A long antler hunt with the dog

While driving to my wife's friend Maggie's , I thought that the chances of finding antlers was good. I was heading to 350 acres of corn and hay fields surrounded by CRP fields and hemlock groves. A roaring native trout brook tuns down a ravine that is full of deer travel. The day promised to be warm and sunny, in the 60's. A day antler hunters love, certainly for March. (Pre bug season).

With me I had my partner in training, Itsy (Little Bit), my trusty antler dog. Today would be a fine tuning trip for her blossoming skills.

When we reached Maggie's I ran into a logger who was eager to tell me where they had been seeing deer. Information considered, off we went. I had planned to go down into the ravine and work the dog in and around the deer trails. A lot of the upper piece had been select cut.

Within 50 yards of getting to the upper shelf, we got our first hit. Turned out to be a leg bone, but she's on the right track. I refocus Itsy and move along. 20 feet later and another bone. Down by the brook, you guessed it another bone. Did I mention none are antlers?

Well we quartered for quite awhile and I had planned on crossing the brook, but the water was still far too high. The deer trails showed that the deer had been crossing it most of the winter and last year I found a 5 point side over there, but no access yet.

The deer trails headed up the bluff and we found 3 huge rubs. We made our way along to the home stretch, we had been out now for over 5 hours and finally found an antler. Out in the middle of a field Itsy found the end of a main beam and part of a tine that had been broken by the hay mower. It was very weathered and had been out there a long time. I left it where it lay as there was not enough to bring home.

So what did we turn up? 10 legs, part of a hip, some cow bones, a chewed up doe skull, several turkey bones, the broken antler piece and LOTS of deer poop.

I think we are doing good for a 2 year old, barely worked pup. I just wish some more antlers would pop up, but it's only March

First 2010 trip out with the dog

Posted by Diane



Rob's antler dog, Itsy, broke a toe in December and has been unable to go antler hunting until she healed.



Rob took her out this week, for the first time in 2010 and he took her to Unity, NH an area they are familiar with.



Last fall a good friend called us because he had arrowed and lost a doe

We did not have our license (one of our other dogs, Annie, is a Wildlife recovery Dog) and could not legally go

The deer was not recovered and all we knew was an aproximate phone conversation about where it was shot and where they thought it went

Rob and Itsy went to the same property on March 11 to look for dropped antlers. To an antler dog a bone is a bone is a bone so she often finds more bones then she does antlers. Coyote skulls, pig and calf bones the coyotes have dragged away from the farm dump pile etc

Itsy has no blood tracking training (yet) and only a smidge of human tracking training, but when they got to this one area she locked onto a "trail" of some sort and was very obviously tracking something. She works off leash with Rob simply keeping her close verbally

He said he decided to let her follow this trail for a bit and after only a short distance became aware of flagging on branches (the type you leave while blood tracking with or without a dog). Rob started being aware that the trail Itsy was following matched the flaggging and so followed along to see where she'd end

Well she ended near a bog where the local coyotes had obviously pulled a dead deer out of the bog and consumed it. itsy picked up all the bones in the area and Rob says they amounted to about the whole rear 1/2 - 1/3 of what looked like a doe based on pelvis

Rob was fairly certain that this was the lost deer from his friend last fall.. This was 5 months ago.

While Rob could not say that Itsy was following a blood trail, the path she followed was right on with the flagging and she was obviously tracking/trailing not just air scenting the bones from a distance




Annie (left), Rob and Itsy (right) take a nap at the end of a fun, tiring day