.  He was really interested in the water. 

I scanned the pond hoping to see a floating deer. Finally, he walked off the bank and started swimming into the pond.    I let him go out a few yards, and then pulled him back to shore.  He jumped up the bank and then I spotted a bloody leaf on the shore.   I let the leash go and told Josh to grab it as I climbed through the heavy brush.  He grabbed the leash but had a hard time holding Thor back as he dug in and pulled hard into the brush.   A few seconds later the reason was obvious.  The dead buck was lying about 40 yards from the pond. So far the track wasn’t that interesting, but the deer and the hit changed that.  Looking at the 8 pointer, it was obvious that the deer had passed just a short time before we arrived.  There was no rigor, and the internal organs were freshly warm.   The other observation was that the lower half of the deer was soaking wet and his legs were brown with pond muck.  It had obviously been laying in the pond.  The autopsy revealed the biggest surprise, the 3 blade broad head clearly passed thru the liver, before exiting out the intestines.  This buck, with a solid liver hit, likely lived for 17 or 18 hours!   Not sure if laying in the pond had any influence, but most liver hit deer are dead at 6 or 7 hours.  I did have one buck years ago, that we jumped after 20 hrs with a liver hit.  The general rules usually apply, but not always!  Photo of hunter and buck, below. 

Thor tracks and recovers a liver-hit buck 4 days after the shot

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 3^rd 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 3^rd 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 1^st 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 4^th or 5^th 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!

Bob and Thor track and find three deer in one day

Thor von Moosbach-Zuzelek, a brother to our Tuesday and Darren Doran's Theo, has had a great tracking season so far. He helped hunters to recover their deer that otherwise would go to waste or feed coyotes. This is what happened today, in Bob Yax's words:

After breaking my streak of Birthday recoveries yesterday, I was ready for some success today. Boy, did we get it! 3 recoveries on 3 tracks that were all hit yesterday and sat overnight in the heavy rains. Thor was awesome today... relentless on every track.

Track 1 was in Romulus. I started it yesterday afternoon thinking it was a liver hit. We then postponed it till today when I saw only intestine matter on the arrow. The arrows level / broadside path could have not have hit liver and intestine so we needed to wait overnight. Yesterday there was no blood found on the 1st 20 yds of the trail. That's as far as the hunter tracked it. This morning just as the rain was ending we took up the trail - 0 blood was seen, but Thor took off hard down the trail. To our surprise, we found the buck dead 100 yds from the stand. Autopsy showed arrow deflected (off a branch) down thru the back strap, lung, liver, stomach and came out the intestines. The 9pt was likely dead after 5 or 6 hours. We found it at the 24hr mark and it was still good, likely due to the heavy cool rain.

Track 2 was in Pavilion. Hunter wasn't sure what he hit on the big buck, but he had a pass thru with only blood on the arrow (no guts). Yesterday, he and his wife tracked it for hours over a mile till the blood petered out. We started the track 29 hrs after the hit. The arrow look almost clean to me, maybe from skidding thru very wet clover? Over the next 30 min we covered the mile long trail with 0 visible blood again. We did go right past 3 markers the hunter left along the buck’s path. That is always reassuring! Finally we hit a railroad track where they had stopped tracking yesterday. The thick brush on the other side was a promising place for the buck to bed. Thor headed down a trail into the brush, then came out into a clearing in the swampy woods. About 50 yds later his head was up scenting the air hard - was the buck nearby? - yes! It was laying in the open wood 40 yds ahead. It looked dead, but it was laying straight up on its belly with its chin on the ground and antlers up? Thor was barking like crazy! I had the hunter hold Thor's leash as I slowly approached the buck. Soon I was 15ft from it and it was still motionless. Just when I was sure it was dead, it blinked and took off running. I got my 20ga up and shot when it was going away at 30 yds. It tumbled into one of the big puddles then ended up lying head up in the woods 40 yds ahead. My hit to the back knee put it down, but it was still trying to get up. Too long story short - 2 more shots finished it! (this included an "ammo run" to get a 3rd slug!) It was a Big 10pt. The Hunters shot passed thru the top of the lungs just under the shoulder blades. PS, it was a 4 blade Muzzy. This was the 1st marginal lung shot we've ever recovered, and it wasn't easy...

Track 3 was in Dansville. Hunter said that yesterday he hit the buck broadside and far back. He saw stomach contents on a tree. The arrow showed me only intestine contents, but I did find stomach matter on the tree. Yesterday the hunter tracked it (pushed it!) about 175 yds with a little blood, he then backed out. We started on the track 23 hrs after the hit, again no blood was visible (dam rain!). Thor again got hot on the trail and was soon passing the hunters backpack that he left where he backed out. About 300 yds later, Thor again had his nose high in the air looking for the Buck. We then saw it dead, 50 yds ahead. The 8pt was very fresh, no rigor. It had only been dead a few hours. The entrance wound was halfway back and about 6 inches from the bottom of the deer. It hit Stomach and exited out the intestines. A day that started with driving in the pouring rain, turned into our best tracking day ever. Tracking conditions were great, damp and cool, and Thor was really on his game. The heavy rain that washed away all blood sign probably helped us.

Shot analysis by Bob Yax on the two deer recovered by his tracking dog Thor

These two bucks were recovered last weekend by Bob Yax and his tracking dachshund Thor. 

The Pittsford buck was hit low in the chest with a bow on Sunday morning. See entrance photo attached.   Also, check out the kid wearing shorts while he was tracking with us! Ouch!   We  jumped this liver hit buck twice, 6.5-7 hrs after the hit.  In its 3^rd bed, the kid was able to put another arrow into it.  We found a 1 inch deep slice thru the edge of the liver when he gutted it. That was a long survival for a liver hit!

 *****

We jumped the Honeoye buck 17 hrs after the 7 mm hit,  from its 1^st bed, about 700 yds from the hit site.   Up till then we had only found a few spots of blood to confirm Thor was on the bucks trail.  At times, I was really wondering since Thor took us close to 2 houses and across at least 200 yds of cut lawn and a main road with no blood.  After jumping up from a very bloody bed, the buck ended up  (luckily!) in a deep ravine 100 yds further up the trail.  The hunter was able to shoot  it a 2^nd time from about 40 yds as it tried climbing  up the far side of the steep ravine.   The 7 mm hit was really low in the front of the chest and hit the top of both front legs – see entrance and exit photos attached.  The buck was quartering to him a little.   Not really sure what vitals he hit (maybe low lungs?) but I know he missed the heart entirely, since after close examination, it’s now in my fridge.  I’m going to check out the rib cage after the guy finishes butchering it to see if the bullet did make it inside the chest cavity. 

      

Deer Search tracking team finds a heart-shot deer still alive 23 hours after the shot

Today we got two tracking stories from Bob Yax, a member of Deer Search of Finger Lakes. He tracks with Thor von Moosbach-Zuzelek, who is now 3.5 years old. So far in 2015 this tracking team has recovered 18 deer for local hunters.

The first story was labelled by Bob as "interesting", the second one "incredible", so tonight we'll post the latter one. Bob writes:

The evening of November 9, I got a call from Shawn.  I had tracked a deer for him a few years back and he remembered how Thor had stayed with that buck for multiple hours and multiple miles until we had to turn back due to posted property, we jumped that buck 6 times.

      Shawn had hit a 6pt buck at 9:30 that Sunday morning, Nov 8^th.    He explained that he had shot the buck with a  crossbow while standing on the ground.  The buck was facing him with just a slight quartering angle.  His bolt hit the buck low in the front of the chest.  After hitting the buck, it turned and ran, leaving the entire bolt shaft, with the broad head and insert missing,  just a few feet down the trail. (Note, this is always a bad shot to take.  The front of a deer’s chest is like armor, and even if you get through it,  you’ll very likely end up with a marginal / unrecoverable 1 lung hit). 

      The bolt only had about 6 to 8 inches of blood on it.  The initial blood trail was really good with pretty heavy rich, but not dark, blood.  Shawn waited 2 hours to take up the track with a friend and was then able to easily follow it till he reached an empty bed in a mowed trail about 100 yards from the hit.  They then continued to follow a dwindling blood trail till finding a 2^nd empty bed about 250 yards from the hit site.  After leaving this 2^nd bed, the light blood trail led up the side of a pretty steep ravine.   Shawn and his friend continued to track till they got to the top edge of the ravine, but after not seeing any sign of the buck ahead in the open woods, they decided to turn back and to call Deer Search.

After hearing Shawn’s story,  the fact that the buck had bedded twice had me very interested.  To me, the only explanations for the buck's behavior would be a nicked liver (if the arrow got back that far) or a nicked heart.  If only the lungs were hit, it’s very unlikely that the buck would have bedded like it did.  Since the arrow hadn’t penetrated very much,  my best guess was a nicked heart.  We’d already found 2 this year with a shallow slice across the outside of the heart. One of them we jumped twice after 8 hours before I was able to shoot it in its 6^th bed, about 500 yards from the hit site.

        I arranged to meet Shawn and his friend the next morning at 8:30 – 23 hrs after the hit.  We started down the blood trail and Thor was hot on it the whole way.  The blood looked pretty dark,  but not like liver blood.   We easily got through the 1^st and 2^nd beds and then headed up the pretty steep side of the ravine.  At the top, where Shawn had backed out, Thor was still showing me small spots of blood.   For the next half mile or so Thor was still hot on the untouched trail.  We were seeing periodic, widely spaced, spots of blood.  Finally after about 20 minutes of tracking at a fast pace, Thor began jumping and looking wildly ahead – a sure sign that the dead buck was close by.  A few seconds later, Thor circled a brush pile about 5 yards ahead of me, that’s when I saw it, 3 feet in front of him – The Buck was looking at me!   A second later the buck was on its feet with Thor jumping at its tail.  The buck fell down then got up and fell again.  Shawn was yelling “Shoot it”.   After clearing the brush pile a little,  I was able to put a 20 ga slug in its back & liver.   I couldn’t believe that buck was still alive 23 and a half hours after the hit.  But it was about to get even more unbelievable….

      Being totally into deer anatomy/CSI, I couldn’t wait for Shawn to gut the deer and see what he had hit.   The bolt had definitely entered low in the front of the chest.   The lungs were untouched, so the broad head never made it back to the liver. The only sign of arrow damage to the internal organs,  was to the heart – major damage!  

The hole in the heart was massive and deep and showed the 4 blade pattern of the Muzzy broad head.  It entered, but did not exit out the other side of the heart.  There is no doubt that it penetrated into the chambers of the heart.  I could put my finger into the hole and out the main artery (aorta?) at the top.  Three of us were there to witness these events. Three other neighbors saw the heart shortly after.  I’m still trying to get the ribcage to examine the entrance hole.  I’m really hoping to someday talk to a cardiologist about this. It seems that the broad head only penetrated about 2 inches into the chest cavity – those 2 inches were into the heart.  My only guess as to how this buck had survived so long, is that the front wall of the chest acted as a backup wall for the heart and held in enough blood to keep the deer alive that long.

Shot analysis and deer recovery summary by Bob Yax

Bob Yax from Deer Search of Finger Lakes and his wirehaired dachshund Thor recovered this bow-shot 10 pointer on November 30 in Pittsford, NY. As Bob said it must be a tough neighborhood as the buck had two broken G-2s.  

Bob also wrote: 

Out of the 49 we've recovered in the last 5 years it was the 5^th deer that was hit in the chest (without liver or stomach involved). It was the 4^th that had a slice across the outside of the heart! The only other chest shot we've recovered, was a double lunger (hit in the rain) that went only about 150 yards.

We've never recovered a chest/lung shot deer (other than heart) that’s gone beyond 150 yards.   If they can breathe long enough to go beyond that,  they can breathe for a long time (days) & distance.  Many times we’ve kicked up these marginal chest shots the next day, and they were still going strong.

Marginal lung shots are the worst!!!

Note, all these heart shot deer acted as if liver hit.  They all bedded quickly,  within 100 yards, but then got up out of that 1^st bed.   Three of them at least 2 hrs after being hit.  All were found within 300 yards of the hit site.   None of these were pushed very hard – the hunters backed out after pushing them out of their 1^st bed – that’s the secret !

Two more deer recovered by Bob and Thor, and a lesson learned on intestinal hit

By Bob Yax

I learned a big lesson on these last two recoveries.  The 1^st  on Nov 2^nd  (my birthday and the 4^th 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 1^st 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 2^nd bed.  After entering this 2^nd 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 3^rd 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

Bob and Thor's team work results in the successful recovery of heart-shot buck.

By Robert Yax (owner of Thor von Moosbach-Zuzelek), Deer Search of Finger Lakes

Sunday  10/12/14,  I returned home at about 9 PM after taking three unsuccessful  tracks, which included  two one-lung hits that we tracked a long way,  and a very minor brisket hit.   I called into the Deer Search hotline and heard a call that came in at 5 PM from Hunter, Brian in Scottsville.  I called him back at 10 PM  and found that he had hit a Mature Buck at 7:30 that morning.  The shot was from a tree stand at a shallow angle with a fixed broad head.  The Buck was slightly quartering towards him and he hit the Deer’s  left side. He thought the hit was about mid-way up the body and  “back a little”.  The shot was a complete pass thru and he said the arrow was covered with dark blood.  

After the shot, the buck took off running and went out of sight around a swamp.   After a short time, Brian carefully got down and examined the hit site.  At that point he decided to back out and wait a while before tracking.   After a 2 ½ hour wait, he and a friend got on the easy to follow blood trail.  They found the blood covered arrow a short distance up the trail and soon after they jumped the Buck from its bed, about 75 yards from the hit site.  The buck ran off,  but seemed to be struggling a little.  Brian then decided to back out again.  At 2 PM he and his friend got back on the blood trail and took it about 300 yards beyond the first bed before running out of blood sign in the middle of a large open block of tall pines.  At this point they searched the pines for another 75 yards  in the direction the Buck was headed.  At the far (west) end of the pines they stopped  and decided not to go into the thick brush beyond.   Brian then decided to call Deer Search  (two good decisions!)

After hearing the story from Brian,  it seemed that a liver hit was very likely, especially since he had mentioned dark blood and that the buck had bedded so quickly.  It was especially promising because Brian and his friend had not reached the end of the blood trail till 7 hours after the hit.  If it was a liver hit,  it was very likely that the Buck would have been dead in its second bed at that point,  and it was not likely that they had pushed it any further.   Hopefully,  we would find the Buck in the thick stuff, not too far from the end of the blood trail in the pines.  I agreed to meet Brian at 8:00 on Monday morning.

We started the search on Monday morning just about 24 hours after the hit.  It was warm (60 deg) and dry – not ideal tracking conditions.  The arrow Brian showed me was covered with darkish dried blood but contained no stomach matter – it certainly could have been a liver shot.   After a hike back to the woods we started on the trail, just beyond the first bed.  Thor was on it easily and quickly followed the  known 300 yard trail (with a little dried blood sign) to the point of last blood that Brian had marked the previous day in the tall open pines.   From there Thor continued tracking,  with no blood sign, the 100 yards or so until we hit the thick brush at the west end of the pines.  Brian and his friend had searched to this point, but had not gone into this thick area the previous day, so I was really hopeful that we would find the dead Buck in this area.  

After a little searching along the edge, Thor took  an obvious deer trail into the thick stuff.  After only about 25 yards, Thor took a quick left and headed to a nearby pond.  He jumped in and did a little 4 foot diameter swim and then got back on dry land.  (Thor seems to like to take advantage of water holes and streams whenever he gets a chance while tracking, especially on warm days).  Once out of the pond, he headed back to the thick area he came from.  After only a few seconds of searching he stopped and looked back up at me as if to say  “so what do you want me to do here”?   -- I was like “what the hell “!     I tried to get him back on the track, but he obviously didn’t think there was any reason  for us to be there.  Then it hit me!   From the last blood sign,  we had continued straight back to the thick area at the west end of the Pines.  This is the same path the hunters had gone the previous day – probably with blood on their boots!  Thor had taken this same path, but once he got into the thick stuff,  there was no more blood scent – the hunters hadn’t gone in there.

I quickly brought Thor back into the pines heading back to the last blood sign.  Along the way, he veered to the south and we were soon heading into the thick brush along that side of the pines.  It wasn’t long before he put his head up, air scenting something ahead of us.  A minute later we crossed a coyote den, where he stopped for a second to stick his head down a hole.  After I pulled him out, he was quickly back on the job.  After about 100 yards in the thick stuff we popped out into a horse pasture.  Now what?  I thought,  but was quickly surprised to see the white belly of dead deer laying in the corner of the pasture about 40 yards ahead of Thor – we got him! ---- Not!    The dead deer was a recently dead button buck – not a nice Mature Buck.  Not sure what killed it,   as we couldn’t  find a hole or mark on it.  Possibly a car hit deer that ran off?    

Now we had to forget this distraction and get back to our deer.  I again headed Thor back to the last known blood sign in the middle of the block of pines.  Once there,  I decided that because the hunters had mucked up the pines while searching the previous day with bloody boots,  I would take Thor along the outside edge of the pine block and hope he could catch the Buck’s  clean trail heading out.  Starting at the last blood sign, we headed 90 degrees off the Buck’s known trail and came to the north edge of the pines.  We then started searching along the edge, just inside of the pines.  After only about 50 yards along the edge,   Thor turned and started tracking into the grassy field to the north.   He definitely seemed to be on the trail with his nose tight to the ground as he tracked the first 75 yards into the field.  At that point he began circling wildly while hopping up and down  thru the grass.  I  knew the dead buck had to be close and then saw it about 25 yards ahead in the grass.  

Thor got to it first and had a few moments of “chew time”  before we began examining it.    From the entrance wound location,  (low and just behind the left front leg) it was obvious that it wasn't a liver hit.  It seemed as though it should have hit the heart.  A short time later we confirmed that it actually did put a two inch slice in the outside of the heart as well as hit one lung.   This is the third heart shot deer we’ve recovered in the past few years.  All of them bedded quickly,  within 100 yards  but then got up when pushed a few hours later.  We even kicked one up out of its second bed  25 hours after the hit before finding it dead four later.  There’s no telling how long Brian’s  Buck lived, but probably for quite a while since the deer was still good 25 hrs after the hit.  He definitely made the right decision by not randomly searching the thick stuff the previous day. 

Thor and I also confirmed that we definitely need to work as a team to successfully overcome the complications and distractions that go along with tracking wounded deer. 

This recovery demonstrates that many times neither the dog nor handler would be successful without the help of the other.  Bob says that by far  this was the most interesting of his four recoveries so far.

This picture shows Thor with a buck recovered in Monroe County on October 4.

Six-month-old dachshund Thor gets to track and recover a real wounded deer

The picture of Thor and Bob's son Nate was taken on October 6, when Thor turned six month old.

We have written about Theo owned by Darren Doran from New Jersey. Now it is time to report on his brother Thor who is owned by Bob Yax from Deer Search of the Finger Lakes. This is Bob's report. I like his analysis of the whole pretty difficult situation.

As is pretty typical, the story around this one was kind of convoluted.  Two  hunters had hit this doe on Friday evening just before a long heavy rain over Friday night and Saturday AM.  The 1st Hunter, Bob, thought he had a gut shot.  It was a pass through, and he described what sounded like stomach matter on the arrow.  After he hit the doe, it ran off with two other deer.   Several minutes later, it ended up right under his hunting partner Tony, who was  150 yards away.  Tony didn’t know the deer had already been hit.  Tony then proceeded to hit the same deer, in what he thought was the high lung area.  His was also a pass through, and on the phone he described only dark blood on the arrow shaft.  After the 2nd hit, the hunters waited a short time and then began to track.   At the 2nd hit, the three deer took off across an open alfalfa field for about 100 yards until they hit and crossed a thick hedgerow.  At that point the deer were out of sight.  Before dark set in on Friday night, the hunters tracked a decent blood trail to and through the hedgerow.  On the far side of the hedgerow, the hunters found and marked the last blood sign.  Before it got dark, they did a visual search of the large grassy field beyond the hedgerow – they had no luck finding the deer.  It then started raining, they backed out and made a call to Deer Search – Finger Lakes Chapter.  After talking to Bob on Friday night I arranged to meet with him late on Saturday morning -  hopefully after the rain had stopped.

On Saturday morning at 11:00 (17 hours after the hit) I met with Bob and Tony.  Associate handler Jacen Dallas and my son Nate were also with us.  During the interview with the hunters we found that hunter #1 didn’t have his arrow with him and hunter #2 had cleaned off his arrow because it smelled too much!!!  Luckily, hunter #2 didn’t clean off his fletching.  While examining the fletching,  I was able to identify some stomach contents so it seemed that the high lung shot may have exited through the stomach – hopefully hitting the liver on its way.

We decided to start this trail at the 2nd hit site.  Luckily even after the rain, we were able to find a little blood at the 2nd hit site to get Thor started.  It was the only blood we would see.    We then proceeded across the alfalfa field  in the general direction the 2nd hunter described.  During this first 100 yard section, Thor wandered back and forth over a 10 ft wide path, but still in the right direction towards the hedgerow.   I thought this was pretty OK, since both hunters and the three deer had all taken this general path across the field the night before.  Thor also has a tendency, early on a trail, to wander a little. 

After the early excitement wears off,  he then begins to stick closer to the line.  On the trail, we got to the hedgerow in a minute or two.   At that point Thor found a narrow trail through the hedgerow and took us through it.  Directly in front of us, we found the last blood marker that the hunter had left the previous evening.  On the other side of the hedgerow was the large open grassy field the hunters had searched the previous evening. 

When Thor hit the last blood marker he took an immediate left right along the edge of the field towards an area of thick brush.  Now, Thor had his nose on the ground and was pulling hard in a straight line towards the brush.  It made sense to me that the deer would head towards the thick stuff after clearing the hedgerow.   Just about the time I thought “ now he’s really on it “, someone behind me yelled “there it is”!   

There, 50 yards away to my right, in the middle of the grassy field, I could easily see the dead deer.   Now, in hindsight I wish that I would have ignored the deer and continued on the trail with Thor, hoping that he would lead me back around to the deer,  but instead, we all headed directly towards the downed deer.  As evidenced by the two through holes in the deer,  is was the doe we were after.  Both hunters said that the  deer was not there the previous evening when they searched the field, so it made sense that the deer may have gone into the thick brush and then later came out into the field and died. 

I was really interested to see Thor’s reaction when he got to the 1st real deer he has seen.  After a moment’s hesitation when he first saw it, he began pulling on its hair.  I let him do it for a minute then pulled him off.  He didn’t show any real aggression initially around the deer, but then at one point during the picture taking, he did bare his teeth for a second at Jacen who was behind him.  During the autopsy of the deer we figured out that the first hunter had only a low intestine only shot, while the 2nd hunter's shot hit 1 lung, liver and stomach.  All-in-all it was a good initial experience for Thor.  I just wish I had stayed on the trail to see if he would have ended up at the deer. Sometimes, it’s hard to teach an old handler new tricks !

We’ve been on 1 other sortie since this one.  It was a gut hit that we went on only 10 hours after the hit (didn’t know it was a gut hit till we got on site).  Thor took a good line for about 400 yards until we got onto private land where we could not continue.  At the end, we also jumped about 10 deer, which he started barking at once he saw them running.