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 !

We did not need a tracking dog to find John's doe

We finally have some venison to feed this human and canine family! Yesterday afternoon John shot a nice mature doe on our property, and it was a perfect shot. She ran 50 yards from the hit site and expired right away. We brought Kunox and did the short track with him. He really liked the doe but showed no sign of possessiveness towards us. Good boy Kunox! 

Then we brought two pups, Volt and Luna, and let them find the doe too. Volt was much more aggressive towards the deer than Luna was, and even though he was fine with us he really did not like Luna to be too close to "his" deer. 

Mielikki got to inspect the doe too.

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.

First recovery for Razen Kane, a blood tracking dachshund puppy from Illinois

Ray Holohan, a United Blood Trackers member from Ashkum, Illinois, has shared some good news about his puppy Razen Kane. She was bred by Brian Hibbs from Iowa, and sired by Ray's tracking male Rosco.

 

Hi Jolanta, hope all is well and your tracking season going well too. I'm sending a photo of Razen's first recovery. I received a call Sunday afternoon (October 7) from a friend of a friend who knew I was looking for a fairly easy track to put Razen Kane on. She had been on three other tracks that although she had tracked well she was unable to come up with a recovery.

 

This guy had made a pretty good shot on this doe, then gave it some time before trailing. The first 300 yards of the track he said the blood trail looked like someone poured it out of a bucket, the next 200 yards he had pretty steady drops to where it crossed a road and into a high grass waterway. After they entered the waterway the doe jumped up and ran down the field towards the river. At this point they backed out. By time I got there with Razen the track was about 8 hours old. I started her at the road and into the waterway, she went zig zagging and checking her way through. I was unable to see any blood in the waterway until we came out of it and she was on the blood. Then she proceeded down the edge of a bean field, through a cocklebur patch, into a dried creek bed and out of it to where she found the doe. The track was about 200 yards long, she went right up to the deer and started smelling and licking it, then looked at me as she were saying "so this is what a deer looks like". It was a great track for her and she had to work at it. The deer was a heart shot and still managed to go about 800 yards. I helped the guy drag it out and my wife Claudia had a hard time holding Razen back. She knew it was her deer and wanted it.

Take care Ray, Rosco, Razen and Claudia

 

Ray Holohan with Razen Kane and the doe she recovered. It was her first recovery!