These tracking dogs helped this hunter recover a monster.
In hunting, bad shots happen. It's just a part of the pursuit. No matter your experience level, a bad shot is bound to happen to you sooner or later. Perhaps you simply rushed or pulled the shot. Maybe the deer flinched or jumped the string. Sometimes an arrow or bullet simply hits an unseen limb, causing a deflection and a less-than-perfect hit.
Today's video from YouTuber BamaBass showcases a hunt where the hunter simply had a shot that was a little low. The hunter does the right thing and lets the buck lay for about three hours before starting up on the blood trail.
The trail is a little weak and they decide to bring in reinforcements with the nose of a dog. This ends up being an extreme tracking and recovery job and it takes nearly 36 hours to locate this buck.
This video and story demonstrate how staying persistent can help you recover a deer in a less-than-ideal scenario like this. These dogs were able to track this buck in areas where humans had long lost the animal's trail. Not much gets past the nose of a good tracking job and these dogs were able to turn a disaster of a hunt into a sigh of relief for this hunter. We imagine the time between the shot and the final recovery resulted in some sleepless nights.
Those dogs were even able to pick up the trail again after the buck crossed a creek with flowing water. That's a true testament to how well these animals were trained for this job.
Fortunately for hunters, the use of dogs for blood trailing purposes is legal in most parts of the country. And the practice has become much more widespread in recent years. I've heard many hunting horror stories that turned into relief when dogs located the hunter's quarry long after the blood trail had dried up.
So, the next time you make a bad shot and run out of blood trail, consider calling up some tracking dogs. They may just save your hunt for you.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
NEXT: THE AXIS DEER AND HOW THEY'RE IMPACTING PARTS OF THE UNITED STATES
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