A neck-shot deer recovered 20 hours after the shot

Claudia Holohan and her wirehaired dachshund Razen seem to be on fire. This is one of their latest finds as reported by Ray, Claudia's husband.

Razen and Claudia found another nice buck. The hunter called the night before that he had shot a buck in low light and was not sure of the shot placement. When he found only a few drops of blood he decided to back out and call us.

We decided to wait till morning since we weren't sure of the hit. Next morning we packed Razen and Ruff up and drove to the area. I brought Ruff along hoping it was going to be a easy track and I would let her run after Razen located it. Claudia started Razen at hit site and it wasn't long before she found the blood and was tracking a relatively easy trail with moderate blood from single drops to cluster of drops. She tracked it out of the timber where I took over across a cut corn field to a 2 acre swamp low area with lots of cover.

At this point she continued by the swamp along a standing corn for about 300 yrds where I turned her around and headed back to the swamp since I haven't seen any more blood. Once we got back to the swamp I put her on last blood where she worked it out and headed into the swamp. Once in it I was picking up blood here and there and she was making a number of checks. We found a wound bed that had a moderate amount of blood.. As I worked my way through the swamp I noticed the blood wasn't dried blood but really bright and fresh looking. As I got out of the swamp there was a few more clusters of fresh blood, I told the hunter that I think we blew him out of there and he agreed. We decided to give him some more time and backed out.

Claudia came back with Razen 3 hours later and put her on last blood. It didn't take long before she wanted to jump the fence and go into the standing corn. She went cross the rows about 60 rows and found the buck. The hunter was one happy camper hugging Claudia and smiling from ear to ear, first comment was "how the hell am I going to get him out of here".

To Claudia's surprise was that the buck had been shot in the neck and just expired after being shot 20 hrs before. If the hunter had told me a neck shot I probably would have told him that if he hadn't found it that we probably wouldn't either. The hunter was using two-bladed blood runner; this is a twin razor blade that expands even further on contact to 2 1/2". The arrow had broken off and I think was working on him when he was moving causing more damage and keeping the blood flowing. So I think I will have to reconsider the next neck shot track and at least take a look.

Thank you Ray for the informative post and congratulations to you, Claudia, Razen and Ruff on such a good recovery. As John said in his book the neck is not a good target for bowhunters. If the spinal cord and the major blood vessels are not disrupted, the deer is likely to keep going and soon will stop bleeding. It looks like what you encountered was a special situation.

Matt and Heidi find their first real deer

As breeders we are always thrilled to hear about first recovery done by a pup out of our breeding. Heidi (Uma von Moosbach-Zuzelek) will be six months old in a week. She is owned by Matt Sacco from Ithaca, NY. Matt is a Deer Search and United Blood Tracker member.

Hey John and Jolanta,

Heidi found her first buck tonight. A friend called me at 5:00 saying he had hit a buck an hour ago and saw the arrow clip a branch. The buck flinched and turned towards him at the last second. He thought he hit just in front of the shoulder and came out behind the opposite shoulder. The deer ran hard for 40 yards and then stopped and stood. It then walked slowly down the edge of a standing corn field away from the hunter. The hunter said the tail was twitching rapidly and thought the deer was staggering but never saw it fall. He found his arrow at the hit site and saw what seemed like a decent blood trail, but played it safe and backed out for a few hours. Heidi didn't have any trouble with the track. As we got further down the line we found 5 places where the deer stopped and stood and bled into large puddles. 225 yards later Heidi claimed her prize. Turns out the deer was hit in the neck and the arrow exited through the opposite armpit.

Heidi is an awesome dog and everyone that meets her says "what kind of dog is that?" Or "she is so cute and so well behaved". All of my coworkers love her and family members are all crazy about her. She has changed our life style for the better and She has taught me so much. You guys picked the perfect dog for us. Thank you so much for everything.