# Tracking dog?



## fishintechnician (Jul 20, 2007)

anyone have a deer tracking dog? I shot a really good buck this morning and I need help!! Central Ohio Please call or txt 740-725-4289


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## buckeyebowman (Feb 24, 2012)

I don't remember the website URL, but there is one for Ohio deer tracking dogs. Maybe just Google that and you can find somebody close enough to help.


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## Shortdrift (Apr 5, 2004)

Type "deer tracking dogs"


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## TomC (Aug 14, 2007)

where in central ohio you located ?


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## I_Shock_Em (Jul 20, 2008)

Any luck?


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## fastwater (Apr 1, 2014)

No reports back?
Must have either found it or sadly, gave up on it.


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## UNCLEMIKE (Jul 23, 2014)

I wish guys that post about deer that are not yet recovered yet may be still found would circle back and put some closure to the posts. Every year there are many such posts where guys are going back the next morning and we never hear another thing. No big deal just gets my curiosity up and wish I knew the outcomes.


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## fastwater (Apr 1, 2014)

UNCLEMIKE said:


> I wish guys that post about deer that are not yet recovered yet may be still found would circle back and put some closure to the posts. Every year there are many such posts where guys are going back the next morning and we never hear another thing. No big deal just gets my curiosity up and wish I knew the outcomes.


Agree!
It's kinda like someone posting about a mechanical problem with their boat or other situations posted about with problems that the poster never comes back with a follow up on the situation. How do others learn things without a follow up???


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## fireline (Jun 14, 2007)

http://trackingwoundeddeer.blogspot.com/


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## M R DUCKS (Feb 20, 2010)

to curb everyone's curiousity.....I contact OP.
His story, short version...
- found a dog, tracked over 2 miles, lost track in thick CRP field, depressed over the situation.......


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## fishintechnician (Jul 20, 2007)

Yeah sorry guys, I really did mean to follow up. So I shot the buck that morning at around 9am. Knew I hit it back a little but noting major. He never ran, went to the creek edge and headed west for about 100 yards. Then stopped for about 45 seconds the whole time I could still see him. I waited until 1030 to climb down. I didn't get a clean pass thru, found a third of my arrow 50 or so yards Into the track, had excellent blood for the first 500 yards or so. To the point I could see blood 30-40 yards ahead of me. Tracked thru the thicket, and back I tot he woods, where the blood slowed considerably. After another 200 or so yards I was finding very little blood, so I stopped and I did manage to get a dog out. We started from last blood around 2 o'clock and tracked over 2
Miles finding blood occasionally. Got thru three large crp fields and lost the track in a fence row between third and fourth crp field. As mr ducks stated I was pretty depressed. I have been hunting over twenty years and this is the biggest I have ever had the chance to shoot at. I have killed a cpl 140" deer and this one dwarfed them. I'm guessing conservatively 170". Yesterday was the first evening back in the stand since, and that is where I sit as I type this. Sorry for the long post and even longer response time. Here's a pic of my view this morning


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

I'm sure you already know that based upon the actions of the deer after the shot and the distance traveled that there is a very high probability that it was gut shot. Sorry for both you and the deer.


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## fastwater (Apr 1, 2014)

As Lundy stated, sorry for the both of you as well!
Can surely understand and appreciate what you are feeling. 

Will apologize in abvance for such a long post...

Lost a nice buck many years ago also due to a misplaced shot. Bothered me so bad I had several dreams about it. Re-played the whole scenario in my head a million times over. This many years later, can still tell you every second of the event, from grunting him up out of the bottom of the ravine...to when he approached walking stiff legged with his hair standing on end wanting to challenge the buck that was in his territory. He stopped by a sapling about 40yds out. Not seeing the buck he wanted to fight, he took his anger out on the sapling thrashing it severely times bending it clear to the ground. When he was finished beating on the sapling, he took a step broadside and I let the arrow fly. Thinking I hit him good(but not positive)and watching him run back into the ravine and up the opposite side of the hill till he was out of site, I heard him crash at what I thought was at the edge of a stand of pines on top of the hill.
After he crashed, as I listened, I could hear leaves rustling in the same area as if the buck was down, not dead but dying. The rustling stopped after about 20 mins.

I sat in my stand until well after dark anticipating my next move. Should I start trailing...or should I walk back to the house and wait till morning?

Again, thinking I had made a good shot but not 100% positive, made my decision to be on the safe side, walk back to the house and get on him at daylight. Was sure I would find him right where I heard him crash and rustling. 

Naturally, the most direct path back to the house was straight up over the hill in line with where the buck crashed. I decided to skirt around the hill which added about a mile to my walk. I knew the woods well so was using my small flashlight sparingly(which the batteries were almost dead and a candle would have given off more light) when. Halfway around the base of the hill, spooked something. Lit the dim flashlight up but couldn't see anything. 

That was a long night but at daybreak the search started. Again, since where I heard the buck crash was between the house and my stand, I headed straight out the backyard and up to the top of the hill. As I got on top of the hill entering into the stand of pines, I stopped briefly looking for any sign. Didn't really expect to see my buck there cause the rustling I had heard was in leaves...not pine needles. Figured he would be laying about 50yds ahead just before the pines. 

As I got to where I thought he went down, I was correct. He had went down exactly in that spot. The only problem was, he wasn't there. There was blood all over where he went down and you could tell he thrashed around for a good bit as there was about a 10'x10' area that was a mess. 

The next couple hrs was spent down on hands and knees trying to locate one speak of blood,hair, any sign leaving that spot. I did find tracks leaving that spot going into the pines and then out of the pines headed towards some thick, small foothills. But there was absolutely not a spot of blood anywhere. Problem was, I did not have permission to enter into the area the tracks were heading towards.
I back tracked down to my stand from the crash site finding much darker colored blood and half my broken arrow. He bled profusely from where I shot him to where he crashed. At that point, I knew my shot was further back on him than what I had thought. 

Went home and called the owner of the property I thought the buck headed towards. He was a truck driver, was on a trip and his wife said he would be back late Sunday night(this was Sat.). She would not give permission for me to try and track the buck but told me to call Monday and talk to her husband. 
At any rate, I got thinkin about the noise I had heard when I was skirting around the base of the hill the night of the shot. I called some guys, told them what was happening and they met me at the house. Again, there was absolutely no sigh of blood from the crash site.
We formed a line and strarted at the base of the hill circling slowly upwards, combing until we reached the top.
We ended up sweeping about 150-160acres of property I had permission to hunt.

Well, the following Monday,I got ahold of the fella that owned the property with the small foothills and he gave me permission to search for the buck which I did. 
At this point, not being able to follow even tracks, was just searching by for deer itself. That area was so thick it was hard to see 5' and up and down with so many foothills about 15' deep each.
Searched all day Monday, took Tuesday off work and searched again....nothing.

The only thing positive that came out of that whole experience is that the owner of that property gave me permission to hunt his property. I had given him my phone number when I was originally talking to him and asked him while he was out and about, if he saw a downed large buck if he would call me. He called me that following week and told me that he had been thinkin about the situation and he would give me permission to hunt his property cause I had respect enough for him not to go onto his property without permission. Over the years, being the only person he had ever given permission to hunt his 60acre property that butted up to deep woods, I killed many deer out of there.

At any rate, the very next year, during M/L season, I was heading to a hillside stand I had placed on his property. I had bow hunted it heavily earlier in the season and had made many trips up the path to that stand. As I was slowly walking, almost in a still hunting fashion, I glanced downhill to my right towards those foothills. Something light in color caught my eye at the head of one of the foothills. Walked down and sure enough, at the head of that foothill, under a fallen tree that had fell across the foothill was the remains of my buck. He had crawled up underneath that fallen tree in the crevice of the head of that small foothill and died.

Even though I found his remains and retrieved his rack(of which I still have today) the thought of him going to waste has haunted me for years. 
But I've learned over the years, that if we hunt long enough, there's a very good chance that it's gonna happen sooner or later. 

If the desire to not get prepared the best I can before each deer season ever leaves me...if I ever take an animals life for granted...if I would again loose a deer(doe or buck)and it didn't bother me just like that one did, I'll know then it's time for me to stop hunting.

Soooo...Ill keep preparing best I can, knowing my limits...take the best shots I can, and it won't matter buck or doe...will track both with the same diligence. 

Again...sorry for such a long post...


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## T-180 (Oct 18, 2005)

Is it possible you hit him high, aka "tenderloined" him ? Lots of blood at first then down to a trickle & covers lots of ground. Gt shot deer tend to want to bed in my experience.


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

T-180 said:


> Is it possible you hit him high, aka "tenderloined" him ? Lots of blood at first then down to a trickle & covers lots of ground. Gt shot deer tend to want to bed in my experience.


Except he noted in his post _"I hit it back a little but noting major. He never ran, went to the creek edge and headed west for about 100 yards. Then stopped for about 45 seconds the whole time I could still see him." _Actions of this deer after the shot, not running, stopping, are very typical of deer shot in the guts. We don't know how many times this deer stopped and bedded on his trek. Again, I hate to hear for both of them, but I seen it too many times.


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## fishintechnician (Jul 20, 2007)

T-180 said:


> Is it possible you hit him high, aka "tenderloined" him ? Lots of blood at first then down to a trickle & covers lots of ground. Gt shot deer tend to want to bed in my experience.


Mine too, and it is possible, like I said I know I was back a little, my first thought was liver but again they usually bed. And thru the whole track I never saw evidence of him bedding


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## Shad Rap (Nov 10, 2010)

fishintechnician said:


> Mine too, and it is possible, like I said I know I was back a little, my first thought was liver but again they usually bed. And thru the whole track I never saw evidence of him bedding


A lot of times a gut shot deer will go for water too...


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