Thread: Deer Tracking by Scout

I bred, raised and trained labs for a couple decades and for sure can tell you how smart they are. used them on ducks, pheasants and doves. Had this deal where on opening day for doves in SEMO went to this huge field which was pasture feed lot with one ditch running thru it that always had water and had a couple acres of swampy thick brush and trees and for some reason it was a crossing place for doves like crazy. farmer let bunch of folks in different groups hunt there and my group was frat brothers couple who lived nearby and knew the guy. there was always this one guy with fancy over/under who was one heck of a shot but stood in middle of swamp with highest brush but could drop bird after bird and often doubles but would only find 1 out of 3 or 4 kills it was so bad. I had a more open shot and would have mine by noon as I had Joe T Black my first lab with me and hadn't lost any or just a couple. at noon dude would go back to his truck and friends and have lunch and leave. I would call over couple of buds and the fun started. Would send Joe into the thick area with a "back" and he would start bringing out the birds dude couldn't find and usually filled up a couple of limits for my friends! One after another joe would come back and I didn't even have to say anything, would drop it at my feet and turn back for more. course you could only do that on opening day so you wouldn't pick up nasty ones. then I would go where my other buds were hunting and I had them mark them and he would find almost all of there's. Didn't realize at the time but my first one turned out to be the best working dog I ever had. sold him to local car dealer with 4 sons who took him all over midwest and south duck, pheasant, goose and whatever hunting and they all cried when he died and put up a big memorial for him at Ford dealership. he called me and I told him I had one just as good in my kennel but I had given it to my lil brother when it was a pup then trained him up. he offered to come up with $10000 cash money for him and have to say I quickly thought up a couple excuses for why the dog had run away or was stolen but since my bro is total opposite of me and is introvert this dog was his best friend so had to pass.

GREAT stories LOVE it and wish I would have thought to do that with mine. I was really good at tracking deer and guesstimating where they would go to when the sign ran out including over multiple days but NOTHING like what your dog did, that is insane! thanks for sharing them and the pictures. Plus the stories of other great dogs as there is nothing like working wiht them in hunting. Saw Bluegabe most recent episode or Kelly Youngs where he was with friends in FL on brush buggies with collared and GPS'd dogs who were after hogs and when they caught them they would hold them and BG and his buddies would jump on them from behind and pin them and either capture them to release else where or castrate them and turn them into "bar" hogs to grow fat and be harvested at a much later date. That is wild stuff as many of these hogs are huge.

NEVER ever put them out on sandhill cranes in case you don't already know
it could end up being a really sad day