As we continue to creep closer to fall, I feel it is important to share one of the most eye-opening experiences that I have personally experienced in the deer woods, and one that I learned a great deal from.
Last fall, on the evening of October 3rd, I got a phone call from my good friend Hannah. She had just shot a buck, and with her dad out of town, she needed some help. Before loading up and making the almost two-hour drive up to her deer camp, I tried to get as much information as I could. The shot—it was a bit of a poke, close to 30 yards. To the best she could tell, the deer lunged forward 10–20 yards, stopped, and continued walking. And the arrow? She could not find it. Right off the bat, it didn’t give me a great feeling, so I told her to just back out and wait for some more help, and some more lights, to arrive.
Upon arriving a few hours later, we headed out to the impact site and started to take a look. One of the other members of camp who joined us thought he smelled a bit of off-guts at the impact point, but the arrow wasn’t telling that story. It was pretty much clean, with a little fat on it. There was hardly any blood, and definitely no gritty, gutty material. And after a 2-inch Rage went through the supposed middle of a whitetail, with very little blood on the ground, I was not very confident.
We trailed pin drops for about 75 yards before losing the blood. It looked as if the deer was walking, dripping blood straight down. My gut told me it was a low or brisket-hit deer, maybe just a flesh wound. With the lack of sign on the arrow, blood pattern, and anecdotal account of the deer’s reaction, I was almost positive this deer was not dead.
However, Hannah’s dad forwarded the phone number of a local tracker, and I gave him a ring to get his opinion. The tracker came to the same conclusion I had, but said they were in the area and would be willing to stop by in a bit to check out the arrow nonetheless.
Around two hours later, the tracker (insert tracker name here) showed up to camp with their dogs. The tracker smelled and examined the arrow, and with little confidence, discussed similar situations and past experiences. We were all hopeful, but it did not feel like a deer that was going to be lethally hit.
For context, trackers generally charge to simply put a dog on a track, so with little confidence that this buck was lethally hit, none of us were super eager to send the dog out. However, after about 20 minutes of talking at the cabin, the tracker offered to make the couple-hundred-yard walk back into the woods to just put the dog on the track and see if it acted like it was following a lethally hit deer.
The tracker came to the same conclusion we had along the trail—not much blood, no real sign of any solid impact. However, the dog was a heck of a lot smarter than us, putting its head down and slowly working its way down the trail.
About 150 yards in, the dog stopped and put his nose down hard into the leaves, then continued pursuing. The tracker noticed something, bent down, and picked up a leaf with a greenish-brown smear on it. Upon smelling it, he handed it to me. Sure enough, guts.
The demeanor of the tracker changed instantly, now knowing this was a lethally hit deer. About 75 yards later, we crested a small ridge, and there the dog was, nosing Hannah’s dead buck. Needless to say, we were shocked and elated.
What instantly became clear is that we—and especially me—were dead wrong. But even the trackers did not feel good about it either. The arrow was clean. There was no blood, no sign of guts, nothing. The deer reacted as if it had just gotten a haircut.
Without the dogs, we would have likely given up on that deer, or at best, come out the next morning to have a look and come across a spoiled deer from the warm early-season temps. The only guy who had an inkling of confidence was the other camp member who thought he got a whiff of guts at some point—credit to him!
My main takeaways from this success story were two things: Never solely rely on sign and reaction, even if they all point to a different outcome, and always trust the dogs—they are a heck of a lot better at tracking deer than we are.
Hannah’s story is one I certainly, and hopefully others, can reflect on and learn from on future tracks. After all, we owe it to the deer to give it our best effort possible. It is not always easy, but using your resources, such as a heck of a tracking dog, can make the difference between a punched tag and a season of disappointment.
-Alex Rewa, Host of '93 Days"
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