Major Deer Tracking

05/26/2026

Ravens line from today. What a great weekend out of her. Fortunately we still have a long time before season gets here to work on some things with this young girl. She did fantastic in the valley, working the line scent and ignoring the hide scent draw at the end. I could tell as soon as she hit the lower third that she could smell the hide. It was laid this way by design to force her through a massive scent pool and keep her on ground scent. She made quick work of this 890 yard track in just 36 minutes.

05/24/2026

With Ravens foot healing nicely, I was finally able to get her out on a track. She did very well even with her being super amped up after several weeks off due to injury. My focus for Raven currently is turns and this one presented a lot of thermal activity as well. Zirc got a line as well with a back track and four road crossings. Both dogs had fun and did well.

Raven, your tracking boot camp starts now. She will have another line laid tonight.

04/25/2026

Today we got together with some of our blood hound brothers for some tracking therapy. Had a blast today watching all the hounds work. Boone & Crockett Tracking Services John Stewart The NEXT STEP Deer Tracking & Recovery

04/17/2026

Today Raven turned 1! She is such a sweet loving girl. We can’t wait to see how many hunters she helps this up coming season. Happy birthday sweet girl.

04/12/2026

04/12/2026

Light blue-laid line
Dark Blue-Zircs line
We had the girls with us and he ran back to the parking lot to say hi. This is generally how zirc looks when scent is easy. 24+ hr lay time with good scenting conditions. He was head high most of it and just enjoying some running around while working at the same time. Certainly not a pretty line but the entire track was 7 minutes. He was moving and grooving with scent in the air. Always fun to see how they use the scent each day.

04/08/2026

Blue- laid line
Pink-Ravens line
Red-average wind direction

What can we learn from this. It looks like a hot mess because it kind of was. Raven definitely struggled to stay on the line today. What you may not see is the heavy dog/human traffic in the beginning, the heavy deer used trails where she checked herself automatically. The wind has blown this track for 27 hours, not a long lay time but at Ravens much more limited experience this caused her to have to search harder and smell deeper. The thermals pulling scent down towards the swamp caused her to have to pull up and back to the line several times and the open farm land caused some back and forth in order for her to line it out. All in all she did great. Training should never be perfect in my opinion. If it’s is, than I need to make it harder.

Both lines are pulled from my Garmin, making them accurate, consistent gps signals.

04/07/2026

Today, I gained insight into exporting laid lines to onX for visualizing elevation changes. Given the superior accuracy of Garmin Line over onX, I had not previously utilized onX; however, this new feature will allow me to correlate scent behavior with lay times, weather patterns, and other factors. This functionality promises to be an indispensable tool. Reviewing video recordings of tracks enables me to discern details that might have eluded me initially, ensuring ongoing learning from my hounds. Always good to be able to add tools to the tool box.

04/04/2026

What do deer trackers do in the spring when you’re getting heavy rain storms. We lay lines and run the hounds of course. Thanks to Zack with Boone & Crockett Tracking Services for swapping lines the past two days. All dogs were put to the test and a lot of fun was had. Check the comments for pics/video.

03/08/2026

Thankful to be back in the woods. Ran tracks today with Zirc and Raven. Both aged around 23 hours with 20-30mph winds the entire lay time. Scent was absolutely everywhere and both dogs had to do a lot of digging and searching.

2026 training season is off to a fun start.

02/20/2026

Spoiled hound alert…!

Mom made Zirc a dog muffin with banana and applesauce with a peanut butter “icing” with a crumble dog treat topper.