It was a beautiful Sunday with temperature over 75 degrees. Leaves were spectacular, at their peak of color.

We got a phone call from Stephen when we were tracking another deer 20 minutes away from Stehen's hunting grounds. Stephen's deer was gut shot at around 7am. He left a very short trail of blood. We started to track around 5:30pm. Here on this picture Stephen is leading us to the hit site.

We had two dogs with us, Arlo and Arlo's dam Elli. Since Arlo does not have any experience on natural calls but has done very well in training, we decided to let him lead.
The picture was shot when John was putting a tracking collar on Arlo, at the hit site.

We had a short trail of poor blood and Arlo followed it well. He was calm, tracked at a pretty slow pace and started to advance trail with a lot of confidence.

Jeff thought that the deer must have veered off to the right but Arlo turned left to the field of golden rod. We did not see any blood but usually it is the case with a gut shot deer. We had no choice but to trust Arlo. The track came very close to where our vehicles were parked. For a short time I had some doubts whether we were on a right track, but Arlo showed no hesitation. Jeff and Stephen moved to the side, scouted the field ahead and saw that the bedded buck got up and started to move away. We saw the buck - he certainly was hurting. His tail was down and his back was hunched up.

Arlo continued to track cold scent methodically but then he hit the hot trail.

It was not easy to handle Elli and trying to take pictures at the same time! When the dogs got on the hot line, they both opened and a quick pursuit followed. The picture shows Arlo pulling the lead and voicing.

The next 20 minutes were pretty hectic. Stephen tried to arrow the deer, which bedded again, but unfortunately he missed. We got close to the buck several times but every time he would get up on his feet and run again. Even when we thought that he expired and Arlo jumped on him, deer got up, shook Arlo off, and ran again.

Finally Stephen caught up with the buck again and put in another arrow. What an incredible will to live this deer had!

Here John and Arlo look pleased with themselves, as they should.

Arlo (usually extremely possessive) pulled on the buck's leg but was not overly aggressive. Maybe being thrown of the deer cooled his appetite for a direct confrontation.

Elli was very possessive of the deer so we let the dogs enjoy their find one at a time.

Here both dogs - Elli to the left and Arlo to the right.

Jeff and Stephen were very happy with the outcome. This was their first experience with tracking dogs, which made them "believers" in their role.