When a track is a success?

We all get that question, "What's your success rate?".  In the leashed tracking dog states we have to tell them, "Around 35%" because we know that what they are asking for is the frequency with which we find the deer and tag it. It goes without saying that the non-productive 65% are FAILURES.

If you have tracked for a while you come to realize that it's not that simple. Some of those FAILURES, when you didn't get the deer, actually become sources of pride and satisfaction. Our tracking adventure this afternoon is a good illustration.

We got the call this morning. The buck had been hit behind the shoulder late the previous afternoon with a Rage expandable broadhead. As happens, all too frequently, there had been inadequate penetration, four to five inches. The one thing that made me take the call was detail that the buck was occasionally blowing fine droplets of blood from his nose; a lung had been penetrated, but it was impossible to know how much damage had been done. A deer can go on one lung, and the damaged lung can eventually heal and become functional again.

Another slight complication was that the hunter's son was playing that morning in a high school football game. A good father knows that family comes first! It wasn't until 1:30 PM that Jolanta, Tommy and I  started on a long ATV ride back to where we were to begin tracking. We didn't start at the hit site, which is the normal thing to do, because the buck had been eye-tracked so far the previous night. Tommy, our tracking dog, started on a drop of blood and took off across the very dry leaves and pine needles.

Occasional drops of blood reassured us that we were on a right track.

The hunter and his buddy had done a superb  of eye-tracking, the best I've ever seen, and Tommy stayed on the line for a quarter of a mile into some very thick brush that involved crawling on my hands and knees. It was a hot mid-afternoon, but I was thankful for my heavy nylon coat and chaps. I had to plow along where Tommy  was tracking. Jolanta zoomed in whenever the brush cleared to give Tommy water and encouragement to us both. Tommy was hot, but totally focused on his  work. He was "locked in" on the scent line now 22 hours old. We broke out into an overgrown field where the deer had bedded the night before.

John's worn out tracking coat.

In the field of dry grass and goldenrod we found no blood at all, but Tommy seemed to have footprint scent to work with. Clearly the scent line was fresher now, even though scenting conditions were at their worst. Tommy worked down through the deer runs, checking carefully to make sure at each intersection. This was a hot deer area, but Tommy seemed positive that he was on the right line. "Trust your dog!"

Tommy tracking the lung-shot wounded deer that we could not get.

I began to realize that there would be no "successful find" on this call. This buck had come too far and had stayed strong for too long. If he had been fatally gut shot, things would have been different, but clearly this buck was not  losing blood now  and he was in a condition to keep going, back into the thick stuff, as long as we wanted to follow.

The decision to quit is a delicate matter. I like to have the hunter participate and  agree that there is little chance of catching up to the deer. Would the hunter believe that we were  still on his buck and not just rambling around on hot lines of healthy deer? Then the hunter's buddy, who had been following us closely, found blood, a tiny drop, but it was fresh and still wet. I checked Tommy for briar scratches, which might have left that drop. Tommy was clean, and Tommy was right. We were still on the wounded buck, and the buck was still strong after 22 hours. We pushed on for another 200 yards with Tommy pulling confidently.

We came to an ATV trail through the thickets. Tommy pushed on across but the humans were ready to stop. The hunter knew that the trail led back to where we had originally left the ATV. We called  back Tommy and he seemed to understand. There was no getting this deer even though  he had done his best. The whole tracking adventure seemed  a success, not a failure,  both for Tommy and for the folks who had supported him from  the other end of the long tracking leash.

What do you think? Success or failure?

Going back to the ATV.

Too high expectations might spoil your tracking experience

This e-mail came from Chris Barr, a United Blood Tracker member from Indiana whose tracking partner is Gerti (Gwen von Moosbach-Zuzelek), a 3.5-year-old daughter of Billy and Gilda:

Jolanta,
So far we’re up to only 6 tracks for this season. EHD is suspected of killing many deer in IN this year and I suspect that this is a significant contributor to our lack of tracks. Attached is a pic of a buck that Gerti recovered Saturday evening on our 5th track.

The hunter shot this deer at 8:30 Saturday morning. He gave the deer 2 ½ hours prior to taking up the track. 100 yards in, he jumped the buck from a wound bed. He wisely backed out immediately. Being a fellow Trooper from the eastern part of the state, he remembered me telling him about Gerti so he gave me a call at 11:00 a.m. I was not available to go to scene until 6:00 p.m. that the evening. He felt confident that it was a liver hit. We took up the track at the hit site and with only one distraction at the beginning, Gerti seemed to lock in pretty quickly. We were getting confirmation with occasional sightings of blood and a few more wound beds. The track extended .52 miles and I only remember Gerti making two looses. She corrected herself both times and lined it out pretty quickly. On the final 30 yards, Gerti raised her head into the wind and I told the hunter that I thought she was air scenting. A few seconds later we were standing over his deer. The entire track lasted about 35 minutes.

One thing that is helping me as Gerti and I mature together, is to not have any expectations going in. We’re just fact finders that are occasionally rewarded with a warm liver to chew on…at least Gerti is. When I started out I wanted a specific number of tracks for the season and hoped for a specific number of finds. I found that this put pressure on myself, and I think in turn, I was putting pressure on Gerti. I’m trying to take more of a “I’ll take what I get and we’ll do what we can” approach. I think I’m more relaxed and I know I’m enjoying it more. Gerti, at 3 ½ , seems to be settling in to what her purpose in life is. I guess a guy never knows unless he’s stared it in the face, but I don’t think I’d take a million dollars for her.

We had about a hour and fifteen minute ride home and I let Gerti ride in the front seat like a queen. I think she was pretty proud of herself. The hunter and his family and friends that accompanied us on the track sure were. And you know I was.

Take care,

Chris and Gerti….and Oscar

Sally Marchmont and a wirehaired dachshund Petey from Vermont

One of 11 deer that Sally and Petey recovered in 2011

It was a treat to get this e-mail from Sally Marchmont, who is a licensed deer tracker in Fletcher, VT. Sally tracks with Petey (Matthias v Moosbach-Zuzelek), who is a son of FC Keena v Moosbach-Zuzelek and Susanne Hamilton's Buster (FC Clown vom Talsdeich). Petey at the age of four and a half is getting into his prime, and this is what Sally wrote:

Hi Jolanta and John -
I see you've been following the Facebook page, but it's been a long time since you heard from me and I thought you'd like to hear a little more about Petey.  We just finished our best season yet, as far as numbers of calls (33) and finds (11)  as well as the work Petey has been doing.  We had a couple of impressive 24-hour finds with little to no blood, a few frustrating tracks where we didn't get any further than the hunter, and then everything in between.  Petey has not lost any of his enthusiasm and still puts out a lot more energy than he needs to, but his eagerness doesn't seem to interfere with his thinking process as much as it used to.  He's very focused and intent on his tracking.  He's become much better at figuring out the difficult spots and it may not always be quick or graceful, but given the time to work it out on his own, he usually will.  I think he's learned a lot from my interfering with him less and giving him the time he needs to do his work.  I understand his body language a lot better now and I trust what he's telling me, though it's not easy to convince the hunter that Petey's right when we aren't seeing any blood, and sometimes finding that one drop is almost as good as finding the deer.  

We found our first bear last year and he took to that without a problem.  I had to use my gun for the first time this year and in a classic case of beginner's luck, I hit the deer just right and it died almost instantly.  I didn't like it one bit, but this deer would have suffered and died anyway and it had to be done.   We had a warm season and only just got snow a few days ago, which might account for the higher number of calls this year.  Over the last couple of years I've been getting more calls from people I've tracked for before or their friends and family, so the more calls we take, the more calls we get and I'm hoping for even more next year. 

Petey is a very healthy, active dog, full of quirks and an absolute pleasure to live with.  We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves this season, learned a lot and we're looking forward to many good years ahead.  Hope you both had a safe and successful tracking season.
I'm attaching a couple more pictures - the bear was from last year but it's one of my favorites. Petey was the proudest I have ever seen him when he found that bear. The other one is an 8-pointer we found on opening day this year. All the blood had been rained away, not too difficult for Petey but impossible for the hunter.

Related posts:
http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2008/11/sally-and-petey-deer-tracking-team-from.html
http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2009/03/sally-and-petey-hit-jackpot-evolution.html
http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2009/12/great-tracking-season-for-sally-and.html

Realities of blood tracking with dogs

Most of the time handlers of blood tracking dogs write about their successes when they find a wounded deer or bear that the hunter could not find on his own. After reading these success stories novice handlers might have unrealistic expectations and become discouraged when their own tracking attempts do not always end up with recovered game. There are many potential reasons why a tracking team fails to recover wounded game. The account below of 36 hours in a life of tracker John Jeanneney will present the reality of occasional failures.

This story starts at 1 PM on October 17 when John and Joeri started to track for Bill Cafariella of Charlton, NY. Bill shot a really nice buck at 6 PM on Sunday, October 16. He thought that he had a gut shot deer that probably had not gone too far. He tracked it for a while but then it started to rain. There was probably half an inch of rain overnight, and next morning all signs of blood were washed away.

On the approach to the hit site.

 John and Joeri started to track on Monday at 1 PM, and I went along to take pictures. Joeri with difficulty carried the line for 300 yards, and after that he no longer seemed to be positive. Around 3 PM I asked John whether he was ready to go home as I had to go to a post office to ship some books. His firm and very emphatic answer was “no”. I drove to a nearby post office, which was closed for an afternoon break, and when I got back to, 45 minutes later John was still in the woods searching. He searched the area until 5:30 PM, but Joeri never picked up the line again. We left disappointed feeling that the buck was lying dead nearby.

Bill and his eight friends resumed the search and found the deer next day, totally devoured by coyotes, in the brambles, probably 65 yards from where Joeri had lost the track. Coyotes left only the deer head intact. When we started to track we were under the impression that the deer was gut shot through the stomach as Bill found some corn on the ground. Actually the arrow had come down through the shoulder blade, passed through the chest cavity and exited out of the bottom of the stomach. The deer must have died very quickly, and coyotes must have destroyed it during the first night. We are not sure whether the abundant coyote scent in the area was a problem for Joeri.

Bill with the remains of his buck.

While John was working on Bill's buck, another call came in. This one was from Fernando Gonzales, for whom we tracked a bear two years ago. He needed John to track a bear for his friend. Fernando was sure that Andrew Torres’ bear was dead or mortally wounded as they found 15 feet of small intestine. Under normal circumstances John does not track bears at night. But knowing that the bear would be dead, he decided to go. So we drove back home where John got a quick meal, and after a short break he drove to Rensselaerville and took Billy with him.  John was taken to the point of loss rather than the hit site, and it was heavily tracked up. The cover was very thick with dead falls. Billy was unable to take a positive line out of the area so John decided to come back home and resume the search next morning. When John and Billy went back next morning they made a large 200 yard radius circle around point of loss and managed to pick up the line. They tracked 150 yards to the dead bear. The 200 pound bear was wounded low in the abdomen, and he would have not been found without Billy.

 

Andrew Torres (hunter), John and Billy (the tracking team) and the bear.

The same morning that John and Billy found the bear another hunter at the lodge, Ron Burris, had shot a large buck too far back. Material on the the arrow showed that it had passed through the stomach. Ron had waited a couple of hours, then jumped a deer from a bed, but here was not enough blood for him to track. John and Billy began to track this deer shortly after noon. They jumped the deer still strong and tracked it through rough cover for 2 miles. The deer remained strong so when he crossed the road John marked the line. With the intention of returning a few hours later John drove back home, luckily in time for dinner.

He did not get much rest as the phone rang again, and this time it was Dan Hardin, a licensed handler who does not have a tracking dog yet. Dan needed tracking services as he had wounded an eight pointer that evening. So it was agreed that John would take two dogs, Billy and Joeri, and with Dan's assistance he'd finish tracking Ron's deer first.

Around 8 PM that evening John and Dan resumed tracking. Billy started because he knew the line and the scent of the deer. Joeri who had rested more took over, and the handlers worked both dogs while getting occasional drops of blood to verify the line. They followed the buck for three more miles through rough wooded country, returning within a thousand yards of where the deer had been shot. To their amazement the deer had shown no sign of weakening after 13 hours and five miles of travel. It is very unusual that the stomach shot buck will be on his feet and moving strongly 13 hours later. But it happens. Finally the handlers picked up the dogs and headed for the road where they were picked up by another hunter from the lodge.

John and Dan then drove about 10 miles to Greenville, where Dan lives and where he had shot the deer. It was now shortly before midnight. John handled Joeri, who found the deer in 200 yards. The deer was shot in the back part of the ribcage and the arrow had passed through the liver. 

John was in his bed at 1:30 AM.

Joeri with Dan's deer.

Another deer recovered by Karma. Some thoughts on recovery rates.

My apologies to the readers for a long silence but I was away from home for a week and found it impossible (too busy) to post while on the road. Ten days ago this report from Kevin Armstrong from Deer Search came:

Fresh snow on the trail made problems for the hunter who shot this nice Bristol, NY 11 pointer. No problem for Karma. She found the deer in less than 1/2 hour. No. 4 for the season.

I knew that Kevin has taken 29 calls at the time and asked him what in his opinion was the reason for the fact that he recovered only four deer. Thank you Kevin for your insights:

Jola, Karma did outstanding work. In my opinion this years low recovery rate is due to poor call quality. In addition, in three cases the deer was taken by someone else before we got to it. In one case, which is under investigation by en con police, the antlers will probably be the 4th biggest buck ever taken in NYS. In another case my hunter tracked down the guys who took the deer and got a photo. That was an 8 pointer who would have probably scored around 160. In a third case we were under observation by a stranger in a car on a nearby road throughout the track. No doubt the deer was removed with a motor vehicle and stashed somewhere nearby. Some people will do awful things to own a really big buck. Unfortunate. In most of the other trails we ultimately jumped the deer and in most cases chased it for significant distances before abandoning the trail. If we include the three deer that were taken before we got there I think we had a 100% success rate at recovering all the mortally wounded deer we went after. I believe that if the deer is out there, dead, Karma and I will find it. That said it is hard to hold such a positive attitude after 9 or 10 trails without a recovery. I suppose we all have to expect some good years, some bad years, and some average years. I just hate to have below average years while my little dog is in her prime.

The season isn't over yet. Anything could happen. My goal is always 25% with a stretched goal of 33%. If I recover the next couple deer I go after I suppose I'm doing OK. We had a master tracker with an outstanding dog in FLC DSI last year who only recovered 1 in 28 or some such figure. No fault of his, just the way it rolls.

We can't recover all the deer tracked but we can educate hunters.

Genti Shero has an interesting post Blood Tracking Success Depends On?, where he speaks of his frustration of getting only one deer recovered of seven deer and one bear tracked. Also a couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail from one of our 2010 puppy buyers who wrote:

"Jolanta and John,
Hello. We were wondering if you could offer some pointers or advice. Buford has went on two tracks that were successful finding deer but the last 2 have been unsuccessful. Is this common? Should we be doing something different? We understand that he is young, but we just want to make sure that this is not an uncommon thing. Or if there is something different we should be doing.

One of the tracks there was very little blood, the other he was tracking for miles and we kept seeing blood but then we came to a 20 acre cornfield and lost the trail. Can you offer any suggestions on what to do in these situations?"

Yesterday I talked to Tim Nichols, an outstanding Deer Search blood tracker, who just had gone through a dry spell of 0 recoveries per 8 calls; then on the weekend he recovered two difficult deer. We talked for a long time, and we both came to the conclusion that perhaps inexperienced trackers and people who are just getting into this sport don't realize how tough blood tracking really is. Maybe images and stories  of successful recoveries do not show a realistic pictures what is involved in tracking wounded game with dogs. For every successful track you usually go on many trails that don't not end with a dead deer and celebration.

I recall an e-mail that Kevin Armstrong sent to Chris Barr last year, when Chris was frustrated with his puppy. I really like what Kevin wrote:

In Deer Search we think of our mission in terms of education. Of course finding the deer is important but there will be 3 or 4 or 5 we do not recover for every one we do recover. We gain experience in a single season that will surpass what most hunters experience in a lifetime of hunting. We have an opportunity to teach hunters a great deal about shot placement and game anatomy. I'm learning to take a great satisfaction in the education I pass along on deer calls. It sounds like your getting plenty of experience for your dog. I think that field experience is the key to unlock a hunting dogs natural ability and potential. Keep at em!

I think that reading John's old post from 2008 http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-is-your-success-recovery-rate.html might be very helpful for those who have not seen it.

To illustrate trackers' inability to find all the deer that they track, I'd like to close with Larry Gohlke's recent e-mail. He received this message and picture from Mike Crist, a hunter that three weeks ago he tracked this particular deer (and did not find) for. Even though Larry could not find the deer first time around (it was not gettable), his time was not wasted. Read on...

Good morning Larry,

Just wanted to forward a picture of the deer you and Nix were on the trail of back on October 20th. I was lucky enough to shoot this deer on November 1st for the second time. As I mentioned in our brief phone conversation the deer was hit low and just in front of the front legs, this by no means was a fatal wound and it was healing good.

Thanks again for helping me out, you can't possible imagine how terrible I felt after making such a poor shot. I'm surprised I was even out there hunting as that had taken all the air out of my sails.

I just received my book on trailing wound deer and I'm going to be contacting you again after I finish it up ( If that's alright with you). Meeting someone like yourself is a real treat and makes a guy like myself look at things a little differently. I have always been interested in how dogs or any animal use their nose to track and find things. I believe I most likely going to be in the market for a good German Wired Hair Dachshund in the future as what we did on October 20th was really fun and I could see myself doing this more in the future……...
Again, thanks so much!

Mike Christ with the deer he shot for the second time on November 1. Larry Gohlke and Nix tracked this deer when he was shot for the first time on October 20; it was a brisket wound and the deer was not gettable.

By the way, if you'd like to educate hunters about shot placement and right tactics for finding wounded deer, consider pointing them to John's book  Dead On! Deer Anatomy and Shot Placement for Bow and Gun Hunters. Tracking Techniques for Wounded Whitetails.  It was written for hunters who have no access to tracking dogs.

What is your success (recovery) rate?

by John Jeanneney

Full Cry, December 2008

What’s your success rate? This question is so simple… and so complicated. I hear it a lot, and I know that the people who ask expect to hear a high figure like 90%. Some tracking dog/handler teams, in some parts of the country, may get close to this figure, but usually the percentage will be far lower. Let me explain.

If I really wanted to impress the Guinness Record Book folks, I would move to a part of Texas west of the Piney Woods, to a county where it is legal to use up to two dogs, off lead, to track, locate and possibly bay up the wounded deer. I would want a big dog, like those used by Roy Hindes in South Texas, who can stop and bay a deer, even if it has a potential for many miles of travel. Some of these bayed, wounded deer might otherwise survive, but the management objective is to satisfy the hunter and keep alive only the healthiest deer.

By contrast in the North most state regulations require that the tracking dog be worked on a long leash at all times. The majority of northern deer hunters clearly want it this way. And because of small properties, numerous highways, and big, dog-hungry coyotes, I personally wouldn’t want to do it any other way.

Getting back to Texas, most of it is dry country with tough tracking conditions. To avoid messing up the dogs, and to avoid pushing the wounded deer too far, hunters are discouraged from trying to eye-track on their own. “Easy deer” that might be found by the hunter, according to the “do it yourself tradition” of the North, end up being found by the dog in the Texas. This makes for better success ratios. This difference is a factor in many of the Gulf states as well.

It’s pointless to argue that the Texas dogs, for example, are better than the northern dogs because the Texas numbers are better. Traditions and conditions are very different around our country. To each his own.

Both North and South, recovery percentages can be manipulated to improve recovery rates. Every handler has to turn down a few deer calls because it’s extremely unlikely that the deer is seriously injured. For example I had a hunter call me because “his” buck snorted after the shot. Another showed me the white tail that he had shot off.

The magic of the dog only goes so far! Personally, I turn down the high back hit cases in which the deer went down instantly, and then, while the hunter was congratulating himself, took off. “He couldn’t have gone far. I hit him hard!”

But in between the low percentage calls and the dead certain calls there’s a broad range of requests that you just can’t be sure about. The wind was blowing so hard that the hunter couldn’t find any hair, white or brown, at the hit site. It could be purely a muscle shot, non-fatal, or a stomach shot certain to kill the deer. The handler, himself, might be able to evaluate the hit in the first 200 yards, but he has to make his decision to take the call on what the hunter tells him over the phone.

If the tracker plays it safe and takes only the sure kill cases, he will have an impressive success ratio. But he will find fewer deer overall than the tracker who takes most calls that come in. Somehow, I think that this problem is easier to handle in states where the handler gets paid, no matter what the outcome. In New York State the bankers get paid pretty well, no matter what happens, but tracking dog handlers are forbidden by state regulations from charging a fee. In New York we track for love… and don’t misinterpret me. In a good season we find a third of the deer we track. But we are proud of this because we are also accomplishing other things.

We did not recover a deer on this call, but we were quite certain at the end of the call that it was not mortally wounded.

Another Way of Evaluating a Tracking Sortie

If an experienced handler tracks a deer a half mile, he usually has a pretty good idea of how it is hit and how likely it is to survive. He has inspected the hit site much more carefully than most hunters, and he may have found bone fragments of even broken teeth. Interpreting hair at the site is a fine art which he has mastered. As he starts out on the line his dog shows him sign that the hunter may have missed: smears on weeds and brush that indicate how high the wound is on the deer; only one blood drop in twenty may show the watery consistency and dark color of a stomach shot, but the close working tracking dog points it all out. The team tracks far beyond the hunter’s point of loss or where he quit. If the dog finds a cold bed with only a few drops of blood, this strongly suggests that the deer is going to make it. If the deer jumps fences 12 hours after being hit, this is also a sign that the deer is in pretty good shape.

It rarely does happen that a deer shot far back in the large bowel is both mortally wounded and unobtainable. The handler can follow it with his leashed tracking dog, but it will not die for days. A jaw-shot deer is in a similar situation. Then he will wish he were in Texas or one of the Gulf states where the dog could be released.

In any case the tracking dog that follows the line perfectly, but fails to find the unfindable deer, is not a failure. This dog did his job, yet the handler can’t claim a find. His recovery rate/success rate actually goes down a few percentage points. Still the experienced handler, with his professional attitude, believes that his dog was a success.

How does the hunter feel about it? After 890 deer calls, I find that the hunter feels much better for knowing what happened, even if he did not tag that deer. Of course he wanted the trophy and venison, but knowing that the deer did not die a lingering death and then feed the coyotes is the next best thing.

For the large landowner managing his property for quality deer, it is also important to know what happened. What was the real deer harvest on his acreage as opposed to the guesstimates of his hunters? What actually happened to the quality bucks? Will they be available for future seasons as breeders and trophies?

I was never very good at numbers. I can add and subtract all right, but I would prefer to avoid the higher math of calculating success rate percentages. The important thing is tracking and finding as many deer as you can!

John and Billy recovered this buck in 2007.