John Jeanneney, a passionate tracker, recovers another wounded deer with his dachshund Tommy

John turned 80 years old in April, and I did not anticipate that he would be tracking this season. I should have known better! It seems that I tend to underestimate his drive and passion for tracking wounded game as this is what he lives for. The story was written by him and describes the track that ended with his 4th deer recovered this year. It was also his 302nd recovery through lifetime.

Brambles and grapevines are a great mix to keep an old man agile and active. The necessary dodging, ducking and crouching does more good than any workout at the gym. Each call I take is tougher than the last, but my legs get stronger to meet the challenge.

The call I took on Tuesday, November 11, taught me a few things. It was a big bow-shot buck, hit “too far back" at 8 AM. The hunter and his buddies had tracked it about a half mile. Then the blood sign ran out, and I was called in at 2:30 PM. There was plenty of scent, and it was no problem for Tommy to start and follow. After only a hundred yards we jumped the buck, and he made a tight circle in a thick swamp with a deep creek flowing through it. When you get wet, you stay cool.

And I was happy to see that the buck was staying close in thick stuff. He won't go far, I thought. Ha! After that tight loop, he lined out through the briars for over a mile. The creek meandered back and forth so that we could cool off several times. The steep clay slopes had me on my hands and knees coming out. I envied Tommy's four legs and claws.

We crossed a harvested corn field. ...no blood, but I could see the big splayed hoof prints on into a stretch of open hardwoods. Much easier going. Then we found a bed with a few smears of blood. But the buck was gone, and we tracked after him as fast as we could go, which wasn't very fast.

Now it was getting dark. The hunter and I agreed that we wouldn't catch up any time soon, and we had no lights with us. I marked the scent line as it came out of another creek, and we slopped our way out to a road where we were picked up.

Our plan was to pick up the line the next morning and track to the buck that should be dead or very weak. That was the plan, but what are plans in the passion of the hunt?

The next morning, as I was getting ready to leave for the track, the hunter called. He hadn’t been able to sleep, and he had worried about the coyotes. At 1:30 AM he had gone back to my marker and searched ahead for a 100 yards. There was the 10 point buck, dead.

Because I tracked it 1 1/2 miles without blood, I'm claiming it as a find for Tommy. But Tommy never got a chew.

This was John's 4th recovery this year and 302nd lifetime.

The other two pictures show deer recovered by John and Tommy in October.

A nice 9 pointer recovered by John Jeanneney and his tracking dachshund Tommy

Yesterday John and Tommy found this nice 9 pointer in Rensselaerville, NY.  The line was only about 7 hours old, but there was no blood to verify. The hunter started John and Tommy in the wrong direction and it took them a while to pick up the right scent line.
 

Practical application of "search" command in tracking wounded deer

By Darren Doran (and FC Theo von Moosbach-Zuzelek)

I finally got a chance to hunt last night for myself. I passed a small buck and when I got out of the woods there was a message from a hunter needing help to recover a deer. He had shot the buck from a ground blind at 2:10 and watched him cross an 100 yard rye field and lay down on the edge of it and a hedge row. He could see blood low on the deer’s side with his binoculars. The deer was there for about 40 minutes then got up and walked with difficulty into the hedge row.

The hunter snuck out of the blind and looped around the deer by going up the neighbor’s driveway. He tried to get another arrow into the deer but it didn’t make through the brush. The deer got up and was gone. The hunter searched until dark and found a couple drops of blood on a tractor road between the hedge row and the standing corn.

The weather forecast for today originally called for a drenching 2 inches of rain. I checked the forecast and it had been scaled back to steady rain starting in the night and ending in the afternoon. I elected to take the track in the morning to give the deer plenty of time to die.

I arrived at 7:30 and it was raining steady but not that bad and there was no wind. When I start Theo I always start at the hit site even if the is no blood there. If the hunter has an arrow, I will let Theo smell it, if not, I tell him to “search”. The reason for this is that I want Theo to end up at the hunter’s first blood sign. If he does, that I’m pretty sure he knows what deer we want before he even smells blood.

In this case there was no arrow. Theo searched around the bait piles in an ever winding circle and suddenly he tracked across the rye field right to the bed. There was still visible blood despite the rain and you could see it on both sides of where the deer had laid. Theo tracked down the hedge row through it and onto the tractor road where the hunter had found the last blood. Theo tracked down the road then turned into the corn. This seemed logical to me and I went with him. After a while he tracked out of the corn and to a large green field and into it. At this point I was starting to have my doubts. He then cut the corner and headed to another brushy hedge row and I thought, well this is better, he might be right. We got in there and it was apparent he didn’t have it. 

This problem of dropping the right line and taking the fresher line I believe has started because during the last 5 recoveries we have done, we have put out our deer and went hot. It’s almost as if now he expects it to happen. What I’ll do in this case if I think he’s wrong is I just stop on the line. I don’t say a word to him and I let him pull against the leash. This may take a half a minute but I just stand there. If he’s not right or not sure he’ll pick up his head and most times he comes back down the leash. I then tell him in a stern voice “get back on the line find the blood”. If he went too far from the know line and this command is not reasonable, I pick him up and restart. That’s what I did in this case and we went back to the first bed.

Theo tracked right to the last blood and it was obvious that this deer had spent a lot of time in this area. Theo smelled what could have been beds from this deer. He then began to systematically search every deer run in the hedge row along the corn field. We got to the end to where the corn ended and the green field began and he began searching the runs to the left of the corn in the hedge row but between the green field. He went about 100 yards and wanted to go back to the last blood and we did. This time he was searching the corn side of the hedge row. He would go in, search, come back out, go down and go back in, search and come back out. 

This went on for a while then all of a sudden he didn’t come out and the leash was still going out. We were on a different line from the first trip through the corn and I went with him. I told the hunter to look down the rows as we went through them in case the deer was laying there. I couldn’t see Theo but I could see the tops of the trees and I knew we would be out of the corn soon. I did see some white hair on the track but it could have come from any deer. I never saw any blood on the line except for the first bed. Theo tracked out of the corn and into a hedge row next to a horse corral. I stayed put at the edge of the corn and I could tell he was searching. He came out of the hedge row and down along the corral and stopped. This is where a 50 foot lead comes in handy. I asked him to “search here’’ and he came back to me and went back into the corn and in 20 yards he had the deer. I don’t know if the deer came out of the corn and back in or he just missed it, but neither the hunter nor I saw it laying in the row as we passed.

This track took almost 2 hours. I love watching this dog trying to figure out a track. He knew where he last smelled the deer and he knew the line had to be there. The way he systematically picks apart the terrain is just a pleasure to watch. The way he buries his nose in the ground under leaves or raises up to smell high weeds or brush are his natural working style. I’ve never taught him anything like this. You can almost see the thought process on his face when he’s searching and he never gives up.

Theo’s reputation in Jersey is growing. I haven’t placed an ad anywhere in the state this year and my phone doesn’t stop ringing. I have successfully tracked for the research professor in charge of our tracking permit as well as the Division of Fish and Wildlife on a game violation case. Leashed tracking dogs are starting to turn heads in the right places. I’m starting to get a good feeling about the probability of legalization in the state, but only time will tell.

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

Some young dachshunds are already proficient trackers of wounded deer

It's very satisfying to see that young dogs out of our 2013 Sky x Mielikki litter are providing a real service to deer hunters.

Matt Sacco is a member of Deer Search of Finger Lakes  and so far he has recovered four deer this season with Heidi (Uma von Moosbach-Zuzelek). The last one was his Heidi's first Big Buck:

Hey John and Jolanta,

Heidi and I had a great morning.  I got a call from one of our hunters who is part of a deer management program in Trumansburg, NY. The hunter shot this deer yesterday and knew the shot was far back just at the edge of the rib cage. The deer was standing on a pond bank so after the arrow went through the deer it went into the pond washing off any evidence. There was no visible blood trail leading away from the hit site, and the buck ran into a swampy area of cattails and other thick vegetation. The hunter backed out at that point and called me. I met him this morning at 9:00am, 15 hours after the shot and started Heidi. We found the buck in his first bed less than 200 yards from where the hunter lost the trail. Both arrow holes had fat and entrails hanging out, completely sealing the holes. I found one small drop of blood at the hit site and that was it for blood. Not a long track but one that would have been extremely difficult/ near impossible to find without a dog. Happy dog, happy handler and very happy hunter.

Thanks again for everything!

*****

Adam Hostetter owns Moose (Uncas von Moosbach-Zuzelek), and he lives in Pennsylvania, close to Maryland. Since it is illegal to use tracking dogs in PA, he tracks in the adjacent state.

Adam: Just thought I'd share a picture of yet another impressed hunter!

I got the call on October 4 that a Hunter hit a doe and could not find her. Moose and I drove down to Maryland and met the hunter this morning. After roughly 150 yards and two drops of blood Moose came to the dead doe.Here is a picture of moose and I with a happy Hunter. This dog is incredible!! Thanks again. 

I took another call this evening and Moose had success yet again! The hunter had made a decent shot but had very little blood. Moose picked up the scent at the hit sight and went to town! After traveling about 100 yards and dealing with some 90 degree turns he came right up on the dead buck! The hunter was very impressed with the quick work Moose did! I'm starting to enjoy tracking just as much as hunting!

Tracking adventures of Bob and Thor on the opening weekend

By Bob Yax, Deer Search of Finger Lakes

owner of Thor (Thor von Moosbach-Zuzelek, born April 6, 2012)

We had a good opening weekend even though the temps were in the 70s and 80s and it rained a lot.  We went on 3 calls with 2 pretty easy recoveries and a weird non-recovery.   Thor showed me that he was picking up pretty much where we left off last year.

       

The 1st call was for a hit that took place at sunset, in the pouring rain, on Friday evening.  The hunter Josh,  said he didn’t know where he hit the buck, but he did have a broadside pass through shot from about 40 yds.  He said that it looked like dark blood and stomach matter on the arrow.  After the hit, he only followed the slight blood trail a short way in the rain, before turning back.  After talking to him, we decided to pick up the trail first thing Saturday morning.  When I inspected the arrow on Saturday morning, I did find dark blood and the telltale gritty / sand-like particles that indicated stomach contents.  I told Josh that if it was a stomach only hit, the deer could still be alive, but if it also hit liver, the deer would be dead by now (13 hrs after the hit), likely within a few hundred yards.

Once at the hit site, Thor quickly picked up the scent in the still wet  hardwoods.  In the first 50 yds of the trail I was happy to come across a few spots where the blood had not been washed away.  Thor continued on a pretty straight line another 50 yds or so until he began circling and backtracking a bit.  Since the hunter had not followed the trail this far, I figured that the buck must have stopped here and wandered around a bit looking for a place to bed.   Over the next  5 minutes, Thor constantly went back and forth over the same 30 yd circle.  I learned last year that at this point I had to let him figure this out on his own.  The only help I could provided was to make sure my son Nate had marked the last blood sign up the trail a bit in case we had to go back to it.  Luckily, Thor finally headed off in a clear direction along an overgrown logging road.  After a short distance, I then saw another blood drop – Great ! we’re back on it.   After a few more blood drops in the next  75 yds down the logging road, Thor took a left off the road and there in the patch of berry bushes was the dead 7pt.  We confirmed later that the arrow had just caught the bottom of the liver as well as the stomach.   All toll, we probably only traveled about 250 yds during the 10 – 15 minute search.  

         

                                                     Hunter  with  Nate Yax & Thor in Howard NY

         

Our 2nd track was a very similar situation.  The Hunter, Cory had hit a buck on Saturday evening just before dark.  He too had a good broadside shot from about 30 yds but didn’t know where he hit it.  The arrow had blood from tip to tip but he didn’t  think there was any stomach matter on the arrow.  When he inspected the hit site,  he found some blood, but it soon began disappearing when a hard rain started.  He tracked some blood for about 100 yds, but then could find no more.  Later that night he and his father searched an area ahead of the last blood sign with no luck.   I arranged to meet him first thing Sunday morning.  Associate tracker Ark Pisarevsky was along to help.

It was very damp and foggy when we met up with Cory on Sunday morning.  This time the arrow contained a lot of bright pink/red blood – lung blood.  There was no sign of stomach contents or dark muscle or liver blood.  From the description of the hit, this could be a good double lung hit.  Once we got to the hit site, I could see that Cory had marked his initial blood trail with orange tape for about 100 yds. The area was a mix of trees with a lot of thick rose bushes at ground level.  

Thor got on the trail quickly and followed right along the markers.  There was no blood sign however. We soon got to the end of the markers and to the point where Cory and his dad had lost the trail the previous night.  At this point I knew we would have trouble.  After losing the trail the previous night, Cory and his dad had done a grid search of the area ahead, surely with blood on their boots.  At this point Thor began searching in a random pattern all around the area.  At one point we headed off into an uncontaminated area of thick rose bushes.  After about 50 yds, Thor got stuck in thorns with nowhere to go.  I had to pick him up and carry him several times just to free him.

I finally headed him back to the last blood marker and after a few minutes of seemingly random searching the “mucked up – boot print” area again,  he headed off in a straight line like he was on something.  Within a few minutes,  I looked up and saw the dead 9 pt about 40 yds ahead of  him.  The shot ended up being a good, slightly high,  double lung shot.  The buck had gone about 200 yds total.  Again it only took about 15 minutes and I never did see a spec of blood.  I was really happy to see that  Thor again had worked through a problem area and got on the right trail to the deer.

Hunter with Bob Yax and Thor in Hemlock NY

Finally we took our 3rd call late Sunday afternoon.  Associate Deer Search tracker Joe Dallas was with me.  The temperature was 82 degrees!!!  This hunter had hit the deer at 7 am Sunday.   The button buck was only 5 yds from his 16 ft high tree stand.  The deer was facing directly at him with his head down and feeding when he shot (bad shot to take!).  He described the hit, which he plainly saw, as just to the left of the deer’s  spine  (the deer’s right side) and  towards the back of the lung area. He said it was a complete pass thru and there seemed to be stomach matter as well as a little blood and white hair on the fletching.  

The arrow was stuck in the ground when he found it.  He described just a slight blood trail because again, right after he hit the deer it had rained hard.  He thought that the arrow had also been somewhat cleaned off from the hard rain.  After talking to him I agreed to help him at about 5:00.  If it was a one lung & gut hit, this might be enough time.  If it was a liver and gut hit the deer would be dead.  When I met up with him I did a quick inspection of the arrow.  The broad head and first 4 inches of the arrow was covered in dirt.  The camo arrow shaft was pretty clean with just a few area of pink/red.   The fletching were slightly greasy had a slight odor and a few grainy particles (gut matter?) on them.  Both the fletching and nock had white hair on them.

To make a 45 minute, hot /sweaty story,  shorter,   there was no blood at the hit site, no blood on the trail.  No beds found.  Thor never seemed to get hot onto any trail, until near the end when I think he jumped a live/not wounded deer – he began yelping / barking  and pulling hard, a classic sign for him.  About the time I was ready to give up,  we were back near the hunters truck.  I told Joe, “I want to see that arrow again”.  It was in the bed of the hunters truck.  I pulled a paper towel  from my pocket, spit on it and proceeded to wipe down the entire arrow and fletching.  There was not a trace of pink on the paper towel!!   The arrow did still have a little pink / red  PAINT!  on it however.    About this time the hunter came back to the truck.  He said “what now ?”  –  I said “I’ve got one question for you”-  “Did you wash your arrow” – he said no!   I said “then you never hit the deer” and showed him the clean paper towel.  He said, “maybe I need glasses”!

I learned again that often what a hunter sees and what really happened are not the same.

PS – I think this hunter shot off to the side of the deer and stuck the arrow deep into the ground.  The deer then jumped and turned 180 degrees to run off.  I think he landed belly first on the nock end of the arrow leaving some grease and white hair on it.

Two veteran trackers have started another tracking season with gusto

Hunting season opened in our pat of New York on October 1. John has taken three calls and the last one ended with a successful recovery. This is what he wrote: This buck was shot high through both lungs, but he left almost no blood. The hunter found a few drops in the first 50 yards across a golden rod field--- then nothing. Tommy had no problems with this four hour-old scent line and went another 150 yards to this nice 8 pointer. This was SO easy after the two previous deer calls that did not produce.

John Jeanneney with Tommy

Walt Dixon with Ari

Another Old Timer, Walt Dixon from Tully, NY, also recovered a very nice buck in much harder conditions. Walt tracks with a 10.5-year-old Ari (Ariel von Moosbach-Zuzelek). He wrote: I just came back from Elk Hunting in Colorado and received a call last night that a bowhunter hit a deer at 6:30 pm and after waiting a short while, and before he could start to track, the skies opened up pouring rain washing away any visible sign. He called last night, said he thought he hit the deer near the liver, and I advised him to look for the arrow in the morning and leave the deer alone. It rained again during the night and this morning he called after finding the arrow broken in half near the edge of the woods the deer entered after being shot.

 

With no visible sign, Ari smelled the arrow then entered left the grass field and entered the woods under an apple tree. She seemed to be working hard so I let her go and about 400 yards away she found the buck who was hit in front of the left rear leg, quartering toward the bowhunter, exiting low and puncturing the right rear leg. Intestines hung about 10 inches out of the bottom of the buck and there was no sign visible the entire trail. Even after all the rain, the 15 hour old trail left enough scent for Ari to recover it! This old tracking pair is off and running for another season!

Huge bucks mark a great beginning of Kasey and Boomer's tracking season

Kasey Morgan is a United Blood Trackers member from Elderon Wisconsin and he operates under the name Bloodhound Deer Tracking Services. He has had a great beginning of this tracking season with a number of very impressive bucks.

By Kasey Morgan

The 2013 Wisconsin Archery Season was upon us and the calls for tracks came in fast and furious.  Boomer, my bloodhound, would get his first action the night of opening day on a good buck hit high and slightly back from perfect.  We took up the track and Boomer made short work of the 250 yard track.  The buck had fled the scene in a completely different direction than the hunter had remembered.  The amount of sign along the track was minimal, but a fairly steady track of blood droplets.  We were on the deer in less than a half hour and Boomer was on the board with his first “fair chase” whitetail of the year. 

The next call would come in shortly after leaving our first track.  Matt Serwa of “Real Deal Mineral” had hit a deer he knew very well.  He quickly sent me a picture of the deer from one of his trail cameras, and I was amazed at the size.  He described the chain of events that lead to the shot and the shot location.  He had stomach hit the deer.  The shot was back, but looked to be center of the deer between spine and bottom of the belly.  We were dealing with a number of variables on this track.  The first issue was the fact that it had started to rain steadily and was predicted to continue throughout the night.  Being able to locate blood throughout the track is not the most important thing, but it certainly helps confirm that we are heading in the right direction.  The second was the temperature.  The temperature was predicted to stay above the 70 degree mark which would cause a gut shot deer to spoil more quickly.  Matt and I agreed that waiting until the following morning was still the best option.  Pushing the deer that night would definitely destroy our chances of a recovery.

Early the next morning Boomer took up the track.  It was still raining very steadily, and there was no sign of blood.  We began the track and Boomer followed in a similar line as was described by the hunter as the deer’s path of exit from its feeding area.  We tracked off of a food plot down into a low swamp area.  The dog became very excited and proceeded to make a right hand turn into an area full of marsh grass.  There were several deer beds in the area, none of which we were able to find blood in.  We trusted the hound as he led us on fairly straight path through the marsh and down into a creek bottom.  We had now progressed somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 yards with no visible blood.  Boomer searched both sides of the creek bank frantically looking for the scent.  He decided on a line heading westward deeper into the swamp. 

 After another 200 yards the terrain had changed from marsh grass and creek bottoms to tag alders and a foot of water.  Boomer pressed on through the water but soon appeared to have lost the track.  He began a back track and I watched as his body language showed some confusion.  As he backtracked out of the tags he soon hit the scent of the track and again progressed westward.  I was out ahead of the hunter when Boomer turned north and locked up completely along the edge of the creek.  I circled around the creek bank and was astounded at what I was looking at.  Boomer was baying like a fog horn on top of a fair chase, two hundred plus inch, whitetail deer.  I yelled back to Matt that we had found his deer.  He excitedly made his way toward me.  We exchanged high fives and the celebration was on.  We snapped some great photos and awed over the sight of such a monarch.

 

It was not the longest track we have ever run with a successful ending.  However, the 14 hours of continuous rain and the tough tracking terrain made the near one thousand yard run, my proudest moment as a tracker.  Although Boomer does not pay attention to the Boon & Crocket Scoring System but, the record book whitetail at the end was a great bonus.

Dustin McAloon of DeerFest with a massive Wisconsin 8 point!!

Adventures of Kevin and Quenotte, a tracking team from the suburbs of Northern Virginia

Kevin Wilson hunts  and tracks for BackyardBowPro which is a suburban hunter certifying organization (non-profit) in Northern Virginia. His tracking partner is Quenotte, a daughter of Joeri and Keena. He wrote a nice post about his tracking experience with Quenotte, who is just over three years old. Thank you Kevin!

17 September 2013:
Quenotte and I tracked two wounded deer this week in support of the Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA) suburban bow hunts.

The first deer was gut shot around noon and the trail had been lost amidst a series of islands and creek channels.  I started her at the shot sight and she re-traced the trail to the first water crossing.  On the other side, the hunters had marked the blood trail and she regained it quickly.  We were now on a smallish island where the hunters had lost the trail and then grid-searched causing a lot of human foot traffic.

In the middle of the island, Q's body language indicated that she was unsure and it was impossible to see blood on the trampled brush.  We re-started once at the beginning of the small island unsuccessfully.

The island was not large and the deer was definitely not on it so we moved off the island and investigated the likely crossings leaving the island.  On the first crossing site, Q made a circle then picked up the trail again and we advanced rapidly across a larger, un-trampled island with good visual blood sign accompanied by positive body language from her.  At the end of the island, she went down over a steep bank and moved along a small mud flat.  At first, I wasn't even sure how I was going to get down to her.  However, she was positive and even tried to enter the water.  After finding my way down to her, I discovered fresh tracks and deep purple blood flecks at the water's edge indicating that the deer had crossed the creek on an oblique angle.  The water was too deep to cross on foot so we circled around to the opposite bank by climbing across a downed tree.  Finally, I put her down and she moved along below the opposite bank and then tried to turn up the bank.  It was so steep that I carried her over the edge but we were rewarded with the doe lying at the very top of the bank.  The hunters were elated and impressed.  This is one of our best successes ever.

20 September 2013:
The next call was two days later and involved another gut shot doe.  The hunter had hit the doe during the previous evening and lost the trail after about 150 yds.  His lab (named Moose) was on-scene and Moose had advanced the trail some before our arrival.

Moose weighed about 80 lbs and had a lot of energy.  The hunter asked if Moose's presence would be a distraction for Quenotte and said I yes (definitely).  Moose went back in the truck.  We started the trail at a spot where the doe had crossed a road and then moved through about 100 yards of easy tracking with some blood.  The doe then entered an elongated thicket running next to a split rail fence line bordering the neighborhood.  Moose had lost the trail amidst this thicket and the hunter thought maybe the deer had turned to go under the fence and enter the adjoining neighborhood.  Note: I have never seen a suburban deer seek the neighborhood environment when wounded.  Quenotte went past the point of loss and worked through two turns inside the thicket.  Blood was present and I caught a whiff of decaying flesh so I was beginning to think maybe the deer had died in this thicket somewhere.  The trail straightened and we continued parallel to the fence along a major deer runway.

As the thicket tapered, we went past a final blood spot and then Q took the trail across an open area and entered into a denser thicket.  She was pulling hard and I was on my hands and knees trying to keep up with her (and keep the leash untangled).  We crawled through about 50 yds of ungodly mess and I could see no blood.  In retrospect, I suppose the scent trail had widened and maybe the blood was off to one side.  In the midst of the thicket, Quenotte broke into a slightly more open area and I could hear a man saying "Hello Little Fellow".  I emerged from a rabbit run brush tunnel to find Quenotte greeting a hunter who had participated in the search earlier.  He was a marking a trail through the center of the thicket (for some unknown reason).  I asked if he had seen the dead deer and he said 'no'.  Mistakenly, I assumed that Q had followed the hunter or blood scent from his boots.

There was no blood sign visible and I (mistakenly again) assumed that we had lost the trail.  I picked her up and we returned to the last blood in the previous thicket.  We started 4 more times from this spot, going in differing directions and investigating along the fence line without finding additional blood.  We back-tracked into the original thicket and tried three more starts to see if we could identify a diverging trail. At this point, we were both exhausted and I told the hunter that we were done.  He asked if he could bring Moose back out and I said 'yes' but I would hold Quenotte while Moose worked.  The hunter returned with Moose and Moose bounded through the thickets while Q and I prepared to leave.

Just as we were leaving, Moose discovered the dead deer just 50 feet beyond where Quenotte had met the hunter in the thicket.  If we had persisted with the original line, then we would have found it easily.

Certainly, the hunters would not have come close to finding the deer if we had not advanced the trail as far as we did; however, I was disappointed in myself for pulling her off the original line.  I still have much to learn about when to trust Quenotte and when to re-start her.

Reported recovery rates in these suburban park hunts exceed 90% by ratio of reported shots taken to deer recovered (archery only).  Historically, this is a very high, archery recovery rate and finding two extra deer can make a big difference at the 90% margin.  This is the 5th year of the park hunts and my participation has shifted from hunting to tracking...although I still hunt private, suburban properties.

A while back, Jolanta asked for stories of unsuccessful tracks...

February 2012:
Quenotte and I could probably write a book of lessons learned the hard way.  This is a story with an unexpected outcome from last winter.  Q and I were called out to track a doe hit in the shoulder by a very reliable crossbow hunter on a private property.  The deer had been with a group of four deer and the hunter claimed to have hit the deer in the crease 'right behind the shoulder'.  The shot site was on the bottom of a long hill and the hunter claimed that the deer had gone downhill and crossed a road into a nearby stream valley park. Reportedly, the other (un-injured) deer in the group had gone uphill.

The shot site was amidst a pile of old trash (washing machine, sewer pipe etc) and it was a difficult place to begin the trail normally and safely.  I put Q down near the hit site and she immediately turned uphill.  She went about 50 yards with no blood and I presumed that she was following an un-injured deer.  The hunter said that it was the wrong direction but she was so sure that I let her go.  We went another 200 yards uphill in the direction of massive honeysuckle thicket bordering the client's yard.  She entered the thicket with increasing certainty and I followed discovering blood in the thicket.  Although it was winter, the honeysuckle vines were dense and intertwined with various trees.  I had to relinquish the leash several times to take a different route.  On the third evolution, I returned to the leash just in time to see the tag end disappear into the thicket (to my horror).

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to catch up with the leash or the dog.  It was impossible to even tell what direction Quenotte might have gone and I was afraid that the deer would emerge from the far side of the thicket and head towards the street.  I crashed through the thicket and into the neighboring yard but the dog wasn't there and the blood trail did not emerge from the thicket.  I could not hear Quenotte in the thicket but I suspected that she was still in there so I re-entered.  To compound my troubles, the neighboring property is owned by a rabid anti-hunter so I was unable to use my larger light (he wears a blaze orange vest while gardening if we are hunting neighboring lots).

There were a lot of terrible thoughts going through my mind and I just wanted my dog back at this point.  Almost immediately, she sounded off about 20 yards into the thicket so I headed towards the sound.  To my surprise, I emerged into a small open spot with the deer lying at my feet showing only a nasty but obviously non-lethal shoulder wound.  Quenotte was on the opposite side of the deer raising hell and the deer just looked confused (but not for long).  I didn't know whether to be thrilled that I had not lost my dog or concerned that the deer was going to go ballistic after being cornered.

The deer settled the issue by regaining its feet and rocketing out of the thicket in a manner that convinced me that it would survive.  Gratefully, I picked up Quenotte and we called it a night.
The evening was a success because we located the deer cooperatively but a painful lesson learned for me on leash management.