Advanced blood tracking training is paying off for this outstanding tracking team

by Darren Doran

I took a call from an experienced hunter who had made a good hit on a buck last evening, but bumped him out of his bed and across a road. The hunter had followed good blood to a dead fall and green briar thicket and found multiple beds there very close together. After he had put the buck up he left the area. This is usually a good sign and I figured we would find the deer dead right on the other side of the road and I told the hunter that. Being somewhat superstitious I certainly jinxed myself with that statement. 

We met at 7:30 next morning and went to the hit site. There had been turkeys everywhere and they were right in front of us. Theo got a whiff of them, and I corrected him hard right away. This was our first exposure to them this year and I needed him to know I wanted nothing to do with them. We started tracking and the blood was just as the hunter said. We tracked through to the road, which was so busy that I carried Theo across. I set him down on the other side, which was an old dilapidated house. Theo went around back and across the front yard and into the woods. After some searching he showed me some blood and we were off tracking. I kept looking ahead expecting to see the buck at any minute but it didn’t happen and I hadn’t seen any blood in a while. We were tracking to a thicket and I thought this is where he is. Theo checked all the runs into it but didn’t take a line. He went back into the woods then across a rail road track into a brushy field next to an occupied house. We didn’t have any weapons because the road we crossed was the dividing line of two hunting zones. The hunter didn’t have a permit to hunt on this side of the road. I really didn’t think this dear was alive anyway so it didn’t matter to me. The way Theo was working I actually thought the deer would be in this field.

Theo searched every inch of this area and went to the backyard of the house and started pulling across the mowed yard. I told the hunter that we couldn’t cross without permission, but I would pick up Theo and walk down the tracks and set him down in a controlled search on the other side of the yard. Theo worked the brush along the yard and in about 10 yards took a hard right into the woods. We hadn’t seen blood in a long while but he was tracking like he does when he’s got it so I went with him.

All of a sudden the hunter called out that he found blood. He had found a pin drop on a yellow maple leaf. I don’t know if he was good or just lucky but it didn’t matter -- we had the deer. Just when I was feeling good I looked up and the woods looked like someone had gone through it with a leaf blower. The turkeys had torn this part of the woods apart, there was no leaf left untouched. This worried me more than Theo and he tracked through it like it wasn't there. 

We were soon heading back into thick swampy brush and green briars. I thought any time now the leash will stop and he’ll be on the deer, but it didn’t happen. He did track to a bed with blood in it and I knew we had to be close. I was working through the briars and all of a sudden the leash stopped. Finally I thought we got him. I worked around a corner in the briars and Theo’s standing on the bank of a river. There was blood at the bank and Theo jumped in. He went right under and I knew it was deep. He popped up and swam back to the bank. There was no way across. We would have to go back out of the woods to the train tracks and cross the trestle to get on the other side. 

I marked the spot on the GPS and hung a ribbon but before I left I told Theo to “search”. I wanted to make sure the deer crossed and didn’t back track away from the deep water. Theo went up and down the briar choked bank and didn’t find anything he liked. He came back to the crossing so we made our way out of the wood and to the trestle. I carried Theo across and we started to navigate to the spot where the deer had crossed. 

The rail road had cut all the trees at the bottom of the tracks and killed all the vegetation on the slopes. It was nasty but we found a spot we could get down to the river and we slid down the bank of the tracks. We got to about where the crossing was and I started Theo. He went down a run away from the river and in twenty yards the leash stopped. I wasn’t even paying attention and I walked right up to Theo and the deer. 

When I called out “I got em” I don’t think the hunter believed me. This track was almost 2 miles including the searching and the river crossing. I believe the deer actually traveled 9^ths of a mile before dying. When we gutted this deer it was hit through 1 lung, through the center of the liver, and the 2 inch rage had cut the back lobe of the second lung. The deer was dead for a while. I firmly believe the rut plays an important part on their ability to stay alive when they should be dead.

Those of you who know me from this blog know I’m big on training. Some of the things I train for I used today. Theo is 2 ½ now and try as I might I can’t duplicate on a training line the experience he’s getting this season. The only way to finish a dog is to get him in the field and work him. This is his second tracking season and we’ve taken 39 calls so far. We’re getting to the point that we’re becoming a true team. He knows what is going on when we cross roads. He understands when we have a live deer why we stop and wait. He understands how to restart a line after he’s been picked up and set down. He knows how to do a controlled search. He knows how to stay with the right deer and search till he finds the right deer. He knows how to accept my help when he needs it, and I know what is going through his mind while he’s working. This season is going to truly develop and cement Theo’s foundation as a tracking dog and "us" as a team. 

Recovery #27 of the 39 tracks.

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.

Andy Bensing's tracking analysis and feedback for the hunter

Andy Bensing likes to keep very thorough, detailed records of his deer tracking services, and this year he has added a new feature. We will let him explain what he actually does:

 

If I have time I like to get back to my hunters with a map and a short written summary of the day's events. This is a lot easier to do now that the season is winding down for me. Doing this personally adds to my enjoyment of the day's events and further builds the professional presentation of my services to the hunter. Quality presentation of a tracker's services before, during, and after the track builds reputation in your given tracking territory and therefore referrals for the future. Not to mention increasing the level of your tips!

Hi Sam and Vernon,

I enjoyed my time with you today. We were unable to recover the deer but you can rest assured that you have done everything possible. I think there is a good chance that he will recover. Let me know if he shows up anywhere, dead or alive! As we discussed, after putting everything we know together, I believe your muzzleloader hit him high in the shoulder blade and impacted on the long spinous processes that protrude above the vertebrae behind the shoulder blade. This would explain all the initial bone chips and all the crashing into trees he did in his initial run and why he was still so strong today when we chased him. To be honest, I don't have a good explanation of why the 530 meters of your initial blood trail was dark red blood as opposed to bright red. I hope he shows up on one of your cameras and we get to see for sure where he was hit. Enjoy the maps and call anytime

 

FYI:

Hit site to your last blood (hunter's point of loss, POL)- 530 meters

POL to where we jumped the deer and trail went hot- 360 meters

Chased him live in front for 2 ½ hours- 7000 meters (4.4miles)

Total tracking time- 3 ½ hours

 

 

Andy Bensing

1411 Cross Keys Road

Reading, PA 19605

610-413-7094