Tracking dog in Adams county
- Thread starter Carpn
- Start date
To add to Giles post. Interdigital gland. SP?
Deer can spray out tiny droplets of blood we don't see with the naked eye but the dog's nose picks up. Your buddy wanders around looking, he steps on some and drags the scent all over.
I have seen my dog follow 4 different trails. Guy had 4 friends helping him. They gave up. I brought in Hank. They tell me "We stopped tracking right here at last blood." Hank goes straight. One buddy admits he went that way looking. Come back to original hit and start over. Get to last blood. Hank goes left. Two other guys say "Oh yeah. We did go look that way." Hank took us on both routes the two took and split on. Go back to impact area. Follow to last blood. Hank goes right. At this point I am ready to strangle Hank for leading us on a wild goose chase. I look like a turd. Hank looks like a turd. Then one of the other guys said "Well. . . .I did wander down this field edge."
What Hank had done was follow each of their footsteps from impact of hit to the paths they took. He truly was tracking. He simply wasn't tracking the deer. He was tracking the scent these individual people left on the ground. In all truth, I should have been praising him for a job well done. The only thing he didn't do was track the scent gland in the hoof of the deer. At that point he was so confused as to what I was asking him to track, it didn't matter.
One other thing: What one person believes is "a ton of blood" is not always the case. We went on 5 tracking jobs last year. Most of them he ended up tracking the paths the hunters wandered around on while looking. I fully believe with the time and distance covered, combined with the amount of blood found (or not found), 4 of these deer were NOT dead deer. If it wasn't a lethal hit, the dog won't find it. That deer will keep moving. Generally, I get phone calls or texts a few weeks later saying the hunter has a pic of the deer alive or saw it on the hoof while hunting. There was one deer last year out of 5 tracking jobs which ended up being dead. That was the one Redhunter shot. In that case, Hank kept taking us back to the area. I listened to Ryan and his buddies. They were 99% certain the deer didn't go that way based on previous deer they had killed in the area. We should have listened to Hank a little more. Ryan (or his buddies) later found the deer in the area Hank kept pulling us.
I blame the handler on some of this. I don't get enough tracking jobs to work together with Hank. I need to learn the dog better. Hank needs to learn what I am asking better. After the 5 tracks last year, I am done taking calls. I may end up at some Veterans hunts working him on piled up deer which we KNOW we will find. This will be good training. I will help a friend and use Hank. I'm done taking random calls and getting pulled all over the place. I nearly got a trespassing charge last year because the land owner assured me he had permission to be where we were. He did NOT. Hank and I are 90% retired from tracking.
Great info Phil. Crazy how much easier it'd be if people just admitted they made a shit shot and called for your help first. This place is just as bad as calling your buddies "go get your dead deer man". Everyone trying to be encouraging, but it often does more harm.
Something I try and do if very little blood is showing, is walk next to where I think the deer went. Blan/Joe watched me do this. It's for the dog, I don't need to be aimlessly walking down paths. If he had needed to bring a dog in, I didn't want to be the reason the dog couldn't find the deer.
Something I try and do if very little blood is showing, is walk next to where I think the deer went. Blan/Joe watched me do this. It's for the dog, I don't need to be aimlessly walking down paths. If he had needed to bring a dog in, I didn't want to be the reason the dog couldn't find the deer.
Buckmaster
Senior Member
For more info and years of in depth experience you can find your read here:
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http://www.born-to-track.com/book/content.htm
http://www.born-to-track.com/book/order-info.htm
Table of Contents:
http://www.born-to-track.com/book/content.htm
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Yep. Dave followed the terrain right to the deer. All I did was show him where the last blood was. I need to learn more about how to read terrain like that. Definitely a good skill to have.
Lol, experience played into that one. I go on every track I can. I love taking kids and explaining things to them. I think my middle kid is going to be a hell of a tracker some day. He has that attention to detail needed. My old man sucks at tracking, he couldn't follow a deer in the snow. I had to learn for the both of us at a young age and still have a lot of learning ahead of me.
That's why I always call on my buddy Ron when I need help tracking. Fuggers like a bloodhound, I'm surprised he didn't find the hair and blood first last night. It always helps to have a buddy with you that knows what he's doing. I'm no expert tracker but I'm getting better.
Care to expand on this Dave? Are you suggesting we lay off the support and start telling people to make better shots?
I think the biggest problem is admitting to yourself that you made a marginal shot and backing out to give the deer more time. Nobody wants to admit to their buddies they made a bad shot, but if you convince yourself and your tracking buddies you made a better shot than you did, you end up doing more harm than good in the end.
^^^This^^^ And the fact of not wanting to shell out the money until a last resort. It would kick your ego a little to find out you had just walked past him a time or two.
No, it's the nature of the beast. I do the same thing. Everyone wishes for the best for each other and it's support.
Odds are, by the time it gets to a thread the damage is done.