Lost and Found

If Scout could write, she might offer a timely message like this one to Texas deer hunters:

Dear Deer Hunters, The word around my house is that it is going to be a great season with plenty of boss bucks running around out there. I’ve already seen several big ones up close.

I’ve been pretty busy this fall. Things are probably about to get much busier with the general hunting season now underway statewide.

I hear Texas has about 750,000 deer hunters, but not all of them are particularly handy with their bows and firearms. Even the best shooters make bad shots every now and then.

I know that’s true because my dad, Jared, gets phone calls at odd hours from guys who shoot deer but can’t find them after they run away. They have heard I’m pretty good at finding deer they can’t.

I don’t mind the trouble. It’s what I’m trained to do. But it would be much better for the deer if I didn’t have to lend a hand.

My best advice to hunters is this: * Know your firearm. * Practice shooting before you go hunting and be sure your scope is dialed in.

* Know your shooting abilities and don’t take risky shots that are too far away, or those where the deer is obscured by brush.

* The best place to shoot a deer is behind the shoulder, preferably when the animal is standing broadside. The idea is to hit vitals and dispatch the animal as quickly and humanely as possible.

* If the deer does run off, make note of where it was standing when you shot, and the direction it ran.

* Stay put in your hunting blind and wait about 30 minutes before looking for blood. If you find a good blood trail, follow it. Hopefully it will lead you to a dead deer.

* If there is no blood, or if a blood trail suddenly plays out, do the smart thing and back away. Deer are resilient animals and they are inherently spooky. Pressure one that doesn't hit well and you could push it into next county.

* The best thing to do at this point is to call me or one of my K-9 tracking buddies. There are a bunch of us out there, and we’re always willing to help find your wounded deer.

Sincerely, Your Friend, Scout

Scout is a female Jack Russell Terrier. She weighs 12 pounds and is only 11 inches tall at the shoulder, but she’s got a heart the size of Texas and a keen little nose to go with it.

To hear Jared Polasek tell it, Scout lives to hunt and aims to please. In her mind, a lost deer is almost as good as a found deer. She’s young, but she is all business.

Polasek says he started Scout trailing wounded deer as a puppy in 2021. She learned the ropes fast.

“I started her around the house and she took right to it,” Polasek said. “We had one buck that ran into a thicket and left no blood trail at all. It probably would have taken us three hours to find that deer. Scout found it in a minute or so. She’s a natural.”

Polasek put Scout to work last deer season. The dog batted .800 as a 1 1/2 year old. She found 12 of the 15 deer she went looking for, many of them quality bucks that any ethical hunter would have been sick over losing.

Scout picked up right she left off this fall. In October, she helped recover numerous deer during the archery only, managed lands deer and youth only seasons.

Polasek said one of Scout’s most impressive tracks so far went down on the heels of the Youth Only deer season that ended Oct. 29. A young hunter had made a bad shot on a ninepoint buck late in the day. He was using a .243 caliber rifle.

The call for help came the following afternoon, about 24 hours after the deer was shot. It had been raining all day long.

“We started at the shot site and Scout got on the trail within 10 minutes,” Polasek said. “The buck had bedded down about 200 yards from the feeder and wound up busting bay four different times. It went for about 600 yards before we were finally able to put it down. It was a wild track, to say the least.”

The race ended well after dark in a creek bottom riddled with thick switch cane. There, Polasek found his prized Jack Russell paddling in several feet of water in hot pursuit of the buck.

“When I shined the light she was right on his butt — so close it looked like she was riding on his back,” he chuckled. “That last 50 yards was pretty intense.”

The buck eventually made it to a sandbar, where it was finally dispatched. Polasek later discovered a spot on Scout’s back where the hair had been peeled away. The mark was shaped like a deer hoof, a good sign the little dog had gotten too close.

“She wasn’t bruised or bleeding — the hair was just gone,” Polasek said. “That buck was a mean one. It was the roughest track we’ve had, for sure.”

SNIFFING OUT DEER

Polasek is just one of the many Texas dog handlers who get their game faces on when deer season rolls around each fall. Texas hunters harvest more than 800,000 annually, and deer dog handlers get called in to help recover a number of them.

The practice of using up to two unleashed dogs to track wounded deer has been legal in much of the state for decades, but was only recently made legal in most of eastern Texas. The exceptions are Jasper, Newton, Sabine, and San Augustine counties, where handlers are still required to keep tracking dogs on a leash.

Like many other handlers, Polasek says deer tracking dogs rely heavily on a unique scent displaced from the deer’s interdigital glands. The gland is located between a deer’s hooves. It releases a pasty substance with a foul odor.

Deer rely on the scent to locate and follow one another. It is believed that a deer stressed from being wounded will displace a scent from its interdigital glands that is unique from other deer.

Polasek says Scout has picked up trails of wounded deer as long as 36 hours after they were shot. He equips the dog with a Dogtra Pathfinder GPS E-collar.

Paired with a special mobile app, the collar allows Polasek to track the dog’s path with his phone. “It shows me exactly where she’s at,” he said. “It tells me when she barks, stops and how fast she’s traveling. You can tell a lot about how bad a deer is hurt by watching how the dog is acting.”

Jeff Glende is another dog man who is on call each fall to help hunters recover wounded deer that are presumably lost. “Dago” and “Buzzard” are the hound/ cur crosses he relies on to throw the brakes on bucks that don’t drop.

Glende, 38, has been running RedLine Tracking for eight years. His dogs steered hunters to about 40 recoveries in southeast Texas and South Texas last season. Some of the tracks were over 30 hours old when they started.

Glende is a firm believer in the interdigital gland theory, but thinks there are other scent factors that come into play, as well.

“Deer are no different than people — everybody has their own smell,” he said. “I’ve watched Dago work. She just about always back tracks from the last blood and checks every piece of grass, brush, limbs — everything that deer has touched. I think she does it to get nose full of the scent. I believe the interdigital gland scent is absolutely a key, but that’s not all a dog keys on. There is other stuff on the ground that we can’t see with the human eye that the dogs can smell - bodily fluids, skin particles, hair and things like that.”

Naturally, most dog handlers charge for their services. There is usually a fee for showing up, along with a separate finder’s fee charged for recovered animals. The amounts charged vary with the handler.

Polasek says he and Scout charge for their time, but admits he isn’t in the search and recovery business for the money. It’s more about watching the little dog do what she loves, doing the deer a favor and seeing the excitement of a customer when they get word they will bring their deer tag.

“To me, it’s more fun than hunting itself,” he said. “I lost a couple of nice bucks when I was young and it’s a terrible feeling. Seeing the joy on a kid’s face when you find a deer they think is lost makes it all worthwhile.”

SIDEBAR FINDING A TRACKER

There are a number of dog handlers around Texas that offer deer tracking services. Some stay busy by word of mouth or by advertising on social media.

Another source for finding deer trackers is unitedbloodtrackers.org. The site lists trackers by state and city. There are dozens listed for Texas.

Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by email, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo.com.