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Should Dogs Be Allowed to Track Wounded Deer

Should Dogs Be Allowed to Track Wounded Deer

  • Yes, unconditionally but with heavy fines for trespassing

    Votes: 68 58.6%

  • Yes, but only with registered dogs and heavy fines for trespass

    Votes: 23 19.8%

  • No, we've been with out them

    Votes: 14 12.1%

  • undecided

    Votes: 4 3.4%

  • don't care

    Votes: 7 6.0%
  • Total voters
    116
My lab recovered a doe for me this early season on an evening hunt. She was liver/gut hit and plugged up. We lost blood and about 200 yards away he found her at night. She was on our property, but I can promise she wouldn't have been good in the morning had he not found her then.
 
wapsi-bottom-BP said:
I voted yes with registration n heavy fines.. I own land, hunt my land, consider myself to be an excellent woodsman, I feel that I have better than average tracking skills, tracked many der for a lot of friends!! But if needed I would use a tracking dog if I couldn't find a deer.. I dont think it'd ever work if they let just anyone use a dog to track with, but if every county had a few DNR registered/trained handlers n dogs with a strict set of guidelines, I wouldnt see many problems at all!!! Very heavy fines if the registered (professional) handlers use it to run deer or whatever the concern is??? I think the handler would have to use their own discretion to decide if there is a blood trail or evidence of a wounded deer before using the dog, and be subject to penalties if they dont follow set guidelines. .
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Of all the ideas and arguments put forth, this is the only one I would vote yes on.

Granted, there are similarities to other posts however this one gave better details than the others did.

If something closely resembling this came up in the legislature, I could get on board with supporting it.
 
wapsi-bottom-BP said:
I voted yes with registration n heavy fines.. I own land, hunt my land, consider myself to be an excellent woodsman, I feel that I have better than average tracking skills, tracked many der for a lot of friends!! But if needed I would use a tracking dog if I couldn't find a deer.. I dont think it'd ever work if they let just anyone use a dog to track with, but if every county had a few DNR registered/trained handlers n dogs with a strict set of guidelines, I wouldnt see many problems at all!!! Very heavy fines if the registered (professional) handlers use it to run deer or whatever the concern is??? I think the handler would have to use their own discretion to decide if there is a blood trail or evidence of a wounded deer before using the dog, and be subject to penalties if they dont follow set guidelines. .
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A trained dog won't trail a non wounded deer. They are picking up the unique scent that comes off the arrow from pheromones or whatever that injured deer gives off.
 
Leashed tracking dog that way no one can say they are looking for their dog. A well trained tracking dog will stay on a wounded animals trail. But if you want to make sure that it does and that the handler stay where they are suppose to be make it leashed tracking only. There are definetly some advantages for off lead like tracking down and baying a leg hit deer. But that type of tracking just will not work with so many concerned with trespassing.
 
I see a lot of concern about trespassing with a dog. What is the general consensus on shed dogs? From my understanding they do not have to be leashed. I could see where that could lead to tremendous trespassing either on the dogs part or the owner "looking" for their dog.

It is also kind of ironic that a landowner may not give permission to bring a leashed dog onto their property however the hunter can go in there as he pleases to track the deer without a weapon. A lot of times hunters will have a gang of buddies. I think I would rather have one dog and one hunter versus a gang of hunters and no dog. Who knows, I am sure it will be awhile before anything happens.

Regardless of the law, I truly believe our trespass laws need to have much stiffer fines versus a slap on the wrist. They need to make it hurt pretty bad if you get caught tresspassing. Right now, there is not much stopping people which sucks for landowners.
 
iabwhntr said:
If I'm reading this poll correctly, 77 of you can't track deer, 3 of you are still learning and 5 of you don't hunt... :D
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I'll take you up on a woodsmen skills test any day.. Just to hear your excuses at the end of the day of why you didn't do perfect.
 
iabwhntr said:
OK. What do you propose? Are you going shank shoot a deer, as some here recommended ;), and have me track it?
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Or you can track a living deer... Just the same as a high lung shot or gut shot they don't always bleed.. Or there is a thing called fake blood nowadays some one could make a trail and you track it.


I hit a deer this year and lost the blood trail tracked it by it's hoof prints until it hit the cross of major trails. Searched everywhere just to see him living a few days later. A blood trailing dog would have been nice to get closure on the deer before that because the feeling of losing a deer makes one sick and not want to hunt when they are still learning.. But I forgot you've never lost a deer or made a poor shot.
 
Taken off Maryland QDMA site "Abstract: We determined wounding rates of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) by bowhunters using modern (compound bow and crossbow) archery equipment. Our study relied on daily reports submitted by bowhunters who participated in managed hunts at the Naval Support Facility Indian Head at Indian Head, Maryland. Bowhunters were required to pass the International Bowhunter Education Program and an annual pre-season shoot- ing proficiency test. During the 1989&ndash;2006 hunting seasons, 104 bowhunters failed to recover 162 of 908 deer hit by arrows or crossbow bolts, corre- sponding to an 18% wounding rate. There was no difference in deer recovery metrics between compound bow and crossbow users (&chi;21 = 0.01; P = 0.92). Bowhunters who harvested the most deer (>20 deer per hunter) had a lower pooled wounding rate than bowhunters who killed fewer deer (&chi;21 = 22.2; P < 0.005). Based on our estimates, qualified bowhunters were able to recover 1 deer for every 1.4 shots using modern archery equipment."
 
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I just don't buy the argument that legalizing the use of a tracking dog is going to increase trespassing. Any hunter who is going to trespass is already going to do it and can already claim they are tracking a deer without having to bring a dog along.

I see tracking dogs as a tool to help recover deer that otherwise would be wasted. It is in my opinion the responsible thing to do as a hunter.
 
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