DocBrady's tracking pack

Doctorbrady

Doctorbrady

Well-Known Member
I will do my best to keep our tracking adventures posted for all those interested. I have also started a web page and blog to document our tracks. In it, I have included some training tips that I have found useful over the past several years of training and tracking. Follow my blog at highcaliberbloodtracking.com.

Here is a picture of my "pack" of trackers. left to right...
Caliber, my 7 year old wachtelhund (German spaniel)
Layla, my 10 month old Bavarian mountain hound/lab mix (a total accident with a roaming farm dog)
Echo, my 18 month old healer/beagle mix
2016-06-05 2016-06-05 001 003.JPG
 
He is a funny little dude. Made his first tough recovery at about 9 months old. Great personality. Beagle friendly, healer smart. He has a good deal of grittiness, as he demonstrated while dispatching a possum from my shed a few nights back. On the trail, though, he is the most laid back dog, and makes you wonder if he is even tracking. Sometimes I think he is just taking a walk, but it always seems to be along the same line that I laid the track on :). We ran a 24 hour old track a couple of nights ago, laid in a cutover wheat field. Nothing but dry dirt and tight dry vegetation to hold scent. The weather was HOT with a 15-20 mph wind. It took a few minutes to get him moving along the track, but then he just coasted through the trail which included a pretty difficult "start pattern" (read more on my tracking blog page). These are difficult tracks under the best of conditions. He needed a restart on one occasion, but still did an incredible job of working out the trail...while never looking like he was even tracking. An occasional nose down sniff here and there was the only indication. I am not sure how he does it.
 
Doctorbrady said:
He is a funny little dude. Made his first tough recovery at about 9 months old. Great personality. Beagle friendly, healer smart. He has a good deal of grittiness, as he demonstrated while dispatching a possum from my shed a few nights back. On the trail, though, he is the most laid back dog, and makes you wonder if he is even tracking. Sometimes I think he is just taking a walk, but it always seems to be along the same line that I laid the track on :). We ran a 24 hour old track a couple of nights ago, laid in a cutover wheat field. Nothing but dry dirt and tight dry vegetation to hold scent. The weather was HOT with a 15-20 mph wind. It took a few minutes to get him moving along the track, but then he just coasted through the trail which included a pretty difficult "start pattern" (read more on my tracking blog page). These are difficult tracks under the best of conditions. He needed a restart on one occasion, but still did an incredible job of working out the trail...while never looking like he was even tracking. An occasional nose down sniff here and there was the only indication. I am not sure how he does it.
Click to expand...
ELKIE HAS GOTTEN INTO THAT ZONE! Elkie just walks along now, like she doesn't even care, but she goes slowly right down the line, brushing against marking flags. It's almost like she doesn't give a toot, but she has learned to slow down and stay on track. Elkie isn't anything like the wild animal you saw this Spring. However, if the scent is strong she'll pull, and that's when she tends to over run the track! I control the pace, and want to see nose to the ground, and hear sniffing.
 
Heck I always knew those guys needed help. Take care of them DoctorBrady.

Have fun doing it.
 
It all begins at a corn pile...
I was contacted by a very nice gentleman who was calling for the Hunter. The buck had been shot with a muzzleloader, and appeared to be hit just in front of the rear legs. The track was taken up about an hour later, and after 75 yards the deer was jumped up, and ran off without offering another shot. There was supposedly a large amount of blood and "stomach liquid" present in the first 75 yards. The hunter, guide and TV crew backed out returned to the 1st wound bed 4 hours later, and resumed the track. After another 200 yards of difficult visual tracking they found what appeared to be another fresh bed and exited the area...except for one of the guys who I was told later they "lost" for 2 hours while he searched.
Going into the track, I believed that I had a deer who was jumped once at which time the hunters had "left it to die."
This was the kind of high percentage recovery I wanted for my young dog's first track. Since I was traveling nearly 3 hours each way, I loaded Echo in the truck as well.
The hunting land was on a beautiful pay to play 20k acre ranch. The terrain was hilly and covered in native grass, large limestone boulders and bluffs, and mixed timber. There was also a large lake that we tracked along.
The track did not start at a Tecomate food plot, but rather a well eaten pile of corn (perfectly legal in KS). This set up always poses a problem for tracking dogs as numerous deer congregate in a small area. The ground was dry and hard, the weather hot and humid, and the track about 26 hours old.
Thankfully, the hunters new where the deer had run for the first 300 yards...more or less, so we were able to work out of the immediate area of the bait pile.
 
I started with Layla, and after a brief investigation of the area and the half dozen new faces she did a decent job of working down the known trail. She coursed back and forth along the trail rather than right down the line, but this is typical of her style, and given all the deer smells I was not surprised by this. After each brief investigation she returned to the correct trail and progressed the line. None of us were able to identify more than a few specks of blood or juices as the ground had seemingly soaked up what was more obvious a day before. Still, they knew the general direction, and Layla kept making the correct turns. Only once or twice did I have to question her and bring her back on line...not terrible for a young dog in these conditions. The 200 yards following the initial bed (which could not be found) lacked almost any visible sign, but Layla progressed well. When we got to the last "bed" where it turns out no one had actually seen the deer it was once again nearly invisible. What had been a "dinner plate area of blood" could not be found until the dog stopped to lick a stick that had absorbed some of the blood. Even then it was hard to see much visible sign. That was the point of loss despite some extensive searching by at least one member of the party. Layla continued past the point and right along the edge of the large lake. At one point she made a right turn and made a bee line for the head high tangle of dogwoods and grasses that bordered the water's edge. She got very "birdy". I figured our deer was near until she jumped up about 20 massive bobwhite quail. I'm betting her daddy must have had a little bird dog in him . She managed to jump another covey before I could get her restarted on the track. The other problem was that the area where the quail were coveyed up was also the most likely area for the deer to be. Overall, the crew following along was doing fine, but had to be asked to stay behind us a few times, especially with such a young dog. Overall Layla maintained good focus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

j-bird
Dog fight....what can I do?
Replies
10
Views
2K
j-bird
j-bird
Back
Top