Dogging the deer tracks

This nice buck was watching a hunter that was following his back-trail.

Snow depths are getting deeper this year as one storm after another blows through the state. Whitetails are moving freely throughout the Lower Peninsula and parts of the Upper Peninsula but if heavy snows continue in the UP, the deer will soon all be yarded up, which makes for a long winter.

Many avid hunters want to learn more about deer. There's no better time to learn about deer, from deer, than taking a walk through a swamp or woods. It can provide great exercise, and can teach a sportsman a thing or two about these animals they hunt.

Wait for a fresh snow, and go for a hike. There will be no particular destination in mind, but walk until you find one big track traveling alone. Chances are good it will be a buck, and he may be with or without antlers. Many bucks lose their antlers in December, but some Michigan bucks will keep theirs into January or February.

Find a unique track, and get on it and track it for a mile or two.

This is a form of hunting without carrying a bow or firearm. Get on that track and note any particular characteristic about it. One hoof may be oddly shaped, or one leg may drag a bit, and anything different about a hoof print will make it easy to identify.

Stay on the track, and usually you will determine that the deer knows you are behind him within 30 minutes. You are not trying to stalk the deer; instead, you are trying to track that animal until you see it. It's a game of hide and week, and you'll soon learn the deer is better at staying out of sight than you are.

You'll soon come to where the deer is bedded down, and keep to the trail but continue to look ahead and to both sides. Eventually the deer will circle to check you out.

The deer will mosey along until he hears, sees or smells you on the trail, and then will start to meander. Ofter the deer will take you through some rugged terrain before it begins to circle.

The circle is your first clue that the deer knows you are back there, dogging his tracks. They often circle back to a point where they can watch their backtrail. They want to know what is coming up behind them.

Sometimes the deer, if badly spooked, will light out of there on a hard run and cover a quarter-mile or more before slowing. That's OK, just let him run and keep to the track.

Stay on the same track, and don’t be in a rush. Fast-moving hunters spook deer.

Deer that are being followed will often join up with other deer, mix with them, follow many of the same runways or trails they use, and that is when tracking a deer becomes more difficult. It's important to find a track that is noticeably different than those of other deer.

The animal may try to fool you this way, and if this doesn't shake you off the track, look for it to head for another area that holds many deer. Track the deer through that maze, and the animal will either get really spooked or develop a curiosity.

I should note that it isn't wise to do this when deer are yarded up. Deer pinned in a cedar swamp do not need to be spooked. They often will be living off fat reserves, and even though the animals may run away, it may later lead to their death. Track deer when they can freely move.

A deer may move with the wind, across wind, or try to circle to get downwind of your location. A circling deer is trying to see or smell you, and that is when it pays to look all around and slow down a bit.

Don't hurry. A slow-moving sportsman will move the deer where it wants to go, and a spooked deer will lead you on a long chase. Often, a deer will be spotted within a mile.

You may see it standing motionless in the tag alders ahead, crossing a snowy hill ahead, or heading into the next patch of thick cover. It's not necessary to follow a deer to the point of exhaustion.

The trick is to watch what deer do when they know something is after them. They are less frightened of a slow-moving person than one moving as fast as possible.

Watch and see how deer try to elude you. They will make sudden direction changes, stop, move off to one side or the other, but often will be back in thick cover. You may find yourself walking within 20 yards of a deer without seeing it.

Deer will try to elude you. Look for sudden direction changes or movements.

This is great exercise, but even more important, it gives a hunter a greater insight into how deer think and why they do some of the things they do. And best of all, it is fun.

Become extremely good at this tactic, and then start carrying a bow or firearm. Walk up a buck without overly spooking him, and you'll have acquired a talent that very few hunters possess.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Fritz, my best bird dog

Today marked the opener of the 2010 pheasant season, but it was one I missed. Many reasons kept me closer to home: one-eyed vision, no dog, far fewer birds now than back in the 1960’s, and a lack of enthusiasm for what once was my favorite field sport.

Now, although there are still some roosters, their numbers are far fewer than back in the 1950s and 1960s. In those halcyon days, pheasant numbers had peaked, and a short one-day hunt would feature more flying roosters in a day than a hunter could see now in a season of hunting.

For me, it was never about shooting a two-bird limit. It was about hunting the fallow and weed fields with a fine dog.  Here’s a few things about my old pointer and my hunts back in those good old days.

Fritz, the wonder dog

Know this: There is really something very special that happens to your heart when a solid-as-Sears pointer slams to a stop, lifts a front foot and his stubby tail goes rigid.

It has happened to me many times. I’d walk in behind a great point, shotgun at port arms, and look in front of and over the dog and 10 yards away.  Too many people study the ground  immediately in front of the dog, and a pointer may be on a bird that is 10-20 yards ahead or to either side. Fine field work is what endears good dogs to their owner.

The pleasures of owning a dog died with my German shorthair, Fritz, who came with some truly great bloodlines and who died many years ago at 13 years. There were many reasons why no others have entered my life, and losing my old friend was the major one.

Fritz, like many shorthairs, was bullheaded and stubborn to a fault. He could get into more trouble than a fox in a hen-house, and in his early years he always seemed to think he was hunting for himself. He didn’t realize that he was supposed to hunt with me in return for his daily meals and in respect to the man who brought him to the dance.

He was a terror, and his idea of hunting was to be a half-mile and three fallow fields ahead of me. I’d work him on a long leash, and he’d sit, heel and was steady to wing and shot as long as the rope snugged him in at about 25 yards. Take the lead off, and he attempted to set a new speed record for crossing three open fields and blindly busting one pheasant after another along the way.

Finally, in dark desperation after finally catching him after a long sprint, I loosened his collar a bit, stuck one of this dark front paws through the collar, and turned him loose. He made one step and fell over whining. I got him back up on three legs, and he tried to run off again. He was scolded and told to hunt close.

Training Fritz to hunt close was a humbling experience

An hour later, feeling sorry for the dog, I pulled his foot out and off he went like he had a booster rocket under his tail. Another long-winded sprint, and my feelings of regret changed to one of quickly solving this problem. The next two days he hunted on three legs, and wasn’t happy about it but he stayed within 25 yards of me.

He worked the cover slow and cast from side to side, and we put up hens and roosters over his rather lop-sided points, and I’d praise him in person and to anyone who would listen, and after two days of punishment, we went out the third day.

We had a heart-to-heart chat about his past behavior, and more recent ways of staying close, and he seemed to pay attention. It was a gamble worth taking, and I slipped his foot from his collar. He looked at me, and I patted his head and said “Hunt close,” and he began hunting into the wind. He cast back and forth, and never exceeded the 25-yard maximum. A soft “Whoa” was all I needed to steady him.

He locked onto point, and I whispered Whoa to him, lifted his tail, and he looked like a granite carving. I stepped in front, saying “Steady now,” and he was rock solid. The ringneck pheasant lifted into the air with a raucous cackle, his long-barred tail streaming out behind, and I swung with the bird and down he came.

Fritz, after his introduction to a lead rope and the foot through the collar, never gave me another problem. He hunted grouse, pheasant and woodcock, and his expertise was superb. He would hunt with the neighbor kids, and there were only two rules for the kids who hunted him: hunt safely and don’t shoot at low-flying birds.

Nothing a vet could do would cure mt beloved friend

The last year of his life was a painful ordeal. His hips were shot from arthritis, and he always begged me to take him. We’d hunt near home, and he would gimp through the fields. His hips were bad but it didn’t affect his hearing or nose.

He’d zero in on cackling roosters at dawn, and we’d move on them when shooting time opened. With luck we’d take two quick roosters, and then it was a slow and painful walk home for a dog in great pain. I’d pat his head, tell him I loved him, and he’d wag his bobbed tail enthusiastically.

Our last hunt came a few days later. A magazine deadline was met, I grabbed my shotgun, got Fritz up and headed out. He slowly worked two different birds, both were roosters, and my shooting was better than what I deserved. Fritz pointed, and I shot both birds, and then he sat down. I kneeled beside my old friend as he whined and shivered with pain, and I picked him up and carried him home, knowing that he’d  run has last bird through thick pheasant cover.

Two days later, in late-October as cold winds blew down from the north, Fritz left me and went to that area where  all good bird dogs go when they die. He was buried along a fencerow that often produced ringnecks, and on occasion I still think I hear him snuffling the scent of a big rooster 10 feet in front of his nose.

It isn’t, of course, but there is the memory of a bird dog that never knew the meaning of the word quit. He could out-hunt me in his prime, and it’s the biggest reason  I’ve never owned another hunting dog. A new bird dog could never measure up to Fritz, and it would be unfair to expect him to.

So I live with my many fond memories of Fritz. He was the finest bird  dog I’ve owned, and I’ll never see the likes of him again. There’s a place tucked back in the corner of my mind where lost friends and bird dogs go, and whenever the memory machine registers a hit on man or dog, I reach up, dust off a fond memory and trot it for the world to see.

You’ve just read one of my favorites.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors