Best Effort Recovery and Bloodhounds

Best Effort Recovery and Bloodhounds I've been tracking deer with my Bloodhounds as a service to the local area since 2017.

07/28/2026

The puppies are about 7 weeks old and already tracking down their food. I made a beef liver drag for them and they figured it out. Cool to watch.

Pixies puppies are getting cuter and more active every day. They are 5 weeks old now and already using their noses to na...
07/16/2026

Pixies puppies are getting cuter and more active every day. They are 5 weeks old now and already using their noses to navigate. Super excited to see what they make of themselves. If you are in need of a young blood hound for tracking purposes these should be top notch.

06/09/2026

Pixe and Stich got together at the perfect time to produce a colorful, next generation of tracking dogs. They are 4 days old in this video and are growing at a high rate of speed. Ill be handling them daily and imprinting them on deer scents.

05/23/2026

Its apparent that Pixie will be a parent soon. The pups are tired by Stich from Geralds Deer Recovery Service owned and handled by Matt Geralds. Stitch is UBT 2 certified and will be attempting a UBT3 next weekend. He has put a lot of deer on the tailgates over the years and is a big part of the Gerlds family.
Pixie has been my main deer tracker for the last 5 seasons. She is a sweet heart. Easy to handle and pretty good at her job. She earned all 4 of the United Blood Trackers certifications. I'm excited to see what her pups will do. If you've ever thought about adding a bloodhound to your family, or considered one for tracking, these will be a great place to start.

Super excited to receive this message this morning.
03/16/2026

Super excited to receive this message this morning.

Hunter: Hey, I shot a buck and hit him in the leg. I saw it swinging as he ran off. He has good blood trail for a while ...
01/15/2026

Hunter: Hey, I shot a buck and hit him in the leg. I saw it swinging as he ran off. He has good blood trail for a while but then we lost it. Also my buddy shot a doe and hit her a bit too far back. We didnt realize she was hit till we started tracking the buck the evening after the doe was shot in the morning.

I figured the doe was probably dead and needed to be recovered before morning. The buck however would need a follow up shot and should be tracked in day light. I agreed to come track the doe then determine if it's worth coming back to track the buck in the morning.

The doe didn't take long to recover but we found her in a massive scent pool with blood evidence in places that just didn't make sense to me. She had found a final testing place in a fallen treetop and was hard to see.

Having recovered the doe we started tracking the buck. At last blood Pixie made a left turn and headed along the ridge toward where we had found the doe. She continued till we were right back in that large scent pool with blood going every which way. As we tried to solve the puzzle every path led us back to the doe. Finally after having tried everything else I decided to make a large circle around the area. I didn't take long before Pixie locked onto a track and showed me fresh blood headed south into fresh territory. A few minutes later I saw the buck get up and continue his course to the south. We got permission to track on that neighbor's ground after he was done hunting the following day and made arrangements to continue the track.

The next day we met again and talked with the hunting neighbor as he was leaving. He told us he had found the blood trail on his way out of the woods and told us where we could find it if we wanted to. I opted to continue from the last known spot just to be sure we are on the correct deer. There was still some snow on the ground that weekend so we could see that the neighbor had walked on the blood trail on his way back from his stand and didnt even realize it till he was almost back to the truck and noticed some heavier bleeding. This thankfully didn't pose a problem and we located the buck only 50 ish yards from the blood we had been told about. My hunter was right next to me as I had instructed him to be and got another bullet into the deer as he tried to slip away from us. Another buck in the truck and more meat in the freezer.

This hunter saw some bucks fighting and took the opportunity to put a stalk on them. They were in a field of waist high ...
12/29/2025

This hunter saw some bucks fighting and took the opportunity to put a stalk on them. They were in a field of waist high grasses and the deer that was shot disappeared immediately. The hunter expected to find him in the area he had shot him but couldn't find a thing when he investigated. Upon our arrival we made our way to the shot sight. Pixie sniffed around a bit then found the edges of the war zone and worked it till she found an exit and a dead deer a short distance away. I didn't see a drop of blood on this track but it doesn't always take blood to be successful.

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Flat Rock, IL
62427

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+16185531639

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