The adventures of Elkie

I want to throw this out for discussion. I am by no means condoning this at this time, but a friend that lurks on this and other hunting forums just called me about my statement above.This friend lives in PA and has occasionally hunted with us. He is also an avid coon hunter and trapper.
I just checked the rules and regulations he talked about. In PA, it is legal to hunt raccoons with dogs during the legal season that runs from Oct 22 to Feb 19. During big game season, they are only allowed to hunt beginning 1 hour after legal shooting hours are over for the day. If his dogs HAPPEN to find a dead deer while he is hunting, that is just part of coon hunting. HE tracks all his dogs with GPS collars and can tell exactly where they are at any given time. His dogs consistently find dead deer during this time of year. They seem to have a bad habit of following blood trails very well.
 
Tenured Student said:
Way to go Elkie! It truly is amazing how good a dog's nose is.
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I had military working dogs in my unit, and it's uncanny what a dog can do. A Scout Patrol Dog can sense a trip wire that has been there for an indefinite time. You can't hide or mask scent, though I buy all the latest sprays that don't work.
 
Jack Terpack said:
I want to throw this out for discussion. I am by no means condoning this at this time, but a friend that lurks on this and other hunting forums just called me about my statement above.This friend lives in PA and has occasionally hunted with us. He is also an avid coon hunter and trapper.
I just checked the rules and regulations he talked about. In PA, it is legal to hunt raccoons with dogs during the legal season that runs from Oct 22 to Feb 19. During big game season, they are only allowed to hunt beginning 1 hour after legal shooting hours are over for the day. If his dogs HAPPEN to find a dead deer while he is hunting, that is just part of coon hunting. HE tracks all his dogs with GPS collars and can tell exactly where they are at any given time. His dogs consistently find dead deer during this time of year. They seem to have a bad habit of following blood trails very well.
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That's why it's hard to legalize blood tracking. In Missouri the dog has to be on a leash. Dogs that aren't leashed run deer!
 
Friday morning Elkie tracked a deer 300-400 yards with only one visible drop of blood. The deer was still alive and attempted to escape, but Elkie was all over it, until I could dispatched it, so Elkie had three recoveries in a row.

Today Elkie tracked a true 170 class buck; I saw trail cam pics of the monster. The hunter tracked the buck 300 yards last night before calling me and backing out. Elkie took the track almost another mile, and had to stop tracking when the buck left the area we were allowed to track. The hunter had a wicked 4 blade point the passed through high in the shoulder crease, but there was only muscle blood and the deer never bedded, so he'll probably make a full recovery.
 
Brushpile said:
Friday morning Elkie tracked a deer 300-400 yards with only one visible drop of blood. The deer was still alive and attempted to escape, but Elkie was all over it, until I could dispatched it, so Elkie had three recoveries in a row.
.
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Can you expand on this? The original hit wasn't fatal? What kind of weapons are you allowed to use and under what conditions is it legal? If you just want to post a link to the regs that is cool.
 
There are several problems with the Missouri law for use of dogs. That laws says that hunters must exhaust all other means of finding the deer, that means searching and doing grid searches that destroy the blood trail, it also prohibits the hunter from carrying a rifle or gun while a dog is being used. If the people who wrote this law saw deer being killed with a knife, they'd probably change the law. If the people who wrote the law saw an all day grid search and then a dog finding a rotten carcass the next day, maybe they'd change the law. Game Wardens don't care, they see the law in black and white and love to mindlessly write tickets.

Read toward the bottom of the page to see the regulation on dogs.

http://huntfish.mdc.mo.gov/hunting-trapping/species/deer/regulations
 
Big track for Elkie today. A hunter shot a 180, confirmed by trail cam. There was good blood, but it was muscle blood and deer are tough! Muscle blood starts out looking good, tapers to a few drops and then stops bleeding. Elkie had difficulty from the beginning because so many people had walked up and down the trail searching for blood, so Elkie was restarted, and eventually tracked beyond human disturbance and into a wooded slope. Once in the woods Elkie was all over the place, and very excited. Elkie tracked down a steep bank and into a stream, tracking up the stream in the water! Elkie tracked up the stream bank and came to a large log that she couldn't go over or under, so she went around. Blood was found on both sides of the log, 300 yards from last blood, so Elkie was on it!

Elkie tracked back down a gully, across a creek and up the other side, and the trail got hot! Elkie was out distancing the guides that accompanied us as I plowed through brush and eventually broke into a run. The trail got so hot that Elkie barked, and she doesn't bark until she's almost got the deer in sight. We tracked to the edge of the woods and the guides caught up. The deer had covered about a mile, there was no more blood, and we were losing light when we decided to end the track, knowing that the buck was not hit in a vital area.

The hunter aimed for the heart, and missed by a few inches... The ribs are much more forgiving, and if it had even been a gut shot, the deer would have gone down. Elkie did everything but catch the buck, as she was hot on it, with the buck only a few yards ahead when she barked. The guides and hunter were impressed with our quarter mile charge. They had no idea the old man could run so fast! I'm looking forward to being invited back, as this was a good showing, even though the buck wasn't recovered.
 
This may sound like a real stupid question, but is it possible to train an older dog - several years older - to do this?

I have 3 dogs now and none are trained to track anything, but my coon hound/beagle mix simply seems to have the instincts to do it. Often times I will find my deer and go back to the house to get my tractor and at that time the dogs are left loose to follow along. The dog in question will find the trail and it's like a game to him. He will follow it and zig-zag to recover the trail and barks while he is on track, and then explodes when he finds the deer (he has that dual pitch bark like a coon hound does, he has a tracking bark and then the "treed bawl" when he finds the deer). He does this all without being on a leash - because technically he isn't tracking....I know where the deer is. The dogs are not allowed out until I find the deer. I don't know if he follows the blood or other scent left from the deer or even from me, but he seems to know we are looking for deer. Sure he gets distracted other days with rabbits and the like when I am out doing habitat work, but I am wondering if there is still enough there to work with or if this sort of training is something that really needs to be started at a young age. I tried to get him to track at a young age and he was just plain stupid. But over time he seems to have learned what that thing on his face is for and how to use it.
 
You've already got the dogs. You never know until you try. One of my college age sons brought a dog home over the summer. She was a German shepherd, and was probably 5 years old. I ran her on a few training lines since I was laying them for my other dogs, and she did quite well on fresher tracks but didn't have a lot of interest (and probably not enough nose) for older lines. The key is going to be getting your dog to ignore things it has been allowed to "trail" it's whole life.
 
Doctorbrady said:
You've already got the dogs. You never know until you try. One of my college age sons brought a dog home over the summer. She was a German shepherd, and was probably 5 years old. I ran her on a few training lines since I was laying them for my other dogs, and she did quite well on fresher tracks but didn't have a lot of interest (and probably not enough nose) for older lines. The key is going to be getting your dog to ignore things it has been allowed to "trail" it's whole life.
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OK - I assume there is some sort of "blood tracking dog training for dummies" book out there to point me in the right direction......any suggestion?
 
Elkie had a track on a big buck last night. Four hunters searched all day with a good German Shorthair Pointer, before calling. The track was too buggered up for ANY dog to possibly follow and I think the buck swam across a deep river with steep banks where we couldn't follow. The buck lost a lot of blood and we lost his scent at the river.
 
Brushpile said:
Elkie had a track on a big buck last night. Four hunters searched all day with a good German Shorthair Pointer, before calling. The track was too buggered up for ANY dog to possibly follow and I think the buck swam across a deep river with steep banks where we couldn't follow. The buck lost a lot of blood and we lost his scent at the river.
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Dang
I imagine creek or river crossings would be you an elkies biggest hurdle in the tracking biz?
 
Rivers are no problem for Elkie, but I can't swim a cold river in fall weather like Elkie can. The river also divided property lines.
 
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