We finally got to find a deer for a traditional bowhunter! (other than family)
We've been taking tracking calls with Oskar now for 3 years, and get plenty of calls from "hi-tech" type bowhunters, but very few from traditional guys.
Yesterday morning I received a call from Mike in Terre Haute. He had shot a deer around 9 am and was worried that the arrow was a bit farther back than he would have liked. The arrow passed through and broke off, the front half showed sign that looked like a liver hit. I convinced him to wait on us before looking for the deer (my wife and I both work in Indy, have a 1 hr drive home, then another hour to Mike's place). We could arrive around 630 pm.
He was biting his nails, but Mike stayed out of the woods and we got to put Oskar on a non-contaminated blood trail. When arriving at the stand he showed us the front half of the arrow...with a big Snuffer on it - I like the way this guy thinks!
We established first blood and the direction the deer went after the hit, and Katia and Oskar took the track. The deer didn't go real far (150 yards or so) - thanks to the hunter backing off and not pressuring it. Mike and his buddies would have found the deer without the dog, but probably would have been an hour or so looking due to the thickness of cover and amount of blood sign. The GPS showed that it took Oskar and Katia 8 minutes to find the buck.
Mike was tickled with his dandy late season buck. The gunners have been at it in Indiana for 2 weeks now, so a good buck late season with a bow is a tough challenge here. Unfortunately he didn't have his bow for pictures, but he said he shot it with his old Bear Kodiak that he has had for many, many years.
Guys like this, and these kind of tracks, make all the work worthwhile.
Added bonus was that it was Katia's birthday, and this is about the best present she could get! We were planning to go out and celebrate, but she said she'd rather track.
Congrats again, Mike!
Ryan
The happy hunter and his buck:
The tracking (and dragging) gang:
Topic: Oskar deer track - for a Stickbow guy! (Read 829 times)
