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Luna's Tracking Journal 2016

outdoorstom

By outdoorstom,
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outdoorstom Rising Star

outdoorstom

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I plan on posting Luna's tracks here. A disappointing start to the season, but things will get better.

Oct 1st - Luna and I went on our first track of the season this morning. We were tracking a buck that had been gutshot 48 hours earlier. The hunter backed out of the area for 24 hours after retrieving his arrow and seeing evidence of the poor hit. He spent all of yesterday grid searching the area.  We started the track at the hit site and quickly advanced the 100 yards or so to the hunters point of loss. Luna appeared focused and still on track for a very short distance beyond there, then clearly looked unsure. We went back to the point of loss many times for restarts, slowly searched in circles, and went to a river a quarter mile away and searched there, all with no results. I'm at a loss, as I know that deer is dead, and since it wasn't pushed it seems like it would have bedded close and died. I can't help but think I should have found this deer. A couple other things that are noteworthy......very dry tracking conditions, and the hunter told me he and his wife 10 days ago counted over 90 deer in the alfalfa field bordering the woodlot.

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outdoorstom
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10/14 - I received a call this afternoon from a hunter who reported shooting a doe last night with his crossbow. He tracked her across a long field, then stopped when she went into some thick stuff. H

outdoorstom
outdoorstom

Oct 3 - I had a call last night from a hunter that shot a 7 pointer. He said the deer moved just as he released and the arrow hit way back. The good news is the buck was quartering away. He stated the

outdoorstom
outdoorstom

10/9 - I went on a track tonight for a hunter that reported he gutshot a doe at 4:30 this afternoon. Due to how quickly coyotes have been finding deer around here, I arrived 4 hours later at 8:30. Lun

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Fletch Mentor

Fletch

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Keep up the good work! They all won't turn out as we hope but you two have made quite a few hunters very happy and all you can do is give it your best. Thanks for sharing your adventures and I look forward to reading!


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outdoorstom Rising Star

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Oct 3 - I had a call last night from a hunter that shot a 7 pointer. He said the deer moved just as he released and the arrow hit way back. The good news is the buck was quartering away. He stated the arrow was sticking out about 8 inches as it ran off, and the hunter and his friend followed good blood for a couple hundred yards, then marked where it became sparse and called me. 

We started at the hit site and Luna quickly covered the trail to the point of loss. We went about 400 yards with no sign and did a restart. We ended up at a dry creek bed and were walking it when Luna shut down due to the warm temps. It was at this point I realized I left the water in the truck, and Luna and I headed to a nearby waterhole. One of the guys headed to the truck to get the water and unknown to me, another guy had gone ahead. He called and said he found where the buck crossed the creek. Luna refused to drink any water, which is normal while she tracks and we headed to the crossing. Luna immediately went back to work. We followed the track for about 100 yards or so and found the buck. 

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outdoorstom Rising Star

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10/6 - I got a call this morning from a hunter that said he shot a broadside doe high in the shoulder and was unable to find any blood, or his arrow. He made the shot at 7:00 and we started tracking at 9:45. He only looked in the foodplot, then backed out and called. We started at the hit site and Luna got on it right away and took us to where the hunter saw the doe enter the woods. We found a little blood a few yards in, and an occasional drop every 75 yards or so. We were a few hundred yards into the track when Luna started pulling like crazy and opened up with her high pitched bark which is reserved for live animals. We were in the thickest, nastiest prickly ash patch I've encountered, so it was slow going for me and Luna was going nuts. She barked and we tracked for well over half a mile before Luna eased up. We tracked at a slower pace for a couple hundred more yards and Luna definitely lost the track. For curiosity's sake, we went back to where Luna first started barking and found fresh blood where the deer had stood, and also very fresh turds right next to the blood. I felt bad for Luna, she really deserved to chew on this deers leg.

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outdoorstom Rising Star

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Unfortunately, they don't all end up with a deer in the truck. The national average is about 38%. A lot of them that aren't recovered is because the deer survived. A lot of trackers decline taking the track when they hear high shoulder hair with bow. Gun, now that's a different story for high shoulder.

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outdoorstom Rising Star

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10/9 - I went on a track tonight for a hunter that reported he gutshot a doe at 4:30 this afternoon. Due to how quickly coyotes have been finding deer around here, I arrived 4 hours later at 8:30. Luna excelled on this track. It turns out it wasn't gutshot, but was a high double lunger. She never wavered over the 450 yards and led us straight to the edge of a swamp where we found the dead doe. It was particularly satisfying as this was the hunters first deer ever. The hunter and his buddy had an extremely tough drag out due to the numerous deadfalls and obstacles. They refused to let me help drag, so I carried his first deer trophy arrow for him. I only complained about the weight of the arrow once.

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outdoorstom Rising Star

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10/12 - I received a call from a friend last night who reported shooting a buck in a standing bean field with his crossbow, at a little after 6:00 pm. He said there was a lot of tail flicking and the buck hunched his back as he walked away. Of course my first thought was paunch shot, but he said he could see the skin being pushed out at the opposite shoulder, like it hadn't been a pass through and the bolt was pushing against the skin there. He and his father in law looked and couldn't find the buck,  or even any blood. Luna and I got there at 9:00 and started at the hit site. We didn't find any blood either, but Luna locked on and took us exactly where the hunter saw the buck go. We walked the edge of the field for a short distance and Luna dove onto a trail and we were off. We went through areas of thick stuff and lots of tall overgrown fields, never seeing any blood, but we did see big tracks. After 3/4 of a mile and still no sign, I told the hunter I wanted to walk the edge of the field again. Back to the field we went and I walked Luna beyond the trail we had previously taken. About 30 or 40 yards, Luna chose a trail and we found blood bright red blood. We tracked a hundred yards and in that distance we observed some watery looking blood, a little dark blood, and a drop of brown. It was at this point we came to a big tall log the deer had jumped over. I suggested we stop tracking and come back later. That was at 10:30 and we agreed to meet at the hunters house at 2:30. Luna was not in agreement with our decision. I got home and napped on the couch, then headed back. We went to the point of loss and Luna made short work of the track and led us to the 7 pointer that was still barely alive, and had to dispatched. It had gone another 100 yards from where we stopped earlier and bedded down. It was in fact a paunch shot, but the liver had been nicked as well. Luna is a good girl!!

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wolc123 Grand Master

wolc123

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For me, it is really only 3 days cross-bow up there, then ML opens this Saturday for a week prior to rifle opening the following Saturday.  They call it a 10 day crossbow season, because you can still use it thru ML (and even thru the end of gun season if you wish).    I was hoping to get up there for those first three days, but I had to stay down south due to a vacation conflict at work.   The delay was ok with me, because now I can stay up there thru the opening weekend of gun season.   I will still take my crossbow for backup, but without any breakdowns I will hunt with the most lethal, legal weapon available, with the longest effective range.  It looks like it will be warm up there this weekend.  Does anyone know of any decent processors with refrigeration near zones 6C or 6F?                 

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