Lacy Tracks #4 & #5 for 2010 Bow Season!
I hunted at the Cabbage creek club with my buddy Steve Bailey this weekend for the last weekend of bow season. The weather couldn’t have been better if you had ordered it. However, the wind was a quite a problem and blew from all points of the compass on every sit.
Steve had a great closing to the 2010 bow season except for loosing one of the two bucks he shot this weekend.
Track #1, Thurs. Oct. 13, 2010
Well, Steve was just about to dial my number when I pulled in to camp this evening. He had shot a 6-7” spike type buck and needed some help looking for it. We packed up and headed back down to the deer pen to put Lacy on the track.
Steve had recovered the arrow. It had considerable blood on it but I did not like the chunks of meat stuck to the shaft. That is typical of a mussel shot and not really a good sign. He also related that the impact had a pretty good crack to it so I assumed we were looking at a leg bone hit. I think this assessment was correct but was probably very low. Possibly even below the chest cavity. All the blood we found was very low in the bushes and there was not very much of it.
We hiked back into Steve’s stand in the dark with Lacy leading the way. I could tell she was back tracking Steve to the stand. It is so important not to pre-track the deer if you are going to put a dog on it. That really messes them up. Especially if the dog has an issue with wanting to use you as a crutch.
Even though the track was several hours old Lacy took right to it and was pulling extremely hard and after about 100yds started opening on it. That’s very unusual for her and typically means the deer is alive and we are not far behind it. I have never actually seen her open like that while tracking. There was probably other deer involved in this but unassociated with the buck. We found some minor amounts of blood out to about 100 yds and none beyond. With Lacy opening on the track and pulling so hard I could not believe that this was the right deer so we restarted her 3 times and spent an hour and a half in the dark with flashlights looking for blood. We did eventually find a little blood on the trail she was opening on so obviously, she was telling the truth. With so little blood Steve finally pulled the plug about 10:30 and we decided the deer was not recoverable. If it had been legal and we put a tracking collar on Lacy and let her go, she could probably have run the deer down and kept the wound bleeding but that was not an option. I believe this is either the deer that I let go the first morning or maybe the one that got by me last Sunday morning.
Track #2, Oct. 16, 2010:
Steve ended up back at the same stand that he had lost the buck from on Thursday. When I got back to camp Steve was about to wet his pants he was so excited. “Stephens, I just shot a m o n s t e r buck! We need to go put the dog on it.” Once again, we loaded up in the dark and drove all the way back to the deer pen. On the way down I would tell Lacy….he’s dead girl! We got to go find him! Lacy would answer back with a whine, so high pitched I could hardly hear it.
Well, Steve had made pretty much a perfect shot and the deer had only gone about 50yds. I let Steve work the dog so I could film but when we got to the head of the track Lacy took off pulling poor Steve so fast they were there before I could catch up to video it. The track was about an hour and a half old and took Lacy maybe a minute to get to the deer. He was a rank buck, I could smell him 15yds before I got to him. Steve will probably need a couple days for his shoulder to recover. I probably should have worked the dog so I could have tried to keep her from pulling so bad. This is a bad habit for a tracking dog.
The deer was not all that big in body but had a perfect 8pt set of horns, very symmetrical. This is a buck I have been hunting real hard in the next block over. I have a bunch of trail camera pictures of him but It looks like I took his last photograph tonight with Steve holding him by the horns! That was one happy hunter!
We forgot to get Lacy in the photo. Sorry Lay.
Another interesting development in Lacy's learning curve showed up this weekend. All of the deer Lacy has tracked have been bow shot and I always let her investigate the bloody arrow. Now when she sees my bow she immediately goes to the quiver to smell the arrows.
Sunday evening it was after dark when I got to camp. When I let Lacy out of the pen, she took off for the truck. I had the passenger side truck door open and she jumped in. I took off running as I thought she was headed for parts unknown the way she took off. When I got to the truck she was leaned over the seat checking my quiver!
When I get home at night Lacy meets me at the gate. First she checks my hands, then she runs to the back of the truck and checks the tailgate! That's pretty smart for a hound.
Larry S.
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