Archery deer season is in progress, and the Arkansas Blood Trailing Network is busy recovering deer that hunters would have otherwise lost.
This group is a loose association of people that own dogs trained to find dead deer from their blood trails. They perform a valuable service preventing deer from being wasted while preserving memories for the hunters that shot the deer. A large percentage of the deer are mature bucks with large antlers. If lost, that’s a harvested deer that would not be checked, enabling a hunter to kill more than a season limit of two bucks, with the potential of losing more, as well.
The association’s Facebook page features the latest exploits of the blood trailing dogs around the state, including photos of the deer.
Brad Besancon of Benton is a founding member of the Arkansas Blood Trailing Network. One of Besancon’s mottos is, “Every shot is a good shot … until it isn’t.” He incorporates educational elements on the page, including diagrams on where to shoot a deer to ensure timely mortality. Other diagrams describe the blood color of a liver shot versus a heart shot versus a lung shot. It also describes the appearance and blood composition of a gut shot.
The motto stems from a common preamble posted by a hunter requesting the services of a blood trailing dog. “Made a good shot on a stud buck at dusk. Good blood. Trail ran out after 500 yards.”
Things happen. A deer might flinch at the sound of a bowstring releasing. Bowhunters usually practice shooting horizontally, and they are not prepared for the shooting angles from a tree stand elevation. Adrenalin surge at the sight of a trophy buck can also influence a bowhunter to make a poor shot. And sometimes hunters take a marginal shot because it’s the only shot they have. Some will let a big deer walk rather than take a chance on making a wounding shot. Some won’t.
Blood trailing a deer that is found dead is a simple resolution. Problems arise when dogs track down a deer that might or might not be mortally wounded. Even mortally wounded deer try to escape if they are able. Sometimes they fight the tracking dogs.
Dogs tangling with a live deer is a chaotic situation. Dog handlers do not want the hunter involved with this part of the recovery for safety reasons. Also, to prevent injuring or killing a dog, handlers do not allow the hunter to dispatch the deer. The handler dispatches the deer, usually with a handgun.
This creates murky legal situations. During archery season, for example, recovering a wounded deer involves a non-bowhunter killing a deer with a firearm. Also, a dog handler that dispatches a wounded deer is actually the person that harvests the deer, but the handler does not check the deer in his or her name. Technically, a hunter that checks a deer that somebody else killed has checked the deer illegally.
Often, deer are found and dispatched late at night. That makes the parties involved vulnerable to receiving night-hunting citations.
Photos have been posted on the Blood Trailing Network Facebook page of blood tracking dogs in hot pursuit of fleeing deer. If that happens in a zone that is not open to running deer with dogs, or if it happens in a dog running zone when the dog running season is closed, the handler and the hunter are vulnerable to citations, regardless of their good intentions.
For this reason, the Game and Fish Commission recommends that the owner of a blood trailing dog contact their local game warden before heading afield on a track. The should tell the officer where they will be and also the name of the hunter for whom they are tracking.
Besancon said that trackers will only track on the property where the hunter has permission to be. They will stop tracking when they reach a property boundary, and they will not resume a track until they obtain permission from the landowner where the deer is believed to be. A wounded deer might cross several properties in its flight.
If game wardens are looped into the situation, most are cautiously tolerant. Their attitude is that the paramount goal is to prevent a deer from being wasted.
Correction
In Sunday’s Sportsman of the Week feature, we incorrectly identified Albert Baker’s hometown as Little Rock. He lives in Fayetteville.
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