The sometimes not so sweet smell of success.

Our first call of the season was a long haul out to south-central Kansas.  That track was spoiled by over anxious hunters who pushed a mortally wounded paunch shot deer a very long distance.  Thankfully, the outiftter was able to recover what was left of the deer several days later when the wind blew the scent of the carcass to one of his guides roaming the area.  This was only the third deer in our 7 seasons of tracking that was recovered after we terminated the track.  Difficult tracking conditions combined with a deer that was pushed repeatedly by hunters resulted in a disappointing first track of the season.  It did give me an opportunity to watch my new dog work a difficult trail, though, which usually yields some useful knowledge.

I was excited to get a promising call from a local hunter a few days later.  Calls are typically sparse early in the season, and local calls are a rarity.  Few mega-bucks lurk in my area, and hunters are reluctant to call on anything less than a big buck, even when local fees are low.  Even more rare, is to get a call to track a doe.  In this case, a hunter who I had tracked for in the past had made a paunch shot on a doe.  He had tracked her for about 70 yards before losing all blood and sign.  He was later joined by another hunter, and spent an additional 45 minutes searching for the deer without success.  

I arrived with Layla and Echo about 10 hours after the shot.  The conditions were warm and dry which is never good, but the short time frame was in our favor.  Additionally, I felt confident that the deer was dead based on the hunter's report of the shot.  No wound beds had been found, but deer shot in the paunch with large expandable broadheads rarely survive.  They also don't tend to cover a lot of ground if left alone.  This one was pursued about an hour after the shot, but I was still hopeful that the track would yield a recovery.  

By the time I was able to arrive at the shot shot, the hunter had gone off to work.  He had arranged for his hunting partner to meet me, and escort me to the hit site.  Unfortunately, the young man who met me was unsure as to where exactly the hit site was or where the deer had already been tracked.  He knew the general area of the hit, but not much else about the shot.  Worse yet, he was color blind, and unable to see blood as a result.  

After a bit of blind searching, Layla picked up the track, and showed me a small pile of blood on some leaves.  She took to the trail without hesitation, and covered the previously tracked 70 yards without any issues.  The visible blood ended at a small waterhole within the forest.   Layla used the opportunity to take a drink and a quick cool down.  Her youth and lack of experience made successfully restarting her difficult.  It was difficult to tell if the deer had also crossed the waterhole or continued along the same path we had been travelling along.  

Layla finally started making some headway, but that is when things fell apart.  The track took us right into the middle of a half an acre area of fresh turkey scratching.  The turkeys had literally disturbed the entire forest floor in this area, and it was clear that it had happened between the time the deer was shot and the time that we arrived.  She started trailing very "hot,' and I was sure that it was the turkeys she was trailing.  After following her for about 50 yards, I saw the culprits, a flock of about 25-30 birds.  Worse yet, I couldn't get them to leave.  I repeatedly pushed the turkeys, only to have them regroup around us.  At times, they were within 5-10 yards of us.  Getting Layla successfully restarted on the right track was a hopeless endeavor.  This was just too much distraction on a young dog.  

After a trip back to the truck, I exchanged one dog for another.  Act two would involve Echo.  At 18 months old, he was already showing marked improvements in his tracking abilities.  Last year he had a good rookie season, but this year he had been showing some real talent.   I had to walk him right back through the turkeys to get to the start of the track.  He too was very distracted by the birds and all the scent that they were smothering the ground with.  It took several attempts to get him to start the track, as he was intent on going after the birds.  Once I got him focused, however, he was off to the races.  He kept his nose down and tracked in his lackadaisical style, looking almost bored with the task.  He covered the first section of track without any difficulty at all.  When he arrived at the water hole, he resisted going down to take a drink, and continued along the same path that Layla had eventually taken shortly before.  When he came to all the turkey scratching, he made his way through it without any hesitation.  However, without any confirmatory sign, I was not convinced that he was on the right track any more than Layla was.  To complicate matters, the young hunter along with me, was fairly certain that his friend had tracked the deer off in another direction before losing the blood trail.  

I had nothing else to go on, but the dog, so I followed along.  After another 150 yards we came to a fence that ran along a deep ditch with a stream flowing down the center.  Echo crossed under the fence, but stopped at the ditch and looked back at me.  When I didn't cross after him, he came back to my side and tracked down the fence in both directions looking for the deer's scent.  Just as Echo made his way back towards the initial fence crossing did the young man with us as "What is that?"  He pointed across the ditch to a brown lump in the tall grass.  It was definitely a deer!  I wanted Echo to finish the track on his own.  He went under the fence a second time, and this time I followed.  A few short minutes later we were standing over the expired doe.  As we approached, the smell became evident even to my human nose.  The smell of success is not always sweet!

Here is Echo with his first recovery of the season...