Exploring a corn field looking for a deer

Not something I typically like to do. For some reason, I decided to just follow the dog. Worked out in the end as we found the buck and he exploded out of the corn and barreled his way out and across the barbed wire fence and across the field.

During the day, at work, I was pretty tired, sore and just kind of worn down from previous days of hard core tracking during early season. Tracking in the early fall is not for the faint of hearts. The amount of vegetation is crazy, and all the things that want to poke you, scrape you, or just grab your feet to trip you while it try’s to poke your eyes out..

I received a text asking about tracking, and it was fairly close to home. This doesn’t happen often, so I was more compelled, but didn’t want to bite right away. I mentioned to the hunter that I probably wouldn’t be able to help but if things changed I would give him a call. It didn’t take long, I committed. After rearranging things I was able to free up some time.

We arrive to a small farm area, pull into the grassy area where they house sheep during the summer. I shake hands with the hunter, let Alli out of the truck and we talk about the situation. I look around and tell the hunter, “based off the available habitat I would bet he is in the corn”. That is mostly what was there other than a small tract of tree’s, a tree line. I explain that I really don’t want to play in the corn on leash with a dog. He understood, but I could tell he wasn’t really happy with it and perhaps I nocked a bit of wind out of his sails. We decided to start at last blood since it was getting late, I didn’t bring a headlamp, and we would have to get back into the truck to drive around to a different spot to get to the starting point. We still had to find a way across a barbed wire fence to start at last blood, but we managed.

The hunter shows us the spot where he last had blood, it was about 5 feet from the corn. I start Alli and she goes right into the corn… Okay, screw it lets go. We are off, she is cruising and I am getting waylaid by corn stalks. We go a long ways and then she turns to the left. The hunter is still behind me.. wow I think, good for you. I figured we had lost him. He says “is she on it? that is impressive and she is fast”. Yeah, she moves fast sometimes. To me, I know this typically means we are on the move cause the deer is alive and we need to catch it. We take another left. This time Alli seems like she was a bit off, like she is trying to get back onto the trail. We eventually pick back up and start trucking again. Still in the corn, the whole time. Eventually something erupts, no, explodes in the middle of the corn off to our left. I stop, a bit startled. I remember my pistol is still in the truck. I realize it is the buck we’re after. I yell back to the hunter, “That was your deer”. He says something to the effect of “what? really?”. We decide to try and find the nearest exit of the corn. Turns out we just go forward because we were close to the edge. We actually run right into the path the deer made out of the corn. It was like someone had driven a small vehicle out of the corn. I could see fresh blood on some of the stalks, and I pointed it out to the hunter.

At the end, we had a happy-ish hunter, an Ally that was at an 11 and didn’t understand why we stopped. Pretty sure she could get through this barbed wire fence, and a tired but excited me. I could feel the scrapes on my face from the corn stalks, and the sweat on my back. But it was a success.