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Monday, March 25, 2013

St Clair County. Tracking dogs

This is a testimonial to the whitetail deers will to survive and to the use of a tracking dog!!!!

Shawn Sparr shot a 160 class buck in the Blue water QDMA chapter. The shot was 100 yards and quartering away!! The buck made a large circle and ended up running right by Shawn. If only he was using a Shotgun this story may have turned out different. Shawn was using a muzzle loader. Shawn was able to see the entrance wound which appeared his shot went thorough the rear leg and in to the intestines. He watched the buck cross the gravel road and he knew there was a dense thicket/swamp back there and with the down pouring rain that followed his shot he knew there was not going to be a blood trail to follow. So he went to the road and made a mark to give him a starting point in the A.M. That night Shawn was talking with some friends and one of them suggested a tracking dog. So he got online and did a search and www.michigandeertracknhounds.com is where he ended up. Shawn spoke with tracker Rob and Tracker Mike that night and MDTH suggested he go look in the mourning following our advice to minimize human contamination and if he has no luck one of us would make the 2 hour drive out to help. Well it simply poured rain all night so finding blood and even hoof prints was nearly impossible. As Shawn closed the distance to the swamp he could here a single deer take off crashing to the south. Right then he decided to back out and call in the Hound!!! So tracker Rob and his 21 pound Dachshund Sypris showed up 18 hours after the buck was shot. We started off at the road where the buck crossed because Shawn could still see the running hoof prints. It can take a tracking dog 100-200 yards to get acclimated with the wounded deer. Sypris took to the track like a magnet on steel and I thought she was locked on to the buck scent. We closed the distance to where the deer took off and Sypris went west and was headed for the larger section of the swamp. As soon as she entered the swamp she caught the scent from the fresh spooked deer and she took us on a 15 min long goose chase after the heathy deer. So I brought her back to the last known spot (large running hoof print) I told Shawn if Sypris heads south again I want you to head west and start looking in the swamp. With the blood trail being 18 hours old and many inches of rain over night I was not sure if there was any scent left for Sypris to smell. Only a few min into the large Swamp Shawn spotted his buck still alive so he tried backing out to only step on a stick which alerted the giant buck to his feet and he then bounded off. Shawn calls me to tell me the good news. So Shawn and his buddy Joe took Sypris and I to the wound bed. No blood,no hair, no nothing, to go off other than the hounds nose. Sypris was super excited indicating the track was fresh and off we went. I was hoping to start seeing some fresh blood to confirm it was his buck. Well after 2 miles and getting 5 different landowners permission and darkness falling fast we pulled the plug on the buck. We ended up jumping him two more times however he was just to strong and we were never able to close the distances. A few days later Shawn seen him again and tried putting a stalk on him and got within 30 yards however the buck never presented him with a clean shot. Fast forward to just a week or so Shawn seen him again to confirm he is still alive and doing well. The conclusion is that the slug must have glanced off the rear leg and the bullet ran along side the body never entering the chest cavity. We tracked him for several hours and total distance of 2.3 miles. Shawn lets hope 2013 you can close the book on this Blue water Giant.


Saturday, March 16, 2013

Jeff Murphy winter training. Michigan deer tracking dogs

March 9th, 2013

Last tracking season Hunter and I had some trouble finishing tracks because he would get off the deer we were looking for and take up the trail of a fresher, healthy deer track. I believe that this was because of an error, on my part, with our training last summer. Last summer Hunter was 1 ½ years old and was doing great on blood trails aged 24hrs plus. Since he seemed to nail, every training track I put out, I decided to try to get him going on interdigital scent. For the last half of the summer he trained on nothing but interdigital and was doing very well, but as we all know, a training track is not the same as the real thing.
When the 2012 tracking season started I was excited to get him out in the woods and on a real deer. Early October was our first call and our first find, which was a gut shot doe. No visible blood for several hundred yards, tracked right up to it bedded along a river. It was after that that we started running into trouble. For the next 6 tracks we would get going and when Hunter started having to really work the blood trail he would often leave the blood trail for a fresh cross trail. It’s hard to know for sure when this happens but we were tracking up to a lot of bedded deer and did not find many deer for clients again until toward the end of the season.
At Michigan Deer Track’n Hounds we are always training our dogs to be the best that they can be for our clients. Hunter and I have been doing one training track a week this winter and will continue until it gets too hot in the summer. I have been laying out blood trails using a small amount of diluted blood (approx. 1oz every 400 yards). Our training tracks have been in and around food plots that I have on my property which have a high deer density this time of year. After being aged for 24 hours the training tracks have many fresh cross trails and are quite contaminated with fresh deer scent. This training plan seems to be working and Hunter is less distracted by fresh scent. By running known training tracks thru high deer density areas you can immediately tell when you dog starts to follow the fresher trail.
Attached are two pictures, the first is Hunter working a training track along one of the food plot access trails and the second is at the end of the track when he is playing with his reward.

Jeff Murphy




Friday, March 1, 2013

FREE hunting and fishing licenses for disabled veterans


Thank You Veterans!!! For all of your service and sacrifice.
Last year a bill was passed which goes into effect TODAY!!!  offering FREE hunting and fishing licenses to disabled Veterans.  Please visit the link below for more information.

Again Thank you veterans,  We simply can not say it enough you have given so much and we will be forever grateful