EQUIPMENT

• Wallet containing DEC Leashed Tracking Dog License, big game hunting license and handgun permit. Place wallet in waterproof Ziploc bag.
• Large I.D. card for your dashboard (needs Leashed Tracking Dog License number, Deer Search Inc., your name).
• County Road Maps for counties you will track in
• List of phone numbers of Conservation Officers and State Police
• Large fanny pack (hangs up less in brush than a knapsack)
• Compass (make sure that North end of needle is clearly marked)
• Biodegradable marking tape (for marking last drop of visible blood, etc.)
• Short leash for taking dog into the woods
• Thirty foot leash of mountain climbing cord (11 mm. for large dogs, 8 or 9 mm. for dachshunds)
• Powerful light for tracking. Dynalight or  NITE LITE with charger.*
• Spare bulbs and small flashlight for changing bulbs in big light
• Small hunting knife
• Blood bottle or gallon sized Ziploc bags for carrying deer blood (put one Ziploc inside another)

• Small cup to dip blood out of cavity; margarine container works well
• Rope or web strap for dragging deer
• Pen and string for attaching deer tag; hunters frequently forget these items
• Whistle for signaling to hunters
• Water for your dog
• Portable two way radios
• Cellular phone
• Camera

*These lights are sold by Nite Lite Co., P.O. Box 8210, Little Rock, Ark. 72221. tel. 1-800-648-5483. 

The wish list for equipment always grows longer not shorter. It would be nice to have a GPS (Global Positioning System). For my own foolish capers in swamps and briars I like Wick Froglegs boots for deeper water. In the Multiflora Rose my Wick Cordura chaps and a Bill Boatman Cordura nylon coat keep my old hide smoother and more appetizing for the deer ticks.
For repelling deer ticks PERMANONE sprayed on your clothes will help some, but check yourself over when you get home and in the shower.

The toughest tracking conditions for a young dog come right at the beginning of bow season. If you have a dog who is just getting started on live lines, pick your first deer calls with care. Warm breezy afternoons of mid-October offer the poorest chances to get your dog off to a good start. Because freshly fallen leaves are blowing around and conditions are dry, there is often no real "line" to work.

Try to avoid getting your young dog into a situation where she is wandering around finding vague traces of scent only here and there. Save these tough lines for an old experienced dog. Most young dogs will make hit or miss work out of it because they have no idea of how hard they must work to "carry" the line from A to B.

Because of the sequence of the seasons most of us find ourselves tracking for the first time with young dogs during bow season when tracking is usually most difficult. For these young dogs it is especially important to take the time to start well.

Avoid starting your dog right at the hunters point of loss. This is likely to be the hardest part of the whole scent trail. Obviously the hunter lost the blood trail for a reason. Maybe the deer did stop bleeding, but there is also a good chance that the deer backtracked or radically changed direction. For certain the point of loss will be well trampled and saturated with human scent as the hunter searched back and forth to find another spot of blood.

Start by going back and reworking several hundred yards of the visible blood trail that the hunter tracked for himself. Unless the point of the shot is a very long way back it is usually worth the time and trouble to start at the very beginning. You may find something such as an arrow which the hunter missed and you are likely to find some sign to help you evaluate the hit. Reworking the blood line will familiarize your dog with the individual deer scent that you are interested in. Your dog may pick the backtrack, or with the "momentum" picked up on a well-defined scent line it may carry right through the hunter's point of loss and show you more of the line.

Even if you run through several hundred yards of the old line the dog may well stall on the hunter's point of loss. The hunter will probably have tracked blood scent and deer scent all over this area on his feet.

If you still can't get started, the best solution may be to lead the dog slowly around a 50 yard radius circle, and then again on a 100 yard radius. Watch your dog slowly and she may well show you another spot of blood out beyond the limit of the area contaminated by the hunter's search.

If possible avoid working a young dog on a scent line until it has been clearly established. Take your first calls with someone who has an experienced dog, and let them do the circling and casting if these are the tactics that have to be used to get started. These circling tactics won't hurt and old veteran, but they are likely to slow the development of a young dog that is just developing "line sense."

When you see a drop of blood mark it with biodegradable tape, or have the hunter mark it. You will save time in the long run if you are able to return with certainty to the marked line; if your dog loses the line later or seems to get distracted by fresh scent of another deer, it is good to be able to return to a spot of blood and start again.

Sometimes we insult the intelligence of our dogs and this is the reason why they become bored with what we ask them to do. A six hour old training line may sound like a very difficult task to us, but when the drops of blood are right there, still giving off scent, it is too easy to be interesting as far as a dog's mind goes. A six hour blood line is much easier than a scent trail of the same age left by a man or a healthy deer. Once past the raw puppy stage when everything is exciting, you are likely to find that your dogs apply themselves better to a task that requires them to use their abilities. Don't be afraid to increase the age of your training lines.

Once our puppies know what a bloodline is, we jump from 12 to 24 hours, very quickly. They seldom have problems. We don't want to move beyond a puppy's ability, but we find that things work out better if we make it easier by using lots of blood and also by keeping the lines short, under 300 yards. If we work at 24, 36 or 48 hours there is no problem with human scent; by this time it has pretty well dissipated.

Remember lines age much more slowly at night. They also become easier as the dew begins to settle in the evening. My impression is that a 48 hour line is only about 20% harder than a 24 hour line. For a long time it seemed to me that a line twice as old should be twice as tough. Now I believe that it a blood line loses its intensity of scent in a way that can best be expressed by a descending, sway-backed curve.

I'd like to hear about your training experiences. It's by trading experiences that we all learn. You may persuade me that I'm wrong, but as I see it now the big problem in training and live blood tracking is the distractions, not the age of the line.