Best Effort Recovery and Bloodhounds

04/21/2025

04/21/2025

Pixie is spending the week at Geralds Deer Recovery Service . Stitch and Pixie are about to become parents in about 2 months. I'm starting to worry I won't get my dog back. She is stealing hearts like usual.

02/08/2025

It's been a while since I shared a recovery story.

This one was shot just before a rain storm i don't remember the caliber of gun used but the blood trail was great till it started raining. I brought pixie to the location early the following morning and for some reason she had a tough time progressing the track. Several times she restarted herself and eventually figured out the proper line and soon had the deer located. I have a feeling the scent got spread by the guys searching the night before and created several false tracks.

02/07/2025

Who, in Crawford or Lawrence County, has a lot of land and a c**n problem? I have a couple buddies coming to hunt with me this weekend.

01/07/2025

Story time.

We almost missed him.
This deer was shot at close range and hit at the ideal spot. The blood trail was moderate and the deer bedded at 250 yards. I started Pixie at the hit sight and she tracked the deer loosely and without much enthusiasm. Before we got to the bed we jumped some does and Pixie thought she had jumped her target. After calming her a bit and restarting she slowly got us to the bed but would stop occasionally and stare down the woods in the direction the deer had run. About 100 yards after the bed we jumped another deer that had to be laying directly on the scent trail. Again we had to calm her down and restart. It was starting to snow and what little blood we had was being covered with the white stuff. We soon found new blood and advanced the confirmed track by a couple hundred yards. At this point Pixie snapped her nose into the air and did a 90 cutting crosswind till she came to the top of a ditch bank by an old road way. Here she froze and stood testing the wind. I assumed she was again being tempted by live deer and hoping she would get to pursue them. Instead of letting her wait on the wind to swirl and bring her the scent she had recognized i told her to get busy. On her own she went back to last blood then continued toward the bucks known bedding area. She was soon tracking like she was once again on a live deer track. The signs I was getting from Pixie and the fact that the deer wasn't dead in his bed at 250 yards with the shot description I was given I hesitantly decided to call the track and head back to the truck. Now the hunter's Dad had been with us but after Pixie reset herself we hadn't seen him. We sent him a text telling him what we had decided to do. Back at the truck, when Dad showed up, he asked what the verdict was. We told him we concluded the deer wasn't recoverable with a leashed dog. His response, "What would you say if I found him?"
He had seen Pixie testing the wind and decided to follow that ridge and the scrape line down to the bottoms. As he slowly made his way down there he caught a whiff of a dead deer. He quickly checked the wind direction with a bit of paper towel he had in his pocket. Heading into the wind he soon caught a glimpse of antlers and realized he had just found the buck his son had been chasing for four years.
I don't know exactly why Pixie missed him. She got close but wasn't able to close the deal. I probably gave up too soon and should have restarted one more time. The terain was tricky and did funny things with the wind and the scent.
The shot was exactly where the hunter said it was the only problem I could find was the arrow came out infront of the opposite leg so it probably only got one lung and nicked the heart. We found him but I still left the track feeling like I had failed. It's these tracks that make us better.

12/31/2024

Dad, if we could bring in the new year with a deer track, it would be great.

12/28/2024

You can run and hide, but Pixie is pretty good at finding.

I started this track on a Friday evening on some private land next to public land. The shot was uncertain but I felt like it might involve liver and stomach when I examined the arrow. The blood was frozen so it I couldn't tell for sure. Pixie liked the track and soon had us past last blood and walking through the woods wondering if we were still on the right deer. Every time when I was about to call her bluff I would find just a drop of blood. One drop was the size of a pin head. We were fairly deep into the public land when Pixie suddenly indicated a hot track. Now I didn't know if we were still on the right deer or if she decided to chase something more exciting. I shone my spotlight around and saw two sets of eyes running in a loop around and back the way we had come. I decided to keep going and maybe since we got him running it might shake more blood out. Sure enough another 150 yards showed us blood. Normally at this point I would back out and come back in the morning. Since I was on public land and can only track on public at night i decided to push him till he went back on private or we catch up to him. The deer did a huge figure 8 crossing his track twice before we stopped tracking at 1.75 miles. The following morning about 9:00 we resumed the track. Pixie didn't waist any time locking back on and following the path the deer took the night before. He had parallel our walk out of the woods and passed by our vehicles by 50 yards. As we got closer to our vehicles I noticed a four wheeler setting ahead of us then out of the corner of my eye I saw a man in camo. I recognized him as one of the hunters from the night before and my heart rate returned to normal. He had come out to join us after his hunt, and wouldn't you know, he parked smack dab on top of the blood trail after he drove on it for 40 yards. This didn't bother Pixie too much because she had one thing on her mind. Pixie led us all the way to the river and showed us blood headed out onto the sand bar. For some reason she hit a wall and went into search mode. Every path I expected him to have taken didn't pan out. I stood there observing Pixie as she worked the area sniffing in places where the scent would gather. The wind was such that I concluded the deer had crossed the river and was dead on the bluff on the opposite side. The water was clear and I could see it wasn't awfully deep so I decided to wade across. I made my way out into the river but instead of following me like she normally would she scrambled up the steep bank to the right and up wind from where we had come down onto the sand bar. Instead of following I insisted on crossing the river. Once on the opposite side Pixie got the zoomies because of the cold water she had to wade through. Finally after several minutes of shaking and rolling and acting a fool I got her back to the task at hand. I started searching the bank trying to cut the track. Suddenly Pixie stopped perked her head up and made a belive back the the waters edge. Here she froze and stared across the river. I know that look, he is not on our side of the river afterall. Another trip through the fridge water. Up over that steep bank and just twenty yards along the top there was the buck we were after. Good job Pixie. Sorry for the cold bath. Total track length 2.75 miles.

12/23/2024

This video is intended for educational purposes.

I rarely have the opportunity to showcase this scenario, as we typically do not recover deer hit in this manner. The reason for this is that we usually do not initiate tracking within a two-hour timeframe, and our primary focus is on tracking bucks that exhibit more substantial blood loss and stamina. Furthermore, bucks may possess increased clotting factors in their circulatory system. I must admit that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to confirm this with certainty. Nevertheless, in this instance, the deer was not struck in the lungs and ultimately succumbed due to inadequate oxygen supply to its muscles, which prevented it from continuing to flee from us. I surmised that if I did not recover the deer, coyotes would likely do so.