Blood Trail Dogs: Deer Are Usually Shy Until You Corner Them

Presently, there are a lot of people who are just getting into blood trailing with a dog and are essentially newbies who are accustomed to deer running away from them for the most part.

BUT, if you are tracking a wounded deer in the dark, and come at them with a headlight o your head and they are slightly wounded and CORNERED and have no place to run AWAY from you, they will turn on you and ATTACK you with a vengeance!

Now this does have comical possiblities unless you are the victim of that attack deer!

This story is written and photographed by Kyle Walley, and edited by Marcus de la Houssaye.

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Here is Kyle Walley's story:

I have been tracking for as long as I can remember, the better part of 27 years and tonight me and dad had the most memorable and crazy track we could ever think of.

Tonight we received a call from a young man hunting in the Society Hill community saying he had made a poor shot on a buck and as the deer was running away to seek cover, he could see the deers leg flopping.

I knew this was going to be a tough one with my catch dog being out of commission for the meantime.

So, Myself and Stuart Walley loaded up Ledge and the new bulldog puppy to go see if we could put the brakes on this buck. We arrived at the shot site and the hunter had marked the place where the buck had entered the woods off of the pipeline, so I put Ledge on the track and we got started.

After about 20yds in I looked down and there was a pool of blood about the size of a basketball. Right then and there Ledge picked up the pace considerably.

He took the track 150 more yards plus or minus, and when he went over a little rise and into the pines, for a split second, I couldn't see him. That is when the deer jumped over the dog, hitting me in the stomach and I tried grabbing him. Then he hit Stuart square in the chest. Stuart grabbed him by the horns and was trying to hang on to him, screaming "take him down, take him down!"

I form tackled the deer, taking him into a choke hold and applying the pressure....

That's when the deer decided to start whooping on me pretty bad! He shredded my back with his hooves, and finally the hunter made it to where we were and was able to knife the deer.

Craziest deer catch to date and it's amazing how quick things can go bad. This is also the lowest leg shot deer that either of us have ever recovered. AS you might imagine, there aren't many deer shot like this that are recovered.

We had a gun, but it was so thick where we got on the deer that before we knew he was there, he made his move and was all over us! I'm glad he wasn't any bigger because it might have gotten one of us hurt really bad.

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The point I want to make here is that if you are just getting into this you need to carry a fire arm and a bowie knife for personal protection and be forewarned tracking wounded deer is dangerous and life threatening!

Now one of the things that can be in your favor is having a well bred, gritty, Catahoula which is capable of stopping and catching a fast moving deer that turns on you and attacks with intent to cause you harm.

And that is why we use Catahoulas as hog dogs and cow dogs! Not only are they bred to be great family pets, natural protectors and elite, high performance hunting dogs, they will go onto harm's way to protect you!

If you interested in one of my dogs, I can be reached by cell phone @ 337 298 2630.