Recovering Deer hit too far back

[Josh Perdue]

Originally posted by Ryan Rothhaar:
Good discussion.

One thing we have learned "behind the dog" is that all the "rules" about what wounded deer will do - for example "travel downhill" "not jump fences" "go to water" etc etc don't apply very often.  The rule we've found to hold true is that a wounded deer will go where he feels safe - if that is over a mountain or under the neighbor's back porch that is where he'll be.  We've seen some really odd stuff tracking deer with the dog.


On the topic of a dog - if you have access to a person with a good blood tracking dog please do the following:
1. Call RIGHT AWAY when you have a doubtful shot. It makes things SO much easier on the dog to work an uncontaminated scent line (in other words without you and 5 buddies crawling around on it for 4 hours before you call).  

2. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT bring another dog on ahead of time "just in case".  We've had pet dog owners take the family lab in ahead of us a couple times (that you find out later       ) - this isn't a good thing.

3. Listen to your dog owner - they usually have lots of experience on tracks and know thier dog - if they want you to wait - then wait.

As stated before time is not a big deal to a good working dog.  Our Oskar was tested on the VsWP 40 hour German tracking test - that is 250 mL of deer blood laid out on a 1000 meter track aged for 40-48 hours.  He completed the line with no faults in 37 minutes.  My wife was handling him and saw no visible blood on the entire line.

R

Whats the best way to start a dog tracking? I have a GSP and have often wondered if I could cut her loose on a blood trail and how she would do, or if it would be unwise without training. If this is off topic please delete.

[SELFBOW19953]

Will peroxide or Bloodglow work with a gut shot deer?  Thankfully, I haven't had the need to try it yet.

[Yellow Dog]

Great post Tim. Regardless of where you "thought" you hit them, you have to look and pay attention to what the arrow tells you. A paunch shot deer is a dead deer, and the longer you can wait the better. Other factors come into play, temperature and the coyote population are a few. Jacobsladder and myself tracked a deer at Kennym's  that was hit in the far back of one lung and through the center of the liver. We gave it 5 hours and would have waited longer if the temperature wasn't in the mid eighties. He still went a 1/4 mile unpushed. I'm convinced if we would have taken up the trail any sooner we would have bumped him and never found him.

[kuch]

wish I had a friend with a tracking dog ! I keep pretty good records and just last week started thinking about the deer I've lost in 17 years that I really feel were dead and some I felt were "good" shots. You learn a lot the Hard way, learn some more by listening to guys on here and reading books. Great advice here .It's hard to kill a deer with a bow. We all do it successfully  and if you hunt a lot you will have these difficult circumstances. Learn and pass it on. Tracking is such a wonderful skill, unfortunately the "classroom" is at times heart wrenching and why and how you learn to track is from less  than ideal circumstances......but that is the way it is. I still love it .

[maxwell]

A friend of mine hit a buck further back in the paunch area in the pm around 5:00 We let the deer go until the next morning called deer search. Walt Dixons dog took us three times to a river several hundred yards away with no blood anywhere.  We had to believe the dog so we walked down river and boom there was the buck. without the dog maybe we would have found the deer after hours of looking, had we followed up tracking after the shot we never would have found the deer.  Tim's advice is good let it lay down and follow up after 8 hrs or more.

[SuperK]

Good info, ya'll!