Bad experience with paid tracking dogs

A few years back I shot a really nice buck that fell in his tracks. I made it to him about 15 minutes later, getting within about 10yds bf he jump up and bounded off. I threw my gun up but elected not to take the Texas heart shot since I thought he was really hard hit. I followed him about 200 yds without a problem as he was pouring blood. I finally lost him in a dry creek bottom and despite backtracking, help from my brother, and a couple of hours of slow searching I was not able to find him.
I called my wife and she located one of the GON trackers. I called and he showed up about an hour later.

Great...we're going to find this trophy. We took him to the spot where I knocked the deer down. That wasn't where the tracker wanted to be. He asked where I had last seen the deer. I pointed about 200yd behind where we were. He jumped into his truck and we jumped into my brother's truck. Unfortunately, my brother hung a stump and that stalled us a few seconds until we could determine that it was OK to hit 4wd and get unhung. We probably lagged behind a minute or so. When we get to where the tracker had stopped, he was dumping the last of his tracking dogs out. They hit the scent and the race was on. We followed the dogs though we weren't finding any blood sign. GPS showed we covered over half a mile before we relented and called the search off. I paid him and he left. In early spring we burned the clear-cut in preparation for planting. When the fire was gone, what did we find but what was most certainly the remnants of my buck laying in what was left of a large clump of palmettos only yards from where my brother and I stopped searching. Rodents had chewed up both sides of the rack and only leaving from the G2's back. He measured 17-18" at that point and what was left of the two G2's were in excess of 8". He was a trophy for sure.
All of this story brings me to the question- what is the best way to utilize a tracking dog? Leash'em or let'em run? I have a friend who has a lab we've used with good results, but unfortunately he was at work and I couldn't reach him. I have regretted the vision of this guy dumping his dogs on the ground. I'm certain the deer was dead, and that his dogs struck a trail on another deer that happened to be in the area and was the proverbial red-herring. I know for sure that if I ever hire someone to track, the first question will be if the dog will be on a leash. NO LEASH??? NO WORK!

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Can't find them all. It's heart breaking to find one later that u tried hard to find.
I've got a lab that I use a leash a lot. Have turned her loose also. She's 2 now and is still green.
My best ever was a beagle and she ran free.

Good luck this year.

That's the difference between a deer dog and a blood dog. That's the first question you ask. If it's a blood dog then they should only follow blood, not deer.Most deer dogs will take the fresher track.

Sorry you had a bad experience. Some folks would ruin it for everyone. Always start the dog at the hit site for several reasons. To quote my friend J.J., "All a tracker has is his and his dogs reputation". I use my dog on or off lead as each case may call for. The most important asset in a tracking dog is discrimination between wounded and healthy deer. A tracking dog does not follow blood as much as it follows the scent of the wounded deer. That is why we advance train with only deer feet. Each deer has an individual scent and when wounded gives off a "fear" scent. A good tracking dog can follow the hurt deer through herds of healthy deer. It will not track or run healthy deer. It should be able to hold a deer at bay for you to dispatch even at two miles if need be. Day or night. Will track across rivers and bodies of water. Can tell you if a deer is missed or not recoverable. As with most everything there are some cases of shoddy work. About once a year or one of a hundred tracks we may leave a dead deer in the woods, no dog is perfect. You don't train a dog to do these things without years of work on many tracks and I mean over a hundred tracks a year. A handler must be very knowledgeable about the ways of deer as he and his dog are a team trusting and helping each other. All a tracking dog and handler have is their reputation.

Not sure if the dogs were the problem. I think the real problem is not getting over losing a deer. I've lost them and hope not to lose any more. It's a tough pill to swallow when you realize it all could be avoided with a better shot next time. That's the main reason I started the "How Did I Miss...." thread. It's easy to find someone else to blame. Real easy. That's why I am not surprised more people couldn't be honest enough with themselves and everyone else on the forum to admit their mistakes on shot placement. Hope you recover soon and get your next deer with no worries. Really I do.

http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=857175

mtr3333 said:

Not sure if the dogs were the problem. I think the real problem is not getting over losing a deer. I've lost them and hope not to lose any more. It's a tough pill to swallow when you realize it all could be avoided with a better shot next time. That's the main reason I started the "How Did I Miss...." thread. It's easy to find someone else to blame. Real easy. That's why I am not surprised more people couldn't be honest enough with themselves and everyone else on the forum to admit their mistakes on shot placement. Hope you recover soon and get your next deer with no worries. Really I do.

http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=857175

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Only been hunting GA for a few years now. Last year, I lost a young basket 10pt. Bad Shot...I hardly slept for days knowing that I injured the buck and was unable to recover the deer.

9 days later, my hunt partner brings to me a broken arrow, and set of antlers - said, "here is what is left of the 10pt".

Still have a hard time with it - but I assure you now, I am much more careful about shot placement. I have come to realize after seeing the remanence of natures course on the deer - the coyotes had to eat too.

apkorda said:

Only been hunting GA for a few years now. Last year, I lost a young basket 10pt. Bad Shot...I hardly slept for days knowing that I injured the buck and was unable to recover the deer.

9 days later, my hunt partner brings to me a broken arrow, and set of antlers - said, "here is what is left of the 10pt".

Still have a hard time with it - but I assure you now, I am much more careful about shot placement. I have come to realize after seeing the remanence of natures course on the deer - the coyotes had to eat too.

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I lost several deer and beat myself up over it. I hate losing deer because I was raised to not be wasteful. Sure coyotes gotta eat too, but I don't want to make it easy on them with my hard work.

And, isn't that part of the let down? You work so hard to get that opportunity and one little inch can make the difference between success, excitement and joy or just a mental beat down.

Each one of those lost deer is my own motivation to stay focused and make that shot count. At least you got your 10 pt antlers. I saw a guy walking down the road with mine 2 years later.

Sorry you had a bad experience both ways. Tough to lose a deer, but you gotta pick up and move on. There will be more.

When I was growing up the thing was to keep shooting until the deer was dead. Then came the 1 shot 1 kill baloney. If it is alive, and I can shoot, I keep shooting.

Ultimately, dogs are the third step in the equation. First is the shot, second is the trailing, third is the dog. Dogs are not the answer to bad shots. Dogs help find deer but are not a cure-all - no matter what people say - they do not find all of them.

Rich M said:

Sorry you had a bad experience both ways. Tough to lose a deer, but you gotta pick up and move on. There will be more.

When I was growing up the thing was to keep shooting until the deer was dead. Then came the 1 shot 1 kill baloney. If it is alive, and I can shoot, I keep shooting.

Ultimately, dogs are the third step in the equation. First is the shot, second is the trailing, third is the dog. Dogs are not the answer to bad shots. Dogs help find deer but are not a cure-all - no matter what people say - they do not find all of them.

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If a tracker tells you that he finds/recovers them all, don't enlist his help, he/she will lie about other things too. The best I have seen in this hobby will in a good year (if we can run the dog off lead at times) have about a 65-70 percent recovery rate. We will however account for about 95 percent of the deer we track.

Since I bow hunt a lot & hunt with family, I have always worked with our house dog to track.
She is way better at us on tracking & she loves it. She still has a ways to go to be great. But she ain't bad now.
If you pull up to our camp and she's out. I will know in less than a minute if you have a dead deer in the back of the truck or had one there recent.

rvick said:

Sorry you had a bad experience. Some folks would ruin it for everyone. Always start the dog at the hit site for several reasons. To quote my friend J.J., "All a tracker has is his and his dogs reputation". I use my dog on or off lead as each case may call for. The most important asset in a tracking dog is discrimination between wounded and healthy deer. A tracking dog does not follow blood as much as it follows the scent of the wounded deer. That is why we advance train with only deer feet. Each deer has an individual scent and when wounded gives off a "fear" scent. A good tracking dog can follow the hurt deer through herds of healthy deer. It will not track or run healthy deer. It should be able to hold a deer at bay for you to dispatch even at two miles if need be. Day or night. Will track across rivers and bodies of water. Can tell you if a deer is missed or not recoverable. As with most everything there are some cases of shoddy work. About once a year or one of a hundred tracks we may leave a dead deer in the woods, no dog is perfect. You don't train a dog to do these things without years of work on many tracks and I mean over a hundred tracks a year. A handler must be very knowledgeable about the ways of deer as he and his dog are a team trusting and helping each other. All a tracking dog and handler have is their reputation.

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This gentleman here is the best in South GA. Used his services a few times with 100% recovery rate.

A few years ago i shot a nice 8 pointer right at dark with a bow. Found a blood trail went about 50 yds and started getting smaller. I decided that rather waste time to call a dog. Guy shows up and i immediately notice his dog is fat but he was at that time he was all i had. His dog starts tracking and goes about 200 yards and comes to a property line. At this time he stops and rightfully says he will not cross line w/o permission which i did not have. Dog was also obviously exhausted and breathing thru its mouth. I paid his fee and he left.
The next morning i returned and found the deer less than 50yds from last blood and in opposite direction from the trail his dog followed.
Like has been said a few bad handlers mess up everybody, he was on the GON trail dog list , but i noticed he is no longer on there and has not been for years.

I imagine that trackers on a list will be about like any other service in the world if you just randomly call someone up. There will be some great ones, some good ones, and some bad ones. I would not blame this on the art of blood tracking with a dog though because that is surely not the issue. If properly trained, dogs are capable of doing some amazing things with their noses from locating bombs, drugs, drowning victims, cancer, and even alerting that a child’s blood sugar levels are dropping. If you had a bad experience with a tracker, then put them on your black list and try someone different in the future. Don’t give up on tracking with a dog though because it’s an awesome tool.

This edge cuts both ways too. Ask the trackers to tell about some bad experiences that they’ve had with hunters.

rvick said:

If a tracker tells you that he finds/recovers them all, don't enlist his help, he/she will lie about other things too. The best I have seen in this hobby will in a good year (if we can run the dog off lead at times) have about a 65-70 percent recovery rate. We will however account for about 95 percent of the deer we track.

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Can't put them in the truck if they aren't dead!

I have had a pretty good success rate this year. Since I lost Willie it has dropped a little. But rates are still 70% or so.

It seems as though during the rut more deer are wounded. I have had to finished off about half of the deer I have tracked this year.

I will track on lead if required to but definitely not my choice.

rvick said:

If a tracker tells you that he finds/recovers them all, don't enlist his help, he/she will lie about other things too. The best I have seen in this hobby will in a good year (if we can run the dog off lead at times) have about a 65-70 percent recovery rate. We will however account for about 95 percent of the deer we track.

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i agree with randy 100%,some trackers will only go on a track that is easy some of their tracks dont even need a dog and they dont count all their 0's.we count every deer we track either a 1/recovered or 0 not recovered no matter the reason,they tun into private property 0,into a river 0,arnt hit hard enough to catch 0,if it isnt put on the tail gate its a 0

It is a common thing for the blood trail to have been destroyed by hunters before calling a dog 10 people stomp all over the last blood maybe even they brought a friends dog over before they call we are normally the last resort until a hunter realizes what an advantage a tracking dog is I believe a dog can get too hyped up at first I like to take mine for a short run behind the four wheeler before we go on a track to get them settled a bit my dog actually starts to Trimble with excitement when he sees me getting the truck ready you've got to calm them down or the first 30 mins of tracking is spent marking territory and just running it's not hard to blow past one but if that fella would have restarted one dog on that trail he prob could have located that deer single dog tracking has always worked best for me personally .

rvick said:

If a tracker tells you that he finds/recovers them all, don't enlist his help, he/she will lie about other things too. The best I have seen in this hobby will in a good year (if we can run the dog off lead at times) have about a 65-70 percent recovery rate. We will however account for about 95 percent of the deer we track.

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I apologize for the apparent tone of my post - I have yet to find a tracker with a good dog who says he gets them all. It is just a canned answer these days - a dog will find it...

65-70% isn't bad. So, someone calls and has a 65-70% chance of getting that deer. Those odds are good.

Dogs are like people, they have bad days also. There are probably a few hunters out there that think my dogs are the worst ever as we got out there and the dog just seemed to have an off day. Who know what was going on. Then there are plenty of others out there that will tell you who wonderful my dogs are as they performed wonderful. As Randy quoted JJ "All a tracker has is his and his dog reputation" After 12 years in this hobby I have seen and experienced a lot. I strive to make sure hunters are pleased with the service I provided but there are some that you can never satisfy. You have to remember a tracking dog is being called in after the hunter made a bad shot, sometimes has no clue where they hit the deer or even where it was standing. Then they spend multiple hrs out looking destroying the line and then hope a dog can perform a miracle and work it all out. Sometimes we can and we look like a hero other times we just can not advance the line because it is so degraded.

I track for a large hunting preserve and we have greatly increased our recovery by setting a few rules for the hunters. If the deer runs out of site then they are to sit a while then back out without looking for a minimum of 2 hrs. unless they know gut then it is 6-8 hrs. This right here has allowed them to recover many deer that normally would have been pushed by getting down right away and jumping the deer out of a wound bed just a few hundred yards in. They also have been instructed that if once they begin tracking the blood starts to thin to where it is hands and knees then they stop. This allows clean ground for the dog to work off of instead of having to work out the degraded track where hunters might have inadvertently gotten blood on their boots and now laid mock trails for the dog to work through.

To Lindseys Grandpa ,Sorry for your bad experience, seeing where you were located I know who you called. I know for a fact that particular little "fat" beagle had found many a deer over the years that would never have been found. Sounds like you called him near the end of his long carrier. They are no longer on the list because his owner had to put him down due to his old age and bad health.

Wasn't a beagle, friend used the beagle one time and got a recovery. I also know dogs can have a bad day and the conditions can effect them also. This dog was dead tired after a short distance and was obviously out of shape. I no longer bow hunt but if i did i would try to identify a tracking dog with good recommendations in my area beforehand. That is the lesson i learned, after the shot you are working on limited info and time.

watermedic said:

I have had a pretty good success rate this year. Since I lost Willie it has dropped a little. But rates are still 70% or so.

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I called Chuck (aka watermedic) last Wednesday to track a deer for me.
It was my first time using a tracking dog. But I figured since I looked for the deer and couldn't find it that my recovery rate was now at 0%, so why not give it a shot with a dog. The 60-70% recovery rate was still better than my 0% at the time.
Chuck and his dogs showed up, and within a half hour or so the dogs found my deer and we had a successful recovery.

I know the deer isn't a monster by any means, but still didn't want to risk losing it.