Help find a deer i shot

This is exactly the type of call we get daily throughout hunting season, and we are ready to answer the call day or night. Like Batman awaiting the light in the sky. We live to track wounded deer. Here are a few tips to help increase the odds of one of our teams being able to recover your deer/bear/or elk. The more accurate information you can give to us the better our advice on what to do will be. We try our best to determine exactly what kind of shot you had, the circumstances surrounded your shot, and what you did following the shot. By collecting some information on what happened we can give you an honest opinion on what the chances of a successful recovery are.

-try your best to see exactly where you hit the animal, keep a sharp eye to see if any blood is dripping down the deer and from where.

-take note of what the animal does after the shot (i.e. run, walk, limp, stumble, fall, tail up/down)

-make an effort to locate the hitsite, look for your arrow.

-take note of the color of the blood, and the size of the blood spots. I usually reference money, I start at pin head size drops, dime sized, quarter sized, or dollar bill sized spots. Keep in mind the ammount of blood does not necesarily dictate a successful recovery. I have recovered deer with little or no visible blood, and I have seen muscle shot deer bleed all over the place and have not recovered them.

-If you decide to begin tracking, mark your trail where you find blood, A good tool for this is toilet paper. It is very easy to see in the woods and easy to carry with you. I lay a few squares next to each blood spot i find, and hang a long streamer of TP where I find significant sign. It is also very important to mark where you have lost the blood and to inform your tracker when he is getting close to your last blood.

-We do know and understand that as trackers we are usually a hunters last resort in recovering a deer, which makes our job very difficult. Grid searching with a large search party is by far one of the biggest challenges we face as trackers. When a number of people grid search they most certainly will get blood/hair/and other scent from their wounded animal on their boots, as the search party disburses in different direction, so does the track scent. We are skilled at working through these situation but it does make it more difficult, in a perfect world there would be no grid searching done. We will need to know how many people have been on the track, and if you have done a grid search. When tracking with the dog we will need to know where you did your grid search so that we are aware that the dog may be tracking a false track. This will help us evaluate our dog should the track scent come to an end and the dog gets confused on where the scent has gone.

- When you meet your tracker please follow all of their instruction, each tracker has their own set of "rules" so to speak when it comes to how they work, each dog has a different personality and your tracker will explain the do's and dont's on the track behind their dog. As well as each trackers specific rules, we are also required to follow the laws set forth by the Department of Natural Resources on the use of tracking dogs.

- We also ask that immediately upon recovering your deer(assuring the deer has expired) that you notch your tag and affix it to the animal in the proper manner.

We look forward to serving you in the 2012 hunting season and for years to come, Good luck to all of you.