a dog that refused to quit
State: wyoming
Weapon: coumpond bow
Shot placement: liver - no exit
Distance tracked: 1007 yards
Time since shot: 20 hours
Outcome: recovery
After a 2½-hour drive to nearly 9,000 feet in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains, we recovered an elk under some of the toughest tracking conditions we’ve ever experienced.
It was 90°, sunny, and windy when we started, but the weather wasn’t the biggest challenge. A recent wildfire had transformed the mountainside into a blackened maze of scorched timber, ash, and charcoal. Thousands of pine trees cut by firefighters lay scattered across the slopes like giant piles of spilled toothpicks. Asking a dog to track a bull elk more than 20 hours after the shot in those conditions is a tall order.
Like always, Diesel just put his head down and went to work.
Slowly and methodically, we fought our way up more than 800 yards of burned mountainside. We found only four drops of blood, most of which were on rocks or downed timber that had escaped the fire. Progress was painfully slow. Diesel would advance the line 20 to 50 yards, lose it, circle back and search until he found it again. Then he’d do it all over. When he needed help, I would restart him from the last place he looked confident.
Nearly two hours later, we finally reached the edge of the burn after cresting the mountain. By then, I had gone through six bottles of water on Diesel and everyone was hot, tired, and discouraged.
As we rested in the first patch of shade we’d seen in hours, Diesel wasn’t interested in the conversation. He sat staring intently in the direction we had been traveling. The tension on the long line told me everything I needed to know. He wanted to keep going.
We discussed our options. One of them was calling the track and hiking out. Instead, we decided to give Diesel another 200 yards.
“Okay, D. Let’s go to work.”
His confidence was noticeably higher now. More than 1,000 yards from the hit site, in thick green vegetation on the far side of the mountain, Diesel suddenly stood on his hind legs and hit the end of the line as hard as he could and I knew exactly what it meant - The bull was close.
For the first time all day, his head was up. He wasn’t searching with his nose anymore—he was searching with his eyes. I told the hunter and her husband to start looking. Less than five seconds later, her husband yelled, “There he is!”. The bull we worked so hard too find lay just 10 yards in front of us.
Like most things in life, the best rewards come after the hardest work. We worked hard just to earn the opportunity to track here this year, so it seems fitting that one of the finest recoveries of our career came as our time in Wyoming winds down for the year.
Coincidence? Not a chance.
Work ethic, off-season training, experience, knowing when your dog is truly on the line and when he’s searching are all critical elements when the tracks are tough. A dog that refuses to quit and a handler stubborn enough to stay with him is perhaps the most important and what leads to recoveries that might otherwise be lost.
The hit was liver only and the bull traveled 1,007 yards before bedding for the first and final time.
Back at the truck, Diesel and I were exhausted. After cooling him down and getting him settled into the air conditioning, I finally took a moment to reflect on what we had just accomplished.
After changing my soaking wet clothes and getting some much needed water in me, I climbed into the truck to notice that Diesel was already asleep behind me. That’s when it hit me just how much effort he had poured into that recovery.
We overcame every obstacle in front of us and used every bit of experience we possessed to make this recovery. I was exhausted, dirty, and sore, but there was nowhere else I would have rather been.
Tracks like this build trust and they strengthen teams. They remind you why the training, preparation and sacrifice matter. But, most of all, they remind me just how fortunate I am to share the journey with a dog like Diesel.
Good boy, Diesel!!