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United Blood Trackers

DelaWhere_Arrow

DelaWhere_Arrow

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2019
Messages
2,595
Location
Delaware
Saw @Allegheny Tom post about Luminol, and I recommend you all do the same. I also thought it warranted a companion post:
www.UnitedBloodTrackers.org

I’m baffled that blood tracking with certified tracking dogs and trackers is illegal in some states. Like, dumbfounded. It takes only one brain cell to know that any advantage in tracking a wounded/dead animal quickly and efficiently is an advantage worth legalizing.
Check the website above for information about the tracking teams in your area. If you live somewhere that tracking with certified dogs is illegal, write/petition your DNR and hunting populace to legalize it. I’m not “into politics” but no legal hunter, or sane person, wants wounded animals just left out in the woods or running across the highway or landing in someone’s swimming pool. There is no better way to track a wounded animal than a certified tracking-dog team.
Wounding an animal is not the time to get brave about your chances or embarrassed to admit that **** happens sometimes; it’s the time to do everything you can (and btw the teams often use Luminol in conjunction with dogs) to get that animal recovered and meat in your freezer, or at least put your worries to rest at the official call from your tracker that the animal is either recoverable or not.
If you’re not sure about legality in your state, call a tracker near you and chat. If you’re against legality, I’m quite sorry to hear that and I hope you have a change of heart. I also recommend the latter group call a tracker and chat, because they will likely open your eyes to the absolute insanity of illegality.
Good luck y’all, and have fun out there!
Thanks again to @Allegheny Tom for his Luminol post!
 
I also find it astonishing that you can't all use them and half the time your restricted to leash, the recovery rates go through the roof with trained teams and even more so if you can release to bay or hold. I hope you get it legal in all states as it is animal welfare foremost then not wasting meat,regards wayne
 
Our state DNR publishes a list of trackers. I can see a leash law and prefer using a leashed dog myself. When you have a good tracking dog it makes you a sorry tracker if you ever lose it.
 
Careful how u contact these people

A local guy shot a nice deer last yr in bow season & the way to contact a tracking group is thru Facebook

Well everyone on the site then knew where we hunt and get good bucks

Every quota hunt for the rest of the yr , our area was swarming with the Facebook hunters

Now there are yahoos walking everywhere & deer sign has plummeted



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Tapeworm said:
Careful how u contact these people

A local guy shot a nice deer last yr in bow season & the way to contact a tracking group is thru Facebook

Well everyone on the site then knew where we hunt and get good bucks

Every quota hunt for the rest of the yr , our area was swarming with the Facebook hunters

Now there are yahoos walking everywhere & deer sign has plummeted



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
The link I posted has a state-by-state lookup with their contact info. That guy who used an open FB page is the yahoo! Lol
 
EricS said:
Our state DNR publishes a list of trackers. I can see a leash law and prefer using a leashed dog myself. When you have a good tracking dog it makes you a sorry tracker if you ever lose it.
Click to expand...
just to clarify, we always work a leashed HS hound they are trained to indicate things you will not see but gives you vital information along the track, the moment you get to the wounded animal and it's still mobile this is the point of release it is far more successful than having to be still leashed and getting a shot which we all know is not always possible. I do hope you get to use dogs in all states,regards wayne
 
I have a tracking dog and had it listed with United blood trackers a couple years ago. I got more calls to see if my dog could track a missing person or pet that ran away last week than bloodtrails. Got calls all year at all times of the night. The best call was to come track their Serval that ran away. I asked what was that. They said an African cat that weighted about 70#s. I looked it up. It was like a cheetah. I’m not on untied blood trackers any more. I was just trying to get my dog some experience. I let every caller know that I had a young dog and he may not be their best option but I’d be happy to try.

I can understand the leash law because the dog doesn’t know property lines and some people don’t want a group of people and dogs going through their property. I also understand the no tracking dogs allowed rules because if you ever lived around a bunch of outlaws, you will know that every outlaw will be walking the woods at night with a light, dog and a gun and say they are tracking.
 
Tapeworm said:
Careful how u contact these people

A local guy shot a nice deer last yr in bow season & the way to contact a tracking group is thru Facebook

Well everyone on the site then knew where we hunt and get good bucks

Every quota hunt for the rest of the yr , our area was swarming with the Facebook hunters

Now there are yahoos walking everywhere & deer sign has plummeted



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Very good point
 
This is my opinion on the subject...

I dont know if it is legal or not in MN to use a tracking dog, but I personally dont know of anybody who has used a tracking dog to aid them in finding a deer. Maybe its just a pride thing but using a tracking dog would be my absolute last ditch effort to find a deer. To me, tracking a deer is a skill that you only get better at by doing it. In that process you are going to lose some but its the lessons you learn along the way that make you a better tracker. It has also helped me realize just how important it is to wait for an ethical shot.

Story....

So a buddy of mine shot a doe. She was slightly quarter to, and he hugged just behind the shoulder. The shot looked real good, thought for sure there would be a dead deer at the end of that blood trail.

We decided to let it sit till dark, giving her 3 hours. At dark, we took up the blood trail. As fast as you could walk you could follow the blood. No doubt this deer would expire. After a couple hundred yards the blood got less and less. We ended up jumping her in the crick bottom. At that point it was obvious that this deer was really hurting but still had some get up in her.

She ran up onto the field. We waded through the creek, and followed blood to the field. When we got to the field, blood was very spotty and eventually we could find no more blood. But we could see where the due had been disturbed so we followed that trail that led us to a game trail going down into another crick bottom. Well it was so thick in there that we didn't want to go in unless we had some blood and we couldn't find any blood along the field edge so we just backed out.

Came back the next morning and ended up finding blood going down into the crick bottom. We waded through tge waist deep mock and ended up jumping her. After all that she was still alive but barely. Ended up finishing her off and dragged her to the creek to gut her out. My buddy ended up hitting her in one lung and the liver. A lethal shot, but them deer are just so tough.

My point to this story is that you cant give up on a wounded animal. Most people would have shined headlights on the field after she got up there to see if she made it off the field, and after no body was seen theyd give up and call it quits all together. We owe the deer. You decide to pull the trigger, you gotta be willing to do/go through anything to find that animal, wether its a monster buck or just a lone doe. If its legal to use dogs and you got one I say go for it. If it aint legal or ya dont got a dog then you gotta call some buddies and get 'er done. Either way, you gotta give it your all.
 
How does this work with a tracker? I'm assuming they charge for their service? What's an average cost if there is such a thing?
 
Gator said:
How does this work with a tracker? I'm assuming they charge for their service? What's an average cost if there is such a thing?
Click to expand...
This is so widely varied. Some volunteer. Others charge mileage and so much to show up. Some charge by the hour. If you’ve spent 1500 on a lease, 1000 on a bow, and countless miscellaneous costs of trail cams and food plots etc what is your trophy worth. I hear stories of guys literally flying their dogs half way across a country to track deer. I don’t know that I would take it that far but if a local guy takes off work, gets out of bed, or misses valuable time with family or in the woods to track your deer it should be worth a couple hundred bucks at the minimum. The dog I had I tracked for free the first year just to get my dog on as many tracks as I could. My intentions were to charge after that but I decided to just track for friends and family members because it wasn’t worth any reasonable fee to miss that time from work/family/woods. Maybe I’ll get into it again as a retiree but that’s a long ways away.
It’s hard to put a number on it especially when your talking someone’s first deer, a kids first buck etc. You don’t want them to not call you because of the money but if you did it for free you would spend all season looking for deer that weren’t even hit and others that were perfect shots that ran 70 yards with an awesome blood trail.
 
EricS said:
This is so widely varied. Some volunteer. Others charge mileage and so much to show up. Some charge by the hour. If you’ve spent 1500 on a lease, 1000 on a bow, and countless miscellaneous costs of trail cams and food plots etc what is your trophy worth. I hear stories of guys literally flying their dogs half way across a country to track deer. I don’t know that I would take it that far but if a local guy takes off work, gets out of bed, or misses valuable time with family or in the woods to track your deer it should be worth a couple hundred bucks at the minimum. The dog I had I tracked for free the first year just to get my dog on as many tracks as I could. My intentions were to charge after that but I decided to just track for friends and family members because it wasn’t worth any reasonable fee to miss that time from work/family/woods. Maybe I’ll get into it again as a retiree but that’s a long ways away.
It’s hard to put a number on it especially when your talking someone’s first deer, a kids first buck etc. You don’t want them to not call you because of the money but if you did it for free you would spend all season looking for deer that weren’t even hit and others that were perfect shots that ran 70 yards with an awesome blood trail.
Click to expand...
Yeah I understand all of that. No way I'd do it just because if you are tracking you ain't hunting! I was more curious than anything since I've obviously never used a tracker before and when I seen the comment on here or the website about them covering more than one state.....Damn, that's a lot of time and effort to track a strangers deer that like you mention might not have even been hit.
 
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