Thread: Lilys best track - red hind down

The freezer was empty of venison, so it was time for a hunt. I took advantage of a fine day and went for an afternoon/evening hunt. I haven't been out for a while so my fitness wasn't the best. Heading up the last hill to where I intended hunting the legs were hurting so I played it safe and headed back to a lower, closer area to hunt. I followed a track down one side of a long spur, intending to hunt the other side as the wind would be in my favour.
Eventually I cut over the ridge and headed into a basin. The opposite side was nice and scrubby and had good potential.
I sat down and waited. Over an hour later I noticed 3 deer low down in the bottom of the gully. I slipped down the face to get a better view. I set the camera up, and then got the rifle set up over the pack, only to see the deer head back down into the scrub. I'm not sure if the smelt/heard/saw me.
Feeling pretty annoyed I was about to head off when I saw the deer standing on the ridge. I set the camera up again and got back on the rifle. The shot surprised me a bit, but I saw the deer kick its back legs out and then disappear off into the scrub. I wasn't 100% confident of finding the deer.
Lily (my dog) and I headed around the top of the basin and dropped down the face to where the deer had been. When we got to where the deer had been Lily immediately started tracking. I had her on the longline already so let her head off while followed about 4 m back.
Initially there was no blood, and no prints. Lily was heading along a game trail, after about 20m there was some good blood on some bushes. We kept finding intermittent blood, but without Lily tracking it would have been hard to link them together. At one point she tracked uphill for about 10m. The scrub was really hard to move through and my pack kept getting caught up. Eventually Lily found the hind, It felt like 300-500m, but was probably only 100m.
She had never tracked a deer for that far before. All the deer tracks were short and I had seen where the deer had fallen.
In the end I had just trusted Lily, even when it seemed like we weren't on the track any more.

Well done Lilly! Great find.
Good hunt.
(Cripes you are like Theo - thats a good thing).

Enjoyed that STUG. Will have to get our little Foxy into the tracking come spring.

good stuff...now let her pluck all the fur out of deer she likes,you cant bruise dead meat and Im buggered if I know what it is but all the deer dogs seem to do it...MAYBE its their way of letting off pent up frustration....sort of a "beep beep now you bugga" awesome the two of you gotyour mojo on and tracked that far,its a hard hard lesson to learn to trust the hounds super hooter....
enjoy your venison.

@Micky Duck the previous deer to this one she was having a good old bite/pluck/chew on the carcass and ended up eating the arse right out of the deer and started pulling the intestines out. She always gets lots of praise and a bit of meat to eat of the carcass. I have to keep an eye on her or tie her up or else she helps herself to the backsteaks.

all good bud...its all good...... best you give her a hock or such like quicksmartly so you can have all the good bits LOL no worries with a stag,them family jewels keep dog happy .

Well done Stug n Lilly,enjoy yr venison.

Loved Lillys supervision.

Nice work both of you there's a lot of good eating there.

Nice, late night bed hitting the sac I bet.

The maker of a fine stock and carrying a heavy lump of timber!