Scott, Lucy and his newer dog, Lynas, have attended hundreds of events promoting the use of leashed blood tracking dogs for game recovery. He has been instrumental in helping get new dogs and handlers started. He has formed the nonprofit group Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery which has been instrumental in expanding the use of dogs. He and his fellow members have rewritten and shaped state regulations and more. They love their dogs and they helping others.
I have attended several of Scotts seminars, and met a few other blood trackers. The following is what I have deemed to be the most important ideas for us as hunters.
1. Everyone wants the best possible chance of success. As such the sooner the better. The faster the dog can get to the track the better. Often times the trackers are called as a last resort, however it is much better to make them your second resort. The second you struggle, call for the dogs. If you are unsure, lost the sign, back out and call. The cooler the better also. If it is hot the heat makes the sooner the better way more important. Also rain is is a good thing, moisture is good, dry and hot bad. So if you have a track you lost because of rain call right away.
2. Get a good starting point. Mark the shot location. Shot time, note the angle of the animal, the shot impact location on the animal, was the close side leg forward or back. At the hit location get all the information you can, look for hair, other sign,...
3. Preserve the scent and the natural setting. When following blood never walk directly on the sign always off to the side. This preserves the sign, the track etc. It also prevents the scent getting onto your boots and creating multiple tracks. Use the minimal amount of people. 2 or less is ideal. Again maintains sign and decreases other scents.
4. Wait the appropriate time before following up a track. Heart, lung - 1 hour. Liver 6-9 hours, Gut 12-24... Bumping and animal especially one that has clotted up and possibly stopped bleeding is bad.
5. Do not grid search. Grid search just makes a mess. You can grid search until your heart is content after the dog has a chance but never do it before.
6. Always secure landowner permission for using a dog, and if there are any nearby properties the sooner you can get permission the better.
7. Do not lie. The better the information the better the dog and handler can work.
To find a tracker you can look them up in a couple places. Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery has a link under hunter resources. United Blood Trackers has a search location that can be based on zip code to find the nearest location. I would strongly suggest doing this before your hunt. Add them to your contacts and save them.
Lastly and for me as a hunter this has been the key in getting help both times. Provide a ton of information on your initial contact. I have used a tracking dog twice now. I would consider each a success. For the purpose of this article, I will share the exact text I sent on my most recent track...
Bill,
I am looking for help on a track tomorrow morning early. My 14 year old son shot a bull at 10 yards tonight at very last light.
The shot was a complete passthrough. My son swears the shot was 2 inches behind the shoulder and and centered mass vertically. On the attached picture he believes the shot was at D and between 4 and 5. He says the shot was broadside to slightly quartered away. He cant recall if near side leg was forward or back. The bull had stopped and was not walking at the shot. I heard the arrow hit, and saw the bull spin away into the trees. We marked the hit location with flagging. Found the arrow about 10 yards behind the hit location. The arrow had blood but smelt like gut. There was what I believed to be some food stuff on the arrow but not sure. It got dark quick and we only looked down the trail about 10 yards found the blood in the attached picture, but it minimal and again I believe it to be gut. There were a ton of elk in the area and since the arrow looked bad we backed out almost immediately. There were still cow elk and several bugling bulls in the immediate area.
The broadhead used is a solid 2 blade magnus stinger with small bleeders. We are letting the bull sit and will take up the track after almost 12 hours. I will send a pin location of the hit sight. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Also will send the picture of the blood, however it was the only blood we found and it was not much at all...
As you can see I answered a lot of question in my initial message. It is very common for trackers to get a text or a phone message... Hit a bull can you help? By the time any tracker decides to take a track they are going to ask a bunch of questions. Again do not lie... They have a duty to their dogs.
In my case the first tracker contacted initially said he could not miss work on Monday morning but he would send it out to the group chat and other trackers. But because I provided so much information. Because the track would be less than 12 hours old, the temps were low, we did not grid search, etc. Because it was only 1.5 hours from home, he could not turn the track down... His dog was 0 for 5 on elk and needed a win. Turning this down was turning down his best chance at an elk recovery. By doing my part, and doing things right I got the extra help I wanted. We let the dog go on the track at about 6:45 and had found the elk in less than 15 minutes. The track covered 173 ish yards in that distance the bull made 2 90 degree turns. My son and I both started follwing the dog and trying to spot and mark sign. The dog ran hard nose down for the first 20 yards then lost the scent. She backed up circled twice then nose down up the hill for 40ish yard, again lost the scent trail, circled again and maybe 2-3 more time, then she lined out nose down cross the side going directly to the bull. I followed the entire track looking with my eyes for sign. I found only 2 pieces of hair and one little drop of blood. Tracks were everywhere and my gut told me the bull was in the bottom in the willows and not up the hill. I honestly think we would have found the bull, but it would have been a lot longer and took a ton more time.
A few other thoughts... I have now met several dog handlers. Some common themes amongst them all have been summarized here... But the one thing I cant explain enough is they are really good people who do this out of love. Love for their dogs and love for helping others. Most have stopped hunting all together or hunt minimally because they would rather run the dog. After my 2 tracks I am hooked. As soon as I can get a new dog, it will be a tracker and I will likely be the next guy who stops hunting for myself and helping others.
https://www.rockymountainbiggamerecovery.org/
https://www.unitedbloodtrackers.org/
Pictured is "skyye bear". She's a blue tic hound. She's my second tracking dog and hopefully will be the best. She flunked bear dog training and got repurposed to me.
(Sounds like a great organization, BTW.)
I think of it as an interview for a job. I want to slam deer as much as I can and turn in as complete of an application as possible. You never know if these guys have no calls or 10 calls. So the more complete you can make your initial contact the better. Also in my case the tracker initially was not able to make it, so he copied pasted my text to the group chat and every tracker in the group saw the information. Again making it easier for them to understand the situation.
—Jim
As one of the trackers registered with RMBGR here are a few key takeaways.
1.) We are growing but there are only about 40 RMBGR dogs throughout all of the mountain states. What that means is we are real busy. Scott says when he started the non profit in 2018 or 2019 he received 13 calls. We got well over 250 requests just in September of this year alone!!
2.) Look up the closest tracker on the map and have as much information as possible ready when you call or text. Also pictures are worth a thousand words.
3.) Real important! - once you talk to a tracker, if that person can’t do the track we will put it out to our network and you will receive a call or text from someone if they can. No need to call everyone on the list.
Keith
Sounds about right.
