Deer Tracker Darren 10/17/2021

[Deer Tracker Darren]

Last night I got a call from fellow tracker Casey. He asked me if I wanted to call a hunter about a shot deer. His dog Mac got a little banged up a track earlier today and he was resting him. I said sure and made the call.

The hunter was in a ground blind that was an old trailer. He had his 3 year old son and 8 year old daughter with him. Deer started to filter in and he was waiting for a good broadside shot on the doe while trying to keep his son from fidgeting too much. The deer knew something was up and started to get a little nervous. As the doe turned to leave he took the shot. She bucked and took off. He waited about 15 minutes and took up the track with his kids. There was a good blood trail and he was sure the deer was just over the small knoll in the woods. He found a broken bolt and got to the top and no deer. This was at the edge of a briar thicket and it appeared that the deer had back tracked as there were multiple blood trails going in different directions. His daughter called out some blood on top of the knoll in a different direction and that’s the last they could find. The hunters light started to fail, he had 2 small kids in the woods with him and it was going to start raining at any time so he made the call for a dog. It was going to take me about 45 minutes to get there so he was going to bring the kids home and meet me.

I loaded up, met him and went to the hit site. We talked about the hit and blood trail and he told me his daughter was upset and crying at home about not finding the deer. It just started to rain lightly and I hoped he was right about the hit and we could get done before we got soaked. I started Callie and she took the line and went into the maze of blood trails at the edge of the briars. She would go in, come back out, go in a different spot and come back out. In minutes she was at the last blood on top of the knoll. She lined out and was heading back towards the trucks and I never saw another drop of blood. In about 40 yds the lead stopped and she was chewing on the deer.

The hunter made a good shot and hit the deer broadside. The deer in its panicked state made multiple direction changes throwing blood everywhere. When it reached the last blood, its blood pressure had dropped to the point it couldn’t bleed anymore and it made that 40 yd run bloodlessly. This happens a lot. If you’re tracking good blood for a while and it suddenly quits the deer is probably close. We paralleled this deer walking in and never saw it. It was only 30 yds from the truck and most certainly would have been found in the morning even with the heavy rain we got. By using a dog the hunter recovered the deer that night before it could be eaten by predators, but most importantly his daughter didn’t have to suffer through a night of uncertainty.

I’d like to thank this hunter for exposing his kids to the outdoors and hunting. After all they are our future.

On a side note the Certified New Jersey Deer Trackers are a close knit group. We regularly communicate with each other and collectively our goal is to recover every dead deer that is shot by a hunter. We routinely move calls amongst our group in an effort to reach every hunter. Remember tracking with an uncertified dog is illegal in New Jersey.  For a complete list of Certified Deer Trackers go to. https://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/pdf/trackingdogpermittees.pdf

[electric10162]

Another good outcome. Congrats to all!

[JD48]

Great story , Great job , Great ending

[nmc02]

Do you guys have a NJ trackers association of some sort? An address for sending donations??

[Buck154]

Nice

[CJ3a]

Well done and interesting. 

[OMC]

That is great outcome congratulations to the hunter. 

[VFL]

Great story and awesome job!

[JFC1]

Thanks, Darren. Great story and glad it worked out this way

[Mixbaghunter]

Nice work good out come

[SoxFan]

Awesome!!

[Eyesofthewoods]

Great story of a hunter who made an ethical shot and a good one at that but needed a bit of help finding a harvest.  I feel like a lot of guys automatically think if a fellow hunter calls the dog in they were shooting guts and hind quarters.  All situations are different and happy you could help them out.  Great job!

[Rusty]