West Michigan Whitetail Tracking

West Michigan Whitetail Tracking Bavarian Mountain Hounds named "Picabo" and “Ketchum” and “Challis a Stabyhoun that track wounded or lost big game for hunters.

Opening day afternoon track with 7 hours of almost constant rain and a few showers washing almost all sign away. Ketchum...
10/02/2026

Opening day afternoon track with 7 hours of almost constant rain and a few showers washing almost all sign away. Ketchum tracked from hit site out of a food plot turning a corner a pull is to broken vegetation to a dead end in 5-6’ stinging nettles and green briar 140 yards from hit site. I flagged the area as Ketchum moved back out to have the hunter and friend call out blood. We inspected the ? tissue with blood with was very low hit that may have just grazed it. We continued to track. Eventually Ketchum took us across the food plot with a very fresh large buck track imprinting in the sand/soil to a property line.
Pics and story sent to Diesel the Deer Track’n Dog handler Gary from Illinois, Kentucky K9 Deer Tracking handler Kenzie who also is an RM nurse and Lauren Eileen Smanik who tracks the west with redbone hounds and is a veterinarian in Colorado. Lauren was texting and calling on her first cornfield track in Nebraska asking questions earlier in the day. With there medical and anatomy expertise and the hit site hair that looks to be armpit area it looks to be the Parietal Pleura. Our educated guess this buck is or will die from what looks to be a nicked low hit on thoracic cavity.
I decided with no other tracks scheduled to drive home grab Picabo and see what she’d do. Pretty much the same results had us do a little casting with no results. I’m so appreciative of this tight knit group of trackers and more that work together from all over the country to encourage, mentor and sometimes take our venting.

October 1. It’s that time again where one of the dogs comes to work with me every day in the hope we get a track and hea...
10/01/2026

October 1.
It’s that time again where one of the dogs comes to work with me every day in the hope we get a track and head out.
Ketchum is impatiently pacing the shop floor hoping.

Congrats to the girl we call “our third daughter” ! Kenzie owns and tracks with one of Picabo’s puppies named Liebe. Thi...
09/26/2026

Congrats to the girl we call “our third daughter” !
Kenzie owns and tracks with one of Picabo’s puppies named Liebe. This is also Ketchum’s big sister as he was the runt and she was the biggest pup in the litter.

09/23/2026

Training line is set. Clock is ticking….
Challis will be running it at around 23 hours old.

09/19/2026

Finally a dead elk at the end of track 😊

The grind of seeing amazing dog nose work without a recovery finally came to an end 3 days ago. I recieved a mid afterno...
09/19/2026

The grind of seeing amazing dog nose work without a recovery finally came to an end 3 days ago. I recieved a mid afternoon call for help on an elk shot at daybreak and they jumped at 1/2 mile. Janice and I were loading up to go look for wild horses so we set it up for first thing in morning. Off we went and found 4 groups of horses after 38 miles of off roading. I receive a text asking “is rain going to ruin the track? “ I respond “not if there’s enough scent and the bulls health is declining. “
We arrive jump on their side by side and drive within site of the hit site. Picabo gets suited up and put heron cattle trail that the elk crossed. She walks in front of me and I give her the Find It command. With the hunter telling me where it crossed we watch he hit that spot and stop, smells sagebrush do a small circle continuing to smell sage and buck brush and takes off trying to pull my arm off. I call her back give her the commanf and it was apparent she knew this was a very injured animal. I look at where she’s heading , that’s all wicked brush and ask did you mark the last blood near jump. Relieved to hear yrs we flagged it. I tell the group I believe she knows the bulls scent. Let’s see if she’ll start from there. At the flag she takes right off smelling the vegetation right and left and starts dropping elevation going right through thick buck brush. Just over a 1/4 mile later she stops, picks up her nose and looks down the mountain and won’t move. I have the hunter get ready for a possible shot on a wounded, live animal. I shorten leash and whisper “it’s ok Picabo, go find him”. She slowly moves through the brush 15-30 yards where I can see the elk that’s expired. As we get to the elk we see the back end has been chewed on by a bear. It’s apparent that the bear scent had her nervous. A new track near confirmed our suspicion.
A big sigh of relief and short celebration was had.
This track took me 64 minutes to drive 34 miles around a mountain to get to their cabin, track. When I got back to camper my wife looked at her phone that tracks me and said you were 7 miles from here as the crow flies.
We ran 1 more rain drenched track in Wy that evening and another the next morning with no recovery. Now I’m in the passenger seat heading through Iowa on the way home.

Michigans youth season had me get 9 calls to track whitetails back home. A lot texts and phone calls to help hunters ge...
09/15/2026

Michigans youth season had me get 9 calls to track whitetails back home. A lot texts and phone calls to help hunters get tracking teams was done. Thank you to Richter's Deer Tracking, Dainton Deer Tracking, Hunt's K9 Game Recovery - Deer Tracking, The NEXT STEP Deer Tracking & Recovery, and Oakley Tracks Deer Recovery for tracking, and giving closure. Posted pics are some of the finds of calls I took making happy kids ❤️
Sunday ended up a day off. Janice and I went into Steamboat and I took another call to track a bear. Recurve hunter had no blood but was confident he had made a good quartering away shot. Since it’s illegal to track with a dog here I talked him through the basics and we hat I would do. About an hour later I got pics and text he found it. Only other call at 1 pm was for a track that was a 2 hour drive, 5 mile hike to hit site. I easily passed on that one.
Yesterday we were lucky to be able to get 2 bull tracks in. The first was muzzleloader , rained heavy overnight, heavy grid search…. Blood was confirmed beyond the grid but no recovery. 2nd sounded like possible dead bull but we never could confirm a single drop of blood in terrain that would show it easily.
The string of no recoveries continues. Its not only physically wearing but emotionally. As always I will be very transparent when it comes to tracking. I tell all. The finds are celebrated, the no finds are almost always explained, and if you follow my page the worst, when a hunter finds the animal we left in the woods.
Again, today is a new day in God’s amazing creation.

So proud of this team !! Mindy and Risley will be driving east again and tracking Michigan’s rut in Oct/Nov. with us aga...
09/13/2026

So proud of this team !! Mindy and Risley will be driving east again and tracking Michigan’s rut in Oct/Nov. with us again.

09/13/2026

And another no recovery 😩.
Yesterday’s track was for a bull elk and according to the outfitter was carrying arrow , quartering away, shot behind shoulder, maybe a little high. They found blood but did not track.
The track started ( green line) in a sagebrush meadow and started up a steep hill with oak brush. From there it got to top and weaved to a fence line where it walked down the other side and jumped the fence. Blood was on barbed wire and some on vegetation where he landed. This was private property and it took an hour for the outfitter to get permission from the landowner who was on New Zeeland. We restart with a super frustrated Picabo who doesn’t understand why we have to wait. From there we start the up mountain trail going through thick sage, oak brush, aspen with a lot of climbing through deadfall. Picabo pulls me to a ranch road and starts circling. I reset her and do a rest/water break and she pulls us on same line. We head up the road going elevation with areas of circling and then continuing the up hill climb. A rest is needed as we were in total sun and temps in 80s. We gain enough elevation where “dark forest” begins. The head guide look to the left and sees a pond where we take the dog too to cool off. A rest break and we go back to line were we continue and do a steep climb heading up mountain. A lot of deadfall showing us blood with jumps leads us to finally see a limb 10” off ground painted with blood on the front of branch only giving us evidence that blood is going down the front leg and is most likely hit too far forward. From there guide decides to call track. I tell him we are going to go another 2-300 yards to be sure.
On the way down the mountain my phone explodes with 5 requests to track deer at home and 4 elk track requests.
This is a true GRIND that can be very frustrating. This is the reality of tracking.

I guess I should have checked the radar before putting out a training track for a new area tracker that’s getting ready ...
06/10/2026

I guess I should have checked the radar before putting out a training track for a new area tracker that’s getting ready for a started dog test.
Oh well, there’s a nice line and hide out to run tomorrow after a good thunderstorm and hot weather for tomorrow around the 26-28 hour mark. I’m thinking Ketchum right now.
Also will be putting out a new 3 hour old training line too.

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Rockford, MI

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