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.