Mike Langsdorf called me after his wife's evening hunt. We discussed everything in great depth and Mike also sent me a video of the shot. We all agreed the buck was shot low and back in the stomach. With no intensions of tracking that evening to allow the buck to bed up and hopefully be dead near by. Mike and Tanis were couple hour drive from where I was tracking at and with no other calls I was planning on heading home back to Michigan that night or first thing in the morning. We discussed the options of having Mike and Tanis search first thing in the morning because they may not need a dog's assistance vs just hiring me to be there at 8-9 am. After contemplating for a little while Tanis told Mike let's just hire Rob to ensure we recovery my buck.
I was planning to head home in the morning because I had no other calls. I reinsured Mike and Tanis that I was very confident my dogs would find her buck. So at this point it's an insurance policy and it's the smartest decision if you truly want your deer!
If they would have decided to look in the morning it's possible that I could receive another call and wouldn't be able to help if by chance they were unsuccessful tracking him. I tell everyone if you want your deer you best be calling sooner vs later and lock in a tracker ASAP. Tracking dogs have become very popular and unfortunately many hunters can't find a tracker to help because trackers are already booked up, because we all have full-time jobs, family obligations, etc. and we're extremely busy during the rut. I take 18 days vacation during the pre,rut, post rut because the demand for my services are that hight.
I arrived at their house and we went to Tanis treestand to do a shot site inspection and to start the dogs. I elected to run Sargent and Sypris. Both dogs are very difficult to run together by myself unless I can get help from my son or the hunter. I ran Sargent and Mike helped with Sypris. Both dogs quickly picked up the scent trail and started up the big hill. No blood at the shot site so it's all trust in the hounds. 40 yards away we find just a few tiny droplets of blood and we were excited too find blood however very disappointed that their wasn't alot more. Both dogs take us along the ridge top indicating blood from time to time. To our left is a big drop off into the hollar and to our right was a big wide open woods that slowly slope downward to a thick bottom. Sypris finds a bed along the ridge with blood going in several directions because I feel the buck was considering laying here as they typically do a couple circles before laying down. From the bed we truly needed the help of the dogs and Sargent headed towards the big woods and I was doubting him because I thought the buck would have dropped into the hollar for the closet spot to hide. Sypris followed Sargent line so I was thinking Sargent has this track figured out. So now we're following the dogs in woods you could see couple hundred yards. The leaf litter was very thick so you couldn't see any deer runs. We follow the hounds a few hundred yards and ever so often we would see blood to confirm the dogs work. We were all wondering why this mature buck was taking this route and all we could think of was he was trying to get back to his core area or coyotes pushed him from his bed! I kept looking far ahead fully expecting to see him bedded alive and that's when I spotted the big rack and we all were FIRED UP!!! I honestly don't know how far this buck went I'm going to guess 400-500 yards. Mike did say he wouldn't have considered this direction and their was so little blood and clues suggesting the buck headed to the big woods. This is exactly the reason why hunters are believing in tracking dogs and when hunters make the right decision following a missed placed shot they are typically rewarded with their deer if it's dead.
Congratulations Tanis Langsdorf on killing one hell of a buck.
