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Hoffman Deer Recovery & Training Kennel LLC

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Iola, WI
Hoffman Deer Recovery & Training Kennel LLC

Hoffman Deer Recovery & Training Kennel LLC Instead of charging a set fee for our tracking services we operate using a tip/donation based system as to not be financially out of reach of anyone.

Our services include tracking wounded game with our own personal dogs, training dogs to track, shed hunting training, and training dogs for squirrel hunting as well.

01/07/2025

A couple more recoveries for 2025 from the other day. The first one the deer was shot at last light and the hunter saw his lumenok go straight up in the air above the deer. No blood anywhere to be found. My initial thought was that he hit a big bone somewhere and it deflected upwards. Which was the case here. The hunter was using a crossbow and hit the deer in the front shoulder it broke the front leg and deflected straight up through the neck of the deer. This deer didn’t go crazy far but didn’t leave a single drop of visible blood. The only vitals I saw that were hit was one lung which we rarely recover one lung deer but this was one of the few apparently.

The second one had a good blood trail for 150 yards then she stopped and left no trace after. Seeing the arrow I saw grit and thought she might be hit in the liver area potentially gut but the arrow was froze so was hard to say for sure. We took this track up 18 hours after and tracked her 350+ yards to find her still alive. We backed out the hunters tried to get a follow up shot but she got up before they could get to a spot where they could shoot. We came back at the 21 hour mark to find her freshly expired another 100 yards from where they jumped her trying to get a follow up shot. She was hit liver/one lung.

01/04/2025

First one for 2025 under the belt. Shot last night and jumped by the hunter. One lung liver gut hit. 3 degrees with a real feel of -8 while on this track made for a chilly one.

01/02/2025

Well here is the big news for the 2025 tracking season for us!! Some people already know this but I will be adding a thermal drone to the repertoire to help us locate your deer next season. The dogs will still be the work horses as I believe there is no better option for tracking a dead deer than a well trained dog. But this will be a great asset for us especially for locating your deer if it is alive. If we run into property line issues and can’t contact the owners in a timely fashion. Or for those grid searched deer where you may have contaminated that scent line too much for the dog to track it. In general it will be another tool in our tool belt and will allow me to help a wider range of clientele and situations that we may not have been able to before. So you will also have that drone option next year from us. Already licensed and finally have everything here and set up. Now it’s just a matter of getting familiar and confident with it before the start of next season. 2025 season can’t come fast enough!

01/01/2025

We may get on a track or two yet here before season ends but now that 2024 is over I’ll post some end of year stats as per usual here. This was my best year yet in recoveries and number of tracks taken. Both these numbers just keep going up every year and hopefully that will continue to be the case for years to come. Which is only possible due to word of mouth and recommendations from followers and friends and people I’ve tracked for in the past.

Total recoveries/tracks taken: 51-130 (39%)

Deer Bow: 46-109 (42%)

Deer Gun: 5-12 (42%)

Bear: 0-9 (0%) We jumped 6 of these 9 bears and 5 of the 6 we jumped were over 3/4s of a mile from hit site. We just were not able to get on dead or fatally hit bears. One of these bears was a bow shot rest were firearm

6 deer we tracked were also just to confirm misses so hard to count those against the dog.

Average recovery distance: 460 yards

Average recovery age: 15 hours

Longest recovery: 1650 yards. Freyja had 3 recoveries over 1600 yards this year all basically the same exact hit. Low stomach hits. 10 of those recoveries over 1000 yards

Oldest recovery: 38 hours

Animals jumped while tracking: 24 (these are animals that allowed us to get close enough for me to be able to see them get up in front of us) I follow up on most of these if I am available and most of the time these are not deer that ever end up dieing because we are generally practicing proper wait times when we jump them the first time. But we do get a few of these 2 day tracks.

Proof of life’s: 38 (this is anything from hunters reaching back out days or weeks after saying they seen the deer while hunting or they got a trail cam pic of the deer. Or even a neighbor shot it or someone in their hunting party shot it later on). Proof of life’s are much harder to get with does than they are withbucks as well because the hunter just doesn’t know which deer or isn’t looking for that deer and we tracked quite a few does this year. Which is awesome it seems like more and more doe calls every year.

I was also gone the second week of November and had over 170 calls in 5.5 days while gone. So would have most likely pushed out 35-40 more tracks pushing us into the 170 track range for the year. Hopefully 2025 brings another successful and injury free year. We have some big news in the coming days as well!

12/30/2024

Two more doe recoveries for Raven over the last couple of days. Hopefully we can get out one or two more times yet this season as for most of the northern counties here season closes January 5th but most of the southern half still has extended archery till January 31st.

12/28/2024

Here is a recovery where the hunting party probably didn’t need us and would have most likely stumbled on this deer but that was because everything post shot was done properly. The hunter went to go check the hit site and saw no blood or sign that the deer was hit so started looking in the direction it went and 10 yards from hit site saw some gut material. Knowing there wouldn’t be much or any sign and the deer would need time he gave me a call and we set up a time the next day to put the pup on it. I saw no visible sign past there last sign and the deer was dead in its first bed at about 150 yards hit one lung liver and gut.

12/26/2024

I guess neither of the dogs want tracking season to be over with quite yet which I’m more then okay with. Fun 2-2 morning I wish I brought the go pro but forgot it. Both deer were gut shot. Ravens was unpushed and dead in its first bed 250 yards. Freyjas was tracked too soon and I knew it was a pushed deer which is why I brought her because I figured it was going to be a hike. Over half a mile later with an almost bloodless track she recovered this nice doe dead in her 5th bed along a river. No chance this deer is seen again without her.

12/25/2024

Freyja says it’s not over yet. Got this call Monday night with a pic showing the stomach was hit. They tracked it 75 yards that night. I advised them to back out and not push the deer. We set up a time to meet 16 hours post shot. Freyja hit this track and took us 300 yards to where we jumped the deer. I could see her whole stomach was hanging out and still plenty lively at 16 hours. Which goes to show how tough these animals are. We backed out and came back at the 20 hour mark and she went another 150 yards from where we jumped her to find her freshly expired. Total track distance just over 450 yards. I caught the whole track on the go pro so will be able to share that soon enough.

12/24/2024

Here is a couple recoveries from Raven. These were her first recoveries ever. Also night tracks so not great video but wanted to get her first ones on video for keepsake. You’ll be seeing a lot more of this pup next year to give Freyja a few days off here and there. I’ve been super happy with what this pup has shown me this year between training and actual tracks in her first year. This night I got a call from a friend that he had arrowed a doe and felt good about the hit and knew I was starting another pup this year and said if I didn’t have any other tracks scheduled to come run it if I’d like. So of course I took that opportunity to get her some more experience. While I was driving there he told me he shot at two more does after that. He felt good about the first two does but didn’t see them go down and was unsure about the third. The first two went about 60 and 80 yards super quick double lunged deer. Both ran down the same path. After Raven took us to those two we put her on the third doe which went the opposite direction of the first two and ended up going about 180 yards. A great night of exposure for this young pup. These kinds of tracks for a pup starting out are invaluable and are great confidence builders and a great way to build drive. The difference in focus and drive from these tracks to the deer I recovered last week with her is night and day difference. This little pup absolutely loves to track and is shaping up into a nice tracking dog.

12/21/2024

This was a track from November 1st. The hunter originally thought the shot was low and forward which made me think it was a deer that we could get after fairly quickly. We got on this deer probably 4 hours after it was shot. No blood for the first 150-200 yards then started getting steady blood for the middle portion of this track. Freyja tracked 550 yards in just a few minutes which made me start to think this was most likely a fatally hit deer. Shortly after that I started to see some chunks of caul fat telling me this deer was hit low but further back then the hunter thought and that this deer was going to need some more time then we originally thought. So we backed out and scheduled to meet the next day to give this deer the time it needed to die. I didn’t have the go pro on me the first day we tracked this deer unfortunately but I brought it the next day knowing this was a dead deer and was just a matter of how far till we had him recovered. We started right where we left off at the 550ish yard mark and with only two spots of blood Freyja marched the next 400 yards in short order making total distance of this track 950 yards and where he died being his first and only bed. This deer most likely would have never been seen again without a well trained tracking dog.

12/18/2024

It’s not over yet! Got Raven out tonight on a lung/liver/gut hit. Entrance was basically perfect the deer just ended up being quartered more then originally thought and exit came out lower and back. Hunter watched this deer run off then walk and bed down while head bobbing and getting back up and bedding down again acting like a deer that was hit back. Deer moved probably 120 yards from the bed he saw the deer last in making for a relatively quick recovery here.

12/16/2024

This track the hunters tracked this deer over 900 yards when they noticed a chunk of corn in the blood and realized she wasn’t hit as well as they thought and that they were just pushing her. They backed out and blood was getting sparse so they just decided to have me come out the next day. The hunter had to work and I had tracks booked for when he was off of work so he sent me his track and a pin of where they had last blood. So I dropped Freyja at the pin they had last blood at and let her figure it out from there. She didn’t go but 150 yards past their last blood. All she was doing was staying ahead of them as they were tracking. If she was given the proper amount of time for a gut shot she wouldn’t have gone more than 200 probably and been dead in her first bed.

12/13/2024

Sometimes they are quick and easy like this one. The hunter knew his shot back from the gut material on his arrow. He couldn’t see any blood to follow as what typically happens with a gut shot so he backed out we gave this deer enough time to die and scheduled to meet up the following day. He wouldn’t have needed us on this one as the deer only went 80 yards and laid down in the middle of a road and died but rarely does that ever happen. If this deer would have went 300+ yards and never left a drop of blood much less chance he would have found this deer. Tracks are normally much shorter when everything is handled perfectly on a shot further back.

12/10/2024

Here is a track we took the 1st of November. We had a full day of tracks scheduled but this one ended up being pretty close to another track we had so we squeezed it in. The hunter shot the buck watched it take a few steps and lay down. Sounded like a typical gut shot reaction so I figured this deer was probably dead. Another member of the hunting party ended up bumping this deer from his bed walking out and they only had one drop of blood in the bed and nothing after. They grid searched the entire property all day thinking it went in a different direction then what it ended up actually going with no luck so we weren’t sure if Freyja was going to be able to work through all the scent contamination. The second we put her on the bed by hit site her body language immediately told me she was going to find this deer for us. 250 yards later and a few minutes of getting hit in the face with branches in this thick terrain and we were standing over the hunters buck.

12/07/2024

This track was from opening weekend of bow. The hunter shot the deer and started tracking it and after a short ways they saw corn with blood on it along the track and shortly after that lost blood in a pine tree plantation. They backed out and gave me a call and despite the 85+ degree temps we gave this deer the time it needed and it paid off in a rather short track with the deer not being wasted or pushed out of his first bed at about 250 yards. I usually don’t even bother taking the go pro on night tracks because you can’t see as well but I felt confident this was a deer we were going to find.

12/04/2024

We will still get a few muzzleloader and late bow season calls yet this year but will be scattered and minimal now that rifle is done with. So I’ll have a lot more time to start going through go pro videos of some recoveries this year and uploading them.

This track is a great example of someone who follows the page and handled everything nearly perfectly post shot. Deer was quartering away and shot slightly back. Making it a liver/one lung hit deer. With a higher entrance and no exit this deer did not leave a single drop of visible blood the entirety of this track. You will see toilet paper left in the tree in the begining of this video where the hunter tried to give me a direction he thought the deer had ran. A lot of my recoveries are this exact scenario. Mid body entrance hitting the opposite shoulder and leave no exit which isn’t going to leave much or any sign on the track.

This was a mid October track so we gave this deer 14 hours before attempting to track him. He was still warm and limp when we got to him. If you want to know what a solid dog looks like on a clean line on a dead deer that is not pushed by the hunter this is it. Recovery was just over 300 yards from the hit site and we had this deer in 3.5 minutes. With a clean line on a dead deer it’s not uncommon for us to go 800+ yards in 15 min or less. A contaminated line with a lot of foot traffic from the hunter and hunting party or an alive deer will not result in a nice clean track like this for the dog and will look much different.

I’ll keep uploading recovery videos from this season as I get time to get to them. All videos are shot in 1080p so if your video is a little grainy just switch your settings to 1080p.

12/02/2024

As rifle season has ended here things will drastically slow down. So if you are looking at getting into the tracking game I have a few spots available yet for the 2025 Spring and Summer sessions for blood tracking dog training. References available. PM for details or any questions if interested. Here’s just a snippet of what the 2024 dogs I had in for training did this fall. Over 130 recoveries so far from 2024 client dogs!

11/28/2024

Happy Thanksgiving! Tracked a couple non lethal hit deer yesterday and jumped both of them. Both being leg hit. Got this stud of a buck this morning that was liver/lung hit. He had an old bow wound from a week or two ago across his brisket and then we took a leg shot doe over 800 yards that we just couldn’t catch up to after this track. Going to enjoy family time the rest of the day today. But will be available all day tomorrow again. Already starting to book for tomorrow so call early! Enjoy family time and shoot straight if you’re going to be hunting.

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Iola, WI
54945

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Videos

Here is a story of the buck we jumped yesterday that I assumed we probably wouldn’t find after I seen how he got up out of his bed we jumped him from. This buck was shot at about 4:30pm the 14th the hunter told me low mid body and so we assumed gut hit and gave this buck 22 hours before even attempting to track him. The hunter left us an untouched clean line figuring this deer wouldn’t bleed much with that kind of a hit and would take a long time to die. The hunter ended up getting a video of this buck on his trail cam at about 7 pm Thursday 300 yards from where he shot him. We could only see the exit side and could just barely see a little cut on the belly so we were thinking it was a low belly graze. We came the 15th at 2:30 pm which was at about that 22 hour mark. Freyja took us 600 yards in short order the last 100 yards were straight up a bluff which I basically had to crawl up. Most people always say wounded deer won’t go up a hill but I see most mature bucks go straight to hill tops so they can see well and watch their backtrack. At the top of this hill the buck jumped up at about 25 yards from me 15 yards from the dog. I watch him blow out of a tree top and run through two other tree tops. I backed out and told the hunter this deer didn’t look sick at all and that I didn’t think this was a gut hit deer but because he let me get fairly close we would come back on it if he wanted me to. And no sign of gut material anywhere on this track and not in any of the tree tops he blew through when I jumped him. I’d of figured for sure there would be intestine or fat chunks going through all that brush with a low gut hit. But we came back the 16th as the hunter wanted to exhaust all options. Before we came back the hunter ended up getting this deer on a different camera at 7:17 pm the 15th and again at 7:21 pm. Approximately 27 hours after the hit. He looked hurt and like maybe gut or intestines were hit. He looked like he would fall over in one of these vid

Here’s a fun video to watch and enjoy. As we were heading to track number 5 on the day yesterday I had a hunter reach out asking my opinion on this shot. We talked about it and I thought that maybe it hit the heart as I’ve recovered a few hit in this same spot. Usually I recover them around the 250 yard mark. They tracked it with heavy blood for awhile then dwindled to almost nothing. They were able to take it 220 yards to a river that was too deep too cross and wanted to know my opinion on what they should do from here. We decided since I still had one more track to get too and it was getting later that they would access the river from the other side and see if they could follow it and if blood was still not much or they couldn’t find any that they wouldn’t do too much searching and leave the dog a nice clean line to work and that we would come in the morning with Freyja and sort it out if needed. As I was leaving track number 5 they sent me a pic with the buck! He was just on the other side of the river. Although a dog was not needed this time I appreciate them asking my opinion and setting everything up for the dog to have the highest chance of success in this situation. I would bet most hunters and a handful of trackers would have wrote this deer off as a brisket shot deer. Deer hit low and/or back have a lot better odds of being fatal then deer hit high or forward. I’ll post a pic of the buck after being recovered in the comments since fb doesn’t allow videos and pics in the same post.