I'm curious as to the effectiveness of these tracking dogs. What is the % of recovery for those of you that have used these?
It seems to me that a little tracking dog could possibly push an animal wounded with a bad shot that was bedded down and could possibly have been found and finished off other wise. The dog could push the critter further and make it unrecoverable.
I know that have been very effective, I used to hunt hogs behind dogs.
Thinking about it though, Use of these dogs could go both ways....Anyone with lots of experience with these tracking dogs?
Success is not really based on the dogs ability. It is more based on the hunters action from my experience. I just posted a guide for hunters to use... Key ideas are the sooner the better. The cooler the better. Do not screw up the track. Once you lost sign do not grid search nothing. Look it up. The dogs will have very high success if the hunters have done things right. If things are done poorly the chances of success drop signficantly.
I’ve seen 7 different deer tracking dogs over the last 40 years beginning in upstate New York in 1984 and in almost all cases I’m a better tracker. The breed and experienced level (training) have varied and so have the results. A teckle from Germany can determine the wounded deer from the others which is the key element in true champs. The cost and training commitment are steep. I realize this will upset some who think it’s neat but I’ve been tracking wounded deer since 1981 and feel in most cases I’m a better tracker.
The drone recovery videos are the future as Infrared finds the deer then as it zooms down you switch the drone to actual video and you can determine if the deer is dead or not and exact coordinates. More states are approving the drones each year.
I’ve got two. I have to keep them leashed at all times and they will definitely push a wounded deer as they are going to find it and the deer will run if not dead. Of course it is obvious when this happens and you can back off and come back later. However, if the deer is dead they will find it as well. Either way, the hunter is at a loss for finding the deer or we wouldn’t put my dogs on it to begin with. When I use them for a deer I shoot I’m not going to go after the deer any sooner than I would if I was tracking it on my own. Make a bad shot let it lay overnight before you start the track, etc. I have been on numerous tracks in south TX where the dog is worked off leash. If the deer is dead the dog sits next to the deer and you go it (gps collar). If the deer is alive they will start barking and bay the deer up. At that point the handler goes to the dogs and shoots the deer. The deer is totally focused on the dog(s) and pays very little attention to the human.
They are fun to work with and are super handy when you are at a loss.
I've experienced not being able to find a dog handler in the peak of the rut. They stay pretty busy that time of year. Hopefully I don't need one anytime soon.
Weigh in the fact of how many hunters jump/push a wounded deer and end up and lose it. If a tracking dog is kept on a long lead, and he jumps a wounded deer, and the handler pulls his dog off the track, will the deer run any farther than if jumped by the hunter?
If hunter and/or dog is pulled off to give the wounded animal more time to die, which will have a better chance of picking up the trail from where the animal was jumped and following it to a successful end?
There’s a lot of variables involved and probably as many right answers.
I’ve tracked deer through oak woods in December when the ground was covered in leaves for at least a mile, long after any blood had run out by laying flat on the ground looking at disturbed leaves an d been successful on occasion. BUT that was 35/40 years ago before my eyes started deteriorating. Now I better have a damn good blood trail, or see the animal fall. Would I enlist the help of a tracking dog today, YOU BET.
A big key is accurate info from the hunter from the beginning as WYOelker other thread explains so well.
I've seen tracking dogs do some amazing finds on deer and hogs that didn't leave a good blood trail. Often the dog tracked the animal in a totally different direction than we thought the animal went.
Alot of times when a dog can't find an animal it is because the animal was hit poorly and didn't die or bed quickly.
Probably not exactly the question as it seems more leaning to N/A but I have seen some absolutely incredible tracks by dogs specifically in RSA. Animals found that I would have walked a day in the wrong direction looking for. Most of those dogs will bay wounded animals as well in my experience. Super fun to watch them work as well.
I have a Jack Russell as well, and I think he would make a great tracker if I was able to train him properly (or have him trained) and worked him often enough to keep him sharp. I’ve had him on several tracks, some more productive than others. He can find the scent/blood, but has a hard time putting it with what he should do next. And my dumb ass has a habit of trying to tell him what to do when he knows better than me what to do. The pic is a deer my buddy shot in KS a couple years ago and we went to help track, Ace helped, but I would certainly not say he “found it”. This deer was dead when we got to it, marginal shot at last light and leave him lay till AM.
“ I’ve seen 7 different deer tracking dogs over the last 40 years beginning in upstate New York in 1984 and in almost all cases I’m a better tracker. “ I have averaged over 100 tracks a year with my dogs over the past 20 years. If you can find the deer a good dog will find it in minutes. If you cannot find the deer the dog has a 50% chance of finding it. Most of the other 50% are not mortally wounded. A hunter can only follow visible sign or use his best guess as to wear the deer may have gone. The dog needs zero visible sign. It follows scent molecules emitted by the animal.
Along the lines of what Jim said. I have watched Jack Russells in RSA do some really cool stuff. I hit an Impala a few inches back from the crease which ended up being a gut shot. We called the dog in and within about 2 minutes from letting him out of the truck, he had the Impala bayed. I was able to fight my way through the bush and put a finishing shot on him at about 15 yards frontal.
Funny part of that whole story. We recovered the Impala and had him dragged out to the nearest road and was waiting on one of the trackers to bring the vehicle so we could load him. The dog was just chilling. He was as calm as any lap dog you'd ever see. He just sit there minding his own business next to the Impala. The tracker was looking at the Impala and eyeing his horns. Turning them this way and that way to get a good look at him. The dog is just chilling 18" away from the Impala's head. All of a sudden the tracker turned the horns at the dog to annoy him and that dog went absolutely berserk! It started growling and attacking that dead Impala. It was hilarious.
I wouldn’t say I’ve had lots of experiences, but I’ve had a dozen or so. My JRT, Sarge, was a natural tracker. He tracked more hogs than deer, because hogs usually go farther and bleed less, even from bullet wounds. Most of the deer he tracked for me were short tracks, some of them didn’t need tracking but if he was close I used them for practice. Where he really came in handy was on hogs. We hunted hogs at night for several years with night vision scopes on ARs. Big boar hogs we did not track at night because a 200/250 lb. wounded boar hog can be dangerous. We tracked the next morning and out of probably two dozen over the years he failed to find two. He missed those because I thought I knew better than he did. Buzzards proved him right. It was amazing how he would be on a track and stop at some point and sniff in one spot. I would look at that spot and find a drop of blood that I would have never seen standing up. He was great and I miss him so much !
I have to tell this too. If anyone doesn’t understand just how good a canine’s nose is, one time I trapped 17 hogs in a corral trap and was driving through the woods in my truck, windows rolled up and a/c on circulate, and Sarge reared up on the dash and started growling about a hundred yards away from the trap. He couldn’t see the hogs because they were around the corner and it was impossible to see through that clearcut. Amazing nose !
I have no experience with a tracking dog except for hounds I trained for coon when I was a teenager. Amazing noses our four legged friends have.
Cool story, I have a golden doodle right now. Such a fun sweet dog. She will “growl” and talk when she is happy. I had her outside in front of my house running up and down the dirt road and full speed. Stretched out like a greyhound at top speed. She is flying by me when all of a sudden she slams on the brakes and slides about 6 feet in the dirt. Turns around and with her nose to the ground she tracks a cotton tail rabbit right to where it was hiding in some sagebrush about 50 feet away! Incredible. Wish I would have trained her for upland bird hunting.
Our first tracking dog (retired) turned 16 a couple months ago. He found between 85 and 90 deer. On cold calls we averaged 1/3 to 1/4 recovered. Primarily due to the hunters not having a clue where the arrow hit (“Right behind the shoulder”…. Yeahhhhhh, rriiighhht). Typical not recovered deer 800-1200 yards before loss or pulling off the dog. High percentage of non-fatally wounded deer in these situations. Deer that I, or people I trust to know where they hit the deer 80% + recovery. If you don’t push the deer or mess up the track after the shot a good dog will find it, if it’s dead. Where a dog really shines is he’ll find a deer in 15 minutes that would take you and 3 buddies half a day to find. We are now on our 3rd generation of trackers. Smooth haired Dachshunds of European (hard core hunting) bloodline. There are only a couple of legit tracking Dachshund (Teckel) bloodlines in the US.
I have been tracking deer for 65yrs. I have been using a tracking Dog for 13 yrs.My dog has tracked over 150 Deer and 7 Bear.No human has the abilty to track anyway near as a common Mutt.
I had my first experience with a tracking dog 3 years ago. It took 15 minutes to find the buck hit 14 hours earlier. Dog was on a short leash, and the handler spotted the deer bedded in a creek and pulled the dog back so I could finish it. The key was an undisturbed track and a silent tracking dog
"Our first tracking dog (retired) turned 16 a couple months ago"
Hi Ryan, wow Oskar is 16, that is cool... I remember you posting about training him as a puppy...8^) How is your young female doing on track?
Don't know if you've been following Elsa's thread (Elsa is daughter of Oskar) but her pups are beautiful and I'm keeping one of her females... Had a heck of a time finding a stud dog with proper bloodlines... They are now 7 weeks old and the 5 of them are a handful right now and driving me nuts...8^) They're sleeping at my feet right now and I can't get away from them...8^) Two of the four are going to nonhunting families, one to Hollywood CA, one to KY, another is going to a field trialer in Oregon, and the other is going to and avid hunting family in northern MN as a tracking dog... Had them on a short beef liver trail the other day, they luved it... Recently seen where the blood trackers organization has updated their website for 2025 events and I'm thinking I'm gonna try to make one of these events with my dogs... Elsa found her first deer at 9 months old but unfortunately due to life change of new job wasn't able to keep up with her training, but now that I have the time, I'm gonna train this pup... She has the pedigree...8^)
Ok, I’m a hound guy grew up hunting hounds on just about any animal you can begin to imagine. And have always since, My question is we breed for the best noses in the game I can start a honest 7-9 hr old Dry ground stinky bear track with my best dog ..have seen a “few” hounds could trail up a 12-15 hr old dry tracks ..And I’ve hunted with some of the best in the business . I just have a hard time believing if there is no blood , that someone’s cocker spaniel or whatever breed, will take a 12-20hr old deer (hoof) track and successfully find it ..
Different perspective here. I have partnered with several K9 officers when they run a track. My biggest takeaway: We had an armed robbery in a neighboring city. The K9 tracked the suspect from the gas station across 100 feet of cement, and two city blocks later, we were knocking on his door. I asked the handler how his dog tracked the suspect across that much cement. He said adrenaline was pouring off the suspect as he ran away. The dog was tracking the adrenaline. Hence, when the deer stops bleeding, it is still dumping adrenaline from being shot. So, blood isn't the only thing they are tracking.
Another interesting fact I learned from our K9 division: When a person smells cake baking in the oven, we smell cake. When a dog smells a cake baking in the oven, they smell the flour, sugar, eggs, and flavorings.
The biggest piece of advice they gave me for tracking was to always trust your dog.
Just be because YOU can’t see blood doesn’t mean there isn’t any. If the deer is hit well enough to die there is something coming out of it somewhere. Gut shots are very easy for a dog, and when you see something on the track it’s often just tiny droplets of moisture, doesn’t look bloody, and is something you’d never notice without the dog showing you where it is. Dry blood is also hard to see but easy for a dog to smell. It takes a crap-ton of blood loss to make a deer die, there is always some coming out, even if you can’t (or don’t) see it. It’s amazing how long after a training track across the yard (days) that our basset hound (she only hunts stuff to eat from the fridge) will hit that blood line and get “birdy” and snuffle around at it.
Huntiam, dogs of all breeds can and will follow a track, depends on the dog. The longer the nose, the better they can smell. They don’t have to have long, floppy ears to smell an animal, or anything else for that matter. Sarge, pictured above, was a registered rough coat Jack Russell Terrier, born and bred to hunt and kill varmints. The little feller at his peak weighed 35 lb. and I once watched him terrorize two 140/150 lb. boar hogs for ten minutes and not one of them layed a tooth on him.
My current pup also a Jack Russell, but a smooth coat can smell a feral cat that comes around sometimes from inside the house, and sorts that out from the two tomcats that we have. Dogs are amazing, although some of them would make good paper weights. ;-))
Adrenaline etc. is the same reason deer stomp. There are scents coming out from their interdigital glands in the feet. Same reason why when a deer bolts and another deer comes upon that same spot a little while later they go on high alert. They know a deer was here recently, and it was alarmed.
Dry creek I realize that ears and the breed don’t make up the nose , what your describing in your jack russell is just a gritty dog,, I have 3 Mtn curs tied up outside will pull hair from a 500 lb bear ..but they can only take about a 4 hr old track, because their not cold trailing type , I do not believe for 1 second your jack russell could smell a 24hr old deer track I’m sorry.. the best dry ground lion guides out west can start a 15-20 hr old track that’s about as good as it gets man , without snow.
My old hound that died in March used to hunt lions in Colorado for an outfitter. He gave her to me when she was 5 because she liked the comforts of a warm truck too much. She found several bucks for me, some with no blood at all that I could see, and all in an incredibly short amount of time. The only dead one she didn't find was in a huge Tallgrass pasture with no certainty of where it fell and 30 mph winds. The other one she gave up on because it was still alive and the hunter's son shot it again 2 weeks later over the same corn feeder it lost it's first lung on. The Kansas Deer Recovery site blows up every archery season and many of these trackers post a GPS track of the deer. Many go a mile or more. No way any human tracker can or will do that, and to think a human is as good as a dog is ridiculous. The same factors apply to tracking as they do with bird dogs: if it's too dry, hot, or windy, the dog will have difficulty. The more the hunter meddles with the track, also can mess up the dog.
The dogs aren’t smelling the track as much as the particles of blood, internal fluids, and such left behind by a shot animal. They aren’t trained to just follow any deer track, just what they smell from a shot animal.
Huntiam, I have never had to track a day old deer, but Sarge found lots of hogs left from nightime hunts the next morning. I’ll give you that hogs are way more stinky than deer but he found pin pricks of blood that I would never have found along the way. Hogs are much tougher than deer as a rule. We had one shot well with an arrow travel 600 yards as the crow flies, probably 800 yards in reality, and then I shot him with a 6.8 SPC and double lunged him. He went 75 more yards before expiring. The arrow entered at an angle through the ribs, got the back of one lung, the front of the other, and was lodged in the off shoulder. I can’t imagine a 125 lb. East Texas whitetail going that far through the terrain where the hog went. Sarge only tracked him the 75 yards and only because I didn’t know if I hit him or not as he was running erratically when he crossed a 40’ lane. I only relate this because we left the hog from before dark to about 10:00 the next morning after we got through hunting. Sarge found him in about five minutes. I think a track from an unwounded animal is very different from one that is wounded.
Anothe story if I’m not boring you ;-)). I shot at a really good buck for my area several years ago with a 7-08. The report of the rifle sounded funny (and I believe to this day that it lacked a full charge) and the buck jumped up in the air and ran off. I waited a few minutes, then went to the camphouse and got Sarge. When I got to where the buck was standing all I found was a handful of white hair. Brisket hair. No blood, nothing but hair. There were two bucks there when I shot. I put Sarge on the track and as usual he was pulling me along. A couple times he stopped to sniff the ground and I could find a tiny drop of blood. In about a hundred yards he found no more blood and the only way I could tell he was still kn the track was that there were leaves turned over. It was a humid day and all the leaves were wet until they were turned over. We tracked that buck probably another 300 yards finding no more blood and I finally admitted to myself what I knew all along, that I had only grazed him on his brisket. Sarge sas tracking that buck on scent left by the hooves, not blood. I agree that deer leave a different smell when they are scared, I’ve seen it too many times not to believe it. Humidity helps a dogs nose tremendously too, and it is humid here more times than not. That could certainly be a factor in your experiences.
I belong to a dog tracking group on FB (Illinois) for past couple years. I have never used one but was curious as to the effectiveness and how it worked as well. The group is comprised of all the trackers in Illinois - and you can reach out to one based on your location/county in Illinois as to which tracker is around you, if you ever need one. They post updates, the start and finish with pictures some times video and the GPS tracking of the dog as he does his work. They list the time and distance it takes to recover, the obstacles encountered along the way that sometimes throws dog off etc. They also post the rare occurrence of not finding one as well. As stated above, many variables but from what i have observed these dogs are absolutely AMAZING with respect to positive recovery results.
I’ve not used dogs to locate dead animals. But, I’ve run behind blood hounds trailing people who started forest fires for three years. The tracking dog followed some of these guys for miles. Many times they used vehicles. Didn’t matter, they still trailed them.
13 miles was the farthest. So, if the trailing dog is good and the handler is too, they’ll find the animal if it’s dead.
Charlie, need doesn’t enter into my thinking. It’s want. I like owning a dog that can track. My JRT goes when I go in most cases. Of course I don’t carry her hunting, but she rides with me to town, to the lease, and in my side by side or golf cart at home. She’s my constant companion and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I shot and found lots of animals before I had a tracking dog, but Sarge could find one in minutes where it might have taken me an hour or more. I love bird hunting behind a good pointer too !I guess if you’re a dog lover that figures into the equation.
I know 4 hunters that are all part of Deer Search here in NY. From Shelter Island on the East End of Long Island, to Canandaigua in the Finger Lakes, to the Syracuse area. All but one, have dogs that are from the lineage of tracking dogs of John Jeanneney, who literally wrote THE book for using tracking dogs on wounded deer. All 4 people have had huge success where hunters have failed to find their deer. Like my buddy's explosive dog, he can smell gunpowder residue from a firearm, inside a case, inside the trunk of a vehicle. Dogs have an amazing sense of smell. Dogs all the way when you can't find your deer.
Years ago I had access to a german shepherd mutt. This dog was incredible at finding deer that we lost track of. I never saw the dog not find a deer. The only drawback was when the dog found it, that deer was his. Until the owner came and pulled it away none of us could go near it without a fight.
I have called in 2 tracking dogs. The first one resulted in the dog not finding the deer. The hit was very high, above the spine is my guess. I seen the buck 3 days later cruising looking for does.
The other was this year. My arrow hit in the lung/liver/stomach area. I felt the guys dog never really was able to get on the known coarse of travel the buck took. We looked for 4 hours with his dog and I spent another day and a half after grid searching. Could not come up with the buck.
There are guys out there that do very well with their dogs though. One is Shane Simpson. He has a YouTube channel and has a number of tracks he has done with his dog. The other is a guy that has been on Working class bow hunter podcast. His dog diesel a great dog. As mentioned do not contaminate the area. Be honest with your shot with them. Some guys won’t track if the animal is hit in the front shoulder or hind end. They know the chances of the deer not being dead are way to high. Some won’t track because they do not want their dog injury by a deer that is still a live.
As mentioned the dog doesn’t need blood on the ground. They can track from the scent given off from the gland between their hooves.
Dry creek, you’re not boring me I can talk dogs all day!! Sarge sounds like a great dog, the kind that dont come around everyday , and yes everything factors in on a dogs tracking ability, it’s funny I’ve put dogs on a frozen bear track more than once at daylight and they couldn’t smell it ..Come back in a few hrs once the sun hits it for a while and they scream out of there ..
Just had my first experience with a tracking dog a few days ago. I was on a DIY bear hunt with my brother and he shot one on Thursday with about 40 minutes of shooting time left. I had already gotten my bear and was at camp when I got a message that he had hit one and to come help. When I got there about 30 minutes later he told me the bear was at the bait (about 12 yards from the stand), quartering away and it was a good hit with 20-24" of penetration but no exit. We set out tracking it right about quitting time and blood wasn't great but also wasn't hard to find initially. We ended up tracking it for a couple hours and several hundred yards before the blood got too hard to find so we backed out.
We made some calls and got in touch with a tracker around 10:30 pm. She said it would be best to start in the morning and asked us to meet her at 8:30 am, which we did. By the time we traveled to the site, she briefed us on what to expect, and she got information from my brother about the shot (quartering away but steep downward angle), she put her German Shepherd on the track and the dog did all the work. She had it on a 30' tether and we followed them. My brother and I had marked our track with trail tape the night before and the dog lead us right down that trail and continued past our last flags for several hundred more yards. The track eventually took us to the boundary of an Indian reservation that we couldn't enter and we had to stop the track.
By this time we had tracked nearly 3/4 mile. She said she was confident that even if we could continue, we weren't going to find a dead bear. She said in her experience, she expects a dead bear will be found within 1000 yards and 30 minutes or less. She also said it wouldn't be a surprise if that bear showed back up at the bait sometime. Her opinion was the shot was too high and may have caught a bit of the far lung before lodging in the far shoulder.
Though we didn't recover the bear, it was a positive experience and worth it, as we did the best we could to recover the bear and it gave us some solace that the bear likely survived the wound.
We have a Bavarian mountain hound at our family camp, owned by my cuz-in-law. Charlie, you won’t track better than that dog. He tracks the interdigital gland and doesn’t need blood. He knows which deer in a group is wounded and won’t follow the others. The important thing with him is that you need to trust him. Our place is in NE Louisiana. Heavy cover can be head high. He can turn a track that would take a human several hours and have it completed in minutes. A Bavarian is a bow hunters best friend.
See my last post. Not at all, just most hunters. I always felt knowing your land and tracking ability was a critical part of being a good bow hunter. Many of the areas I hunt do not allow crossing property lines.
Tracking ability is a valuable skill for a hunter, no doubt. One evening, three of us shot deer with archery equipment. We put the Bavarian on them. Deer 1 was a 100 yard track. Would’ve been easy for a hunter to find, but the dog tracked it in a couple minutes. Deer 2 didn’t get full penetration, went through tall grass, and traveled 250 yards. There wasn’t much blood on the ground. It would’ve taken hours or been a lost deer. Again, the Bavarian found him in a few minutes. Deer 3 was a high shot with little blood hitting the ground. It would’ve been another difficult night time track. The dog found him quickly. We were back skinning deer and eating supper at a reasonable hour. There’s a good chance deer 2&3 could’ve been lost without the dog. A dog is a tool and can definitely increase recovery rate.
Used a tracking dog one time;long haired Dachshund import.Owner has two and quite busy in deer season.Talking to him he recovers about 50% or less.Experienced dogs and owners.
Part of the fun is getting to chew a little fat at the end of a tracking job!
Part of the fun is getting to chew a little fat at the end of a tracking job!
First and foremost, there is a huge difference between bringing a dog in try and find a wounded animal, and bringing in a dog that was trained specifically to track. We have used jagdterriers for the past 25 years to track wounded game for ourselves, and commercially on our hog hunting operation. Trying to be polite here, but there is simply no human being that can come even close to tracking wounded game to the same extent that a dog can....period. As already stated, the quarry does not need to be bleeding to be tracked, nor does it have to leave any visible sign. Dogs smell animals on a molecular level that gives them the ability to discern between the animal being tracked, and others that may have crossed the same path. This was especially important to us when hunting in an area containing hundreds of hogs. Our dog would have to stay with the scent of the wounded animal even when it was running with another sounder, or had bedded with other hogs that we jumped. In the latter case, there may have been blood from the wounded animal that got rubbed onto another animal and our dog had to correctly choose which of those animals to follow. We shot 100% of the hogs she then bayed up for us, so we always knew that we had the right animal due to the fresh broadhead wound. When tracking deer however, it's a different story as she only barks when the animal is still alive. We are not allowed to shoot deer at night here (which is when 99.9% of our tracking jobs take place), nor are we allowed to chase and bay deer, so we have to pull off the track until morning. The use of GPS tracking collars has been a game changer now though since we can mark the exact spot where we pulled her off, and then continue in the morning. The ability to cold track is something that sets a true tracking dog apart from the dog that's turned loose on the occasional track.
Wildan brought up another important point of recovery rates. You must consider that tracking dogs are almost always called in only after all else has failed. Hunters called us out only when they couldn't find the animal themselves, and most of the time had already boogered up the trail by walking in circles all over it. When we turned the dog loose, we always knew the exact spot where the hunters lost the track and then started to grid search. Our dog would stop there and work in circles until they finally reached the outside perimeter where they could continue on with the task at hand. Oh, and every hunter always tells us that they made "a perfect shot, right behind the shoulder". Over the years we've recovered animals hit in every imaginable spot, including many that were simply grazed...one memorable case being a big boar that was nicked in the hock...but we still recovered it for them. One of the most frustrating however was a half-the-night track where we never found the hog. We were all frustrated, but none as badly as the hunter who was bad mouthing our dog the entire time. We knew the animal had to still be alive, but rarely would they stay so far ahead of the dog that we couldn't catch them. The next morning the hunter went out to look for his arrow...and found he had clean missed the animal. His "perfect" shot wasn't so perfect after all.
“Anyone with lots of experience with these tracking dogs?”
A friend of mine in the UK was a professional Deer Stalker for a good number of years, and shot literally thousands upon thousands of deer. He ALWAYS had a tracking dog with him.
The question in the OP is Nuts. If you give an animal an appropriate amount of time to expire, you won’t bump it, and if you need a dog to find it, you won’t likely find it without the dog’s help, so why wouldn’t you enlist the aid of a vastly more competent partner???
I didn't see it happen but a buddy shot a buck out of the same stand I shot a buck out of three days earlier. His buck was liver/gut hit and left no blood trail. They left it overnight and called a dog tracker. They brought the dog in and it promptly got on a deer's trail and followed it to my deer's gut pile. A three day old trail! I was impressed. The handler then got him on the correct track and found my buddy's buck quickly. It went totally in a different direction than after the shot.
My wife’s cousin trains rescue/cadaver dogs and was living in SW Colorado. Her dogs found the body of a girl who’d been buried 10 feet deep, and down closer to 4 Corners they were picking things up in places where I guess they used ground radar to see what was down there…. and they found Spanish armor.
Had my second experience with a tracking dog this fall. I shot a buck quartering away a little high. Full penetration, but no exit wound. It went into thick bush honeysuckle with blood only at the impact site. Jewel the blood hound found the buck 250 yds in. Took 15 minutes. It’s amazing to watch. I wouldn’t have recovered that buck without the dog.
I track a bit with camp neighbor and his dog. If you know the dog, they’ll pass along a lot of information. Some of it isn’t what the hunter wants to hear. The dog will tell you the deer isn’t wounded or that the deer is still alive and won’t die anytime soon.
Last year I made what I thought was a perfect quartering away shot on a beautiful buck. He ran the typical 60 yards and I heard a crash then nothing. I waited for another 1 1/2 hours trying to fill a doe tag. I got down with total confidence & found an arrow that couldn’t have looked better. Absolutely soaked with blood. It was an easy track to where I heard the crash. From where he went down blood was fairly sparse about 150 yards to the first bed. From that bed I only found one speck about 20 yards away. I circled & looked a couple hours with no luck. On a whim I called a tracker for the first time off a Minnesota website. By the time he arrived it was around 5 hours after the shot. I figured it would be tough in the 75 degree & very dry conditions. The dog didn’t seem really interested even at the beginning of the trail where blood sign was heavy. We searched 3 hours covering lots of ground with no luck. In my heart I knew the deer was dead. I did a grid search the next day with no luck. Ten days later I checked trail cameras & saw a bunch of coyotes & fishers all coming & going from the same direction. I went over there & found him in minutes about 400 yards from the shot. Entrance was back of ribs & slightly lower than I thought I saw. Exit was low right in the armpit. I figure liver & one lung. Tracker sent me an OnX screen shot of our track. We passed less than 75 yards upwind of the deer. Having run hounds plenty in years past I knew hot & very dry conditions are tough for the dogs. He claimed his dog had recovered upwards of 60 deer & a few bears but was not trained to blood trail but more to scent a carcass. Although much appreciative of his time & effort overall I was not impressed.
The biggest factor in how well a dog does is how well the dog is trained and handled.
Sone dogs are just young dumb. And, some dog handlers aren’t experienced. But, you put a good dog that is trained well, with a handler that knows his dog, if the deer is dead, the dog is going to find it.
Probably depends a lot on the dog. I lost blood after 250-300 yards this year and rather than grid and screw it all up I hired a dog to come out the next morning. We made two circles around where the deer was found dead with virtually perfect conditions and the dog showed no signs of knowing it was there. I ended up finding it as we circled back to start again. I would have done better just taking my dog and gridding the area. Fortunately the meat was still good but he was dead the previous day probably dead when I called for the dog to come out.
On the circles around he was within 75 yards on numerous occasions with a steady wind direction, I would have thought it to be a slam dunk for a dog that knows what he is doing.
A little tracking story. My current JRT is a year old female named Molly. In November I shot a buck, with a rifle, that I knew would run, but not too far. I know where to shoot them to drop them in their tracks and I usually do that because I’m old and tired. However, I wanted to put her on a track to see what she would do. She has never been trained nor seen a dead deer. The buck ran across a newly planted food plot and into the woods, and as it had rained quite a bit the two days before the ground was soft and I could track the deer by his foot prints. I put her on the track very close to where I had shot him and she got on his track immediately, followed him straight to the woods as I was holding a long leash rope but giving her plenty of slack. When we entered the woods it was thick and almost dark. I dropped the rope in order to go around the thick stuff and catch it on the other side. I had found a little blood right as the deer entered the woods, but none that I saw in the plot. While I was trying to get around the thicket I saw her make a ninety and stop. She’s mostly white, so easy to see. She stopped because she found the deer and as it was her first, and she’s kind of a scaredy cat, she was being cautious. When I was able to fight my way into the deer she gathered a little more courage and started licking blood of of his side. A barely grown dog, no training whatsoever, never seen a dead deer, and she can track where there were several deer in that plot over the course of the day. Amazing !
Well I have a lot of "hunting dog" experience but just had my first time using a tracking dog. I made a TERRIBLE shot on a buck Christmas Eve. My arrow had zero blood and smelled terrible. I saw the deer cross a road and go into a 200 acre, waist high CRP field. I only looked for blood in the ditch. I did not want to go into the CRP for fear of bumping the buck as well as not wanting to make the track more difficult if I could find a dog.
I reached out to another bowhunter that lives close by and has a tracking dog. He called back and was out of state for Christmas. I was reluctant to call anyone else on Christmas Eve as I didn't want to bother someone with my mistake or make them fill bad telling me no because they had Christmas plans. My best friend knew a gal and called her. Nicole and Ginger had no plans until 5:00 pm Christmas day.
I told her what I knew...BAD shot, arrow stinks, 2" cut, pass through, one hoof print on the road that I was confident belonged to my buck, I had walked in the ditch looking for blood, I did not step in the CRP. She said Ginger doesn't track blood but rather the scent given off by the wounded deer. She was confident Ginger would do a good job and said by me not walking all over the area Ginger would have an easier time focusing on the deer's scent. Ginger spent a long time smelling the print on the road, worked the ditch where I had walked, took a line into the CRP, went about 150 yards then curved left and went directly to my dead buck. Ginger may have taken 5 minutes to find him once she entered the CRP. I believe I would have found him by doing a grid search but it would have been hours later. Ginger was all business, a poodle and wore pink harness...and I would call for her again in a second!
Thanks Zbone. I knew poodles were originally bred to hunt and Ginger was all about it. From the second she got out of the truck I could see she was all business and knew how to use her nose. The bob haircut and pink harness did not distract her any way!! I was proud to get to have my picture taken with her... although I don't think she was as impressed to be seen with me lol.
I have no experience with tracking dogs, but that is an excellent outcome! Good decision to back out when you did. No doubt you'd have pushed him farther. The big cut absolutely helped too. Congrats!
North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA) trained dogs make great deer trailers. Here is my German Shorthaired Pointer Josey. He does a good job trailing deer, all he needs is some noticeable bodily fluid to start with and can track where nothing seems to be evident. Was able to successfully track a deer 1/2 mile with a pinhead of blood. Friends call if they have wounded deer. Rough estimate is about 60% of deer are found as some deer survive. A NAVHDA trained dog can hunt upland, waterfowl and track animals. More about what dogs fall under the versatile category and training regimen can be found at navhda.org
To any of you who have ever hit a deer and not recovered it. Why on earth would you not call in a tracking dog after giving up the search? We find around 40% of deer that have been tracked by hunters. Even if that was 10% why would you not try. Drones have their place but in many instances they cannot locate deer in heavy cover or those whose body heat has vanished due to passage of time or water. I have had drones find deer behind my dogs and I have found deer behind drones. If anyone has seriously hunted deer for 40+ years and never lost one they should certainly be in the bowhunters hall of fame.
