Speaker 1: 0:34

you. Hey, what's going on everybody. Frank Mastika from the Garden State Outdoorsman Podcast. I just wanted to hop on here real quick.

Speaker 2: 0:42

I accidentally drifted Next time. Welcome back to the Garden State Outdoorsman presented by boondock hunting, you know, and that's why you're you're um your tagline like jcl no perfect, you don't know what's on there accidentally drifted my canoe between a sow and a cub and she's like charged and like hit something hit like the back of the canoe begging, begging and crying to go with my grandfather and go with my father on these gear drives.

Speaker 4: 1:16

You know, the last trip over I shot a great cape buffalo with my bow, charging through the grass and then the whooping and then you hear welcome back to the garden state outdoorsman podcast.

Speaker 3: 1:26

I'm your host, frank mastica you got the good old squatch joining old frank as always, and today, our special guest is actually matt williams.

Speaker 1: 1:36

He goes by on the trail, um, yeah, on the trail. Recovery on instagram. So, matt, welcome to the show man appreciate you guys having me thanks welcome yeah, hey, man, it's always a pleasure. I'm excited about this one. So, uh, matt, why don't you give us a little um background on like yourself, like what you do, what you hunt? Just give us a little background on it all right.

Speaker 4: 1:59

So I mean, basically, you know, mainly just hunt white tails. You know, here in jersey, uh, used to travel to maine, still go out to the midwest every now and then. Um, you know, just try to be in the outdoors as much as I can. Um, you know, avid bow hunter. Bow hunting, anything with a bow, is my passion. You know, a competitive 3d shooter and, uh, so if I got a bow in my hand I'm happy. And you know, kind of that's what kind of got me into this whole situation. You know, know, as far as track, and I want to say maybe like six years ago, a buddy of mine had shot a deer and we, uh, you know, hired a guy to come in and it kind of intrigued me how the guy was able to just work right through it and, you know, get his deer down. So it was, uh, you know, it's kind of how I got wrapped up in the whole thing.

Speaker 1: 2:40

So no, yeah, that's awesome, man, I was gonna ask you. So I'm not the biggest dog person, not like squash over there, but, um, I know that I know your dog's name is arrow, but what kind of breed is is she?

Speaker 4: 2:55

it's a girl right, yeah, she's a female, it's a and she's a bloodhound black and tan. Um, they call her like a saddleback because you know the kind that she has, like it looks like she has a saddle on her. You know just from her markings. But, uh, you know, yeah, she, uh, she came from brownsville, indiana, from a family out there, and they were, um, her parents were actual trackers also, so you know she came from a back, a strong back line.

Speaker 1: 3:18

So that's cool no, that's really cool now for somebody who, who doesn't know, like what makes the bloodhounds a good tracking dog.

Speaker 4: 3:29

Well, all dogs really, as far as, let's say, your labs and your dachshund hounds, barbarian mountain hounds, all that kind of stuff. They're all great trackers. It just depends on how much you work with them and how you know how well they can hold a scent. Now, when it comes to a bloodhound, we can get involved in work that's say, a little older or drier conditions. Sometimes, you know, a lot of times you know, yeah, granted, I get involved. My tracks are 10 hours old, but you know I've gotten involved with tracks that are 40 hours old, you know. So, most of the time you know when we're getting involved in something like that unfortunately it's it's either something that we jump the deer and we're coming back to it, or you know we're more or less on the line of, uh, doing just basically a skull recovery at that point, oh nice yeah so you know, just her.

Speaker 4: 4:20

Her cold receptors make her that much um diligent to work in harder situations. That's all.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Oh, okay, that's real good. No, cause, like I don't have a slightest clue when it comes to that, so so I apologize. That's okay, no problem. Did you train her yourself, or do you like? Do you typically send like dogs away? Like, how does that usually work?

Speaker 4: 4:43

So I basically, you know I started reading upon it from. There's a book out there called Tracking Wounded Deer by John Janie, and that's how I kind of started on it and I wasn't really sure what kind of dog to get. And I had a lad prior to this and he was like I was a big duck hunter when I was younger and you know he got old and unfortunately passed away and so I was like didn't really want to get another dog at the time and my wife wanted to get a dog. So she's like if you don't pick a dog, I'm just getting something. And I'm like, well, you know, I want a dog that has a purpose you know what I mean Like something that we have a companionship for.

Speaker 4: 5:15

So I started reading that book and I called a guy in New York, tracker John. He lives out in the Midwest, he tracks for like big names, you know the Drury Brothers, levi Morgan, all them kind of people he's tracked for. And I didn't know this guy from Adam and I called him up and I asked him and he was like well, I do this for a living, I'm a professional at it and that's why I have bloodhounds. He's like you know, maybe you should get yourself a German Shepherd or a lab. And I'm like, well, the best in the world, or, respectively, the best of the United States, has a bloodhound. Well, that's what I want.

Speaker 4: 5:46

You know, there's a reason for it, you know, and it's all the things that he tried to steer me away from. It's been a hundred percent correct. You know, like the stubbornness, the slobber all over the house. I mean, she comes in the house and you hear a shake. You just wait for it to hit the wall somewhere. You gotta find it. Yeah, it can be a real mess. My wife's constantly like, you know, oh, where did that land? So but that's kind of how I got involved with having a bloodhound. So I.

Speaker 3: 6:15

I got a quick question for you, matt. I run beagles. I've had I've been blessed to have my four girls for a bunch of years now, okay, and and uh, my one beagle's part, blue tick, uh, you know, bred in. Uh, just to get back a little bit to what you were saying, how your dog picks up an older scent and stuff I have. It's funny because you know your dog's characteristics.

Speaker 3: 6:38

So a couple of my beagles will bark on scent if they smell that rabbit. It might, it might be, you know, a couple hours old, it may be a day old. They'll pick up on it on a damp condition if it's snowing or something like that. My one girl, dolly, and I love her, she's my lead dog If she fires off, I know that rabbit was just there and it's.

Speaker 3: 7:01

I just was trying to compare a little bit of the similarities, cause when you said, yeah, my dog can run, you know, pick up scent 10, 12 hours old, a lot of people get the conception that if you know, I don't call deer search right away or somebody with a dog right away not going to be able to find my deer, and I just know from having my beagles they do read scent differently. Each dog reads scent differently, but it was really cool that you brought up the fact that you know you have a dog that's able to read 10 or 12 hours and I've had guys track deer for me, even though I don't miss and mess up no, I'm just kidding, everybody does.

Speaker 1: 7:37

No no.

Speaker 3: 7:40

I had I had a bad instance this year and the deer made it. I know he made it, but um, it was you know the guy told me. He said you know, I find gut shot recovered deer better than a deer that's been hit higher or forward or something like that he's like. So you know when you're aiming he goes. If you aim a little far back, it's not necessarily a bad thing If you, if you, if you do miss he goes, we'll have a better recovery rate. So do you find that true with with your hound?

Speaker 4: 8:08

well, let you know, I'll kind of step back a little bit. You know you said how like uh, your beagles will kind of like you know they'll bay when they get on that scent. Um, if arrow bays, it's not good because that means that means that that deer is like steps in front of us or we just kicked him out of a bed or something like that. So what I really look for her in in ours ability is a slow, steady pace, nose to the ground most of the time. Now, with that being said, gut shot deer present a little bit different dynamic than, let's say, a liver hit deer. Right, because a liver hit deer doesn't necessarily know that he's fatally wounded, depending on, you know, in october, yeah, he knows he's hurt, he's going to hunch up and walk off. But if you nick the liver during november, during the peak of the rut and their levels of testosterone through, the roof they don't know that they're wounded.

Speaker 4: 9:00

But if you gut shot a buck it's still the same way, you know. But the thing the misconception is, I guess, with gut shot deer is as soon as the deer is shot it starts to release the firmament out of the indigital gland that basically says, hey, I'm sick and dying, and come find me, and it's a wounded scent. The thing is is that as the deer progresses further away from the hit site, the scent gets stronger. So that's why guys will say, hey, have a, you know, a higher rate of that. Now, when you deal with a marginal hit, let's say it's like let's say it was a marginal hit that the deer is going to survive. As the deer leaves that hit site and gets further, let's say three, four hundred yards into the trail, that trail is actually stronger going back to the hit site than it was going forward.

Speaker 3: 9:45

Okay.

Speaker 4: 9:45

So it's kind of like putting a drag line at your tree stand. You never want to like drag it from the truck to your tree stand because deer's going to your truck. You know a lot of guys will kind of. You know they have to learn that the hard way. So that's the same kind of thing for a dog.

Speaker 4: 10:00

If the dog wants to charge back up the line, usually that tells me that we're dealing with either a backtrack, which does happen, or we're dealing with a non-fatal hit and the scent has washed out. And basically she went into a search mode where she's just trying to find that scent. You know I'm pretty good at reading her, but you know a lot of times and this happened this year, and it was a snowy day, arrow working, and it was, uh, like an 18 hour old track and she led me all the way up, all through the beds, everything, and all of a sudden I didn't notice it but she started peeling to the right and she didn't have as good of a line that I felt. But I felt she was strong, but I kept seeing little drips of blood in the snow and I'm like, oh okay, she's still on it. You know.

Speaker 4: 10:42

Well, come to find out she had gotten a cut in her nose and she was leaking blood. Oh man, after I realized what was going on, I spun her around, I took her back and got back on it and of course we went in the right direction. But it's just like you know, in a non-snow environment you really never saw that little speck of blood. You know what I mean Her.

Speaker 2: 11:02

you really never saw that little speck of blood, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4: 11:03

Her nose was dragging in the snow. So you know, being a houndsman is it doesn't matter what kind of hound you're running, it can be hard right, you got to be able to read that dog all the time and sometimes what you feel you're reading good might not be as strong as what you thought it was, so you know.

Speaker 4: 11:21

But Well, thank you Matt learned something tonight about that pheromone, with how they release it. I didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't know that either, and that's basically what we're working on, like, yeah, ara can smell blood and and you know, she'll like kind of show me blood, but most of the time she's not showing me the blood. She's letting me know like hey, the deer walked through here and you know she's just kind of like setting on the blood as it went through. But you know that's mainly what I trained her. Um, you know now, like her track lines, only time I put blood out for me is, for my own eyesight, like I'll put a drip here.

Speaker 4: 11:48

There smear a little bit on a tree so I can see it, because I read a book one time the guy said you never want to hang flags in your training lines because the dogs will see the flags and start to represent that with the track and then they'll just follow the flag line through the woods. So you know, I wear a pair of shoes. I just mount a deer's hoof in the bottom of the shoe and I just walk with them and that's basically how I train her. You know most of our track lines that I do training lines, are you?

Speaker 4: 12:14

know, thousand yards with no blood, and you know they'll be 10, 12 hours old, sometimes 24 hours old, depending on. You know, if it's going to be like nice and cool in the morning, I'll let them go a little longer. But if the scent yeah you know, if the, the thermals are rising, the sun scent's going to bake it off, then you know I don't let them go that long. So well, I guess that's good.

Speaker 3: 12:33

I guess that's really good too, because if you don't have a deer, if you have a deer that's internally filling up with blood but not getting it to the ground at least we don't have pheromones there yeah, go out to follow. So just because you don't have blood sometimes doesn't mean that you're not going to recover your deer correct and and that can go both ways.

Speaker 4: 12:49

You know, like there's some of these deer that I recover and I'm like why didn't this deer bleed you? Know yeah and you know we're shooting. You know, say, two and a half inch rage, or you know inch and a quarter slick trick with four blades on it. You know who knows mega meats, whatever it might be, and you just wonder, like, how do these deer not bleed? Sometimes, you know, and I remember just as a kid, you know, when I was growing up I was shooting thunderheads yeah, unless you unless you made a great shot.

Speaker 4: 13:17

They didn't bleed worth a shit with a thunderhead and most of the hour didn't even hit where you wanted it to hit you know, because they were so big. But you know it can be. You know people are like oh, why are you advancing, you know, with no blood? You know how do we know she's right and I say, well, I let our work in 300 to 400 yard increments, without showing me anything, as long as I feel that she's working at a strong rate.

Speaker 3: 13:39

And you can read your dog. Just from me running my beagles, I know by their body language what they're going to do and what's going to come up when you're over that dog. Enough, you know them inside and out. But awesome, awesome tech, I mean really good information, thank you. Thanks, frank, for letting me ask that.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Yeah, no, no worries, I learned something too. I had no idea.

Speaker 3: 14:00

I didn't know about the pheromone thing. I knew a little bit about it with putting scent down when you walk in and how you lay the scent down. But I didn't realize that when an animal's hit or wounded that they were like he said if it's fatal, they're going to put that and it gets stronger the further they go.

Speaker 4: 14:16

I didn't know, yeah, and you know, like a lot of people have like a slight misconception about the pheromone, misconception about the? Um, the pheromone. You know, I don't know if a deer can you know. I know they have an individual scent, but do do I know if it's the difference between strawberry and chocolate? No, you know what I mean. But a whitetail can release like 37 different compounds, true, so you know, when you're talking all these different pheromones, you know he could be releasing a, you know, a rut pheromone at one point, but also also a fatal hit.

Speaker 4: 14:43

At the same time I have a buddy that's a tracker and most of the trackers in the state. We keep track and talk to each other, sometimes on a daily basis because we're so busy. We're trying to get somebody that's able to go out and help you and my buddy's dog. They went out and a kid had shot it the night before. He thought a good shot. The deer was seen in the morning running does in a field and they showed up later and his dog. They trailed all the way through and all the way back and found it dead, like I think it was like 150 yards from the seat, but yet they went over a mile, mile and a half and a big loop to come back to.

Speaker 3: 15:19

So I guess what I was saying like November it's amazing what they can go through and, you know, survive. Yeah, I've learned deer and rabbits kind of run the same. Even though they're total different animals, they do a lot of the same similarities, yeah, and people, people think, oh, your dogs are so good, they ran that rabbit right in a circle back to me.

Speaker 4: 15:38

No, no, the rabbit runs in a circle to get away from the beagle and but a deer when it's being chased or it's hurt.

Speaker 3: 15:47

I mean, a lot of the times I've found deer. Like you've said, you've gone a two-mile loop and the deer's 150 yards from where you shot it and you wonder why. But they know they backtracked that safe route. They were there and maybe they're smelling the pheromones or maybe they're smelling whatever, and they realized. So that's why I tell people okay, when you've lost something, let's go back, let's make a circle out from where you shot. And that's a lot of the times when you're stumbled you'll see that white belly or a tail laying there. You know there's my deer, you know. But nah, awesome stuff, man, I like what you're bringing to the table. It's really really good information, yeah I know.

Speaker 1: 16:24

A lot of times too, like I've noticed, like even when you make the shot, when you go over there, like it was almost like matt was saying with with that pheromones, sometimes you could smell it right away. Other times it takes me a little bit, but most of the time you're like oh man, like you know, but I just don't know what to look for, I guess I mean the basic thing you know as as, just like any hunter you want to be, you want to be the best trailer you can possibly be.

Speaker 4: 16:51

Right, yeah, and all of us have been there on our hands and knees looking for the next spec. Or you know what's the direction that this deer possibly went and and I've always found like, and since I started doing this, whatever I feel the deer has gone to do, he's done 100 the opposite, you know, um, small, small blocks of woods like going, like, say, camden county 100, um, uh, mammoth and stuff like that, and they get these small blocks of woods. These deer can only go so far. So I get a lot of times where they're going to you know you'll think like, hey, they crossed this road. No, they backtrack, go 200 yards back down the line and then cross over. You know I trailed one not too long. It was the day before shotgun season. Guy called me. I went up and found his deer. For him, the deer literally was shot, went into a Christmas tree sales parking lot and I'm like, why does the dog have me in this parking lot?

Speaker 2: 17:48

And I'm like looking around, I'm thinking, I'm like well, you have lost your mind.

Speaker 4: 17:50

I mean the guys in there selling hot chocolate and trees, you know what I mean. Here I'm coming in the parking lot and I looked down and here's blood dripping off, the dripping off one of the trees. I'm like okay. So she worked and the deer went in there and noticed all the scent and people came right back out and he was dead, you know, a couple yards back. But he just back trailed, you know, parallel to his line. So it's like, you know, maybe during the daylight you would have walked over. Oh, there's my deer, when you were trailing the blood. But who knows, you know, but I was like this dog is crazy I mean, deer are just incredible and you know regardless.

Speaker 4: 18:22

They're just tough animals, man oh they are, and they're resilient, like because we think that we're. You know we're tough, but like I know for a fact, you could. You could shoot me with a pellet gun, I'd probably still be laying where you shot me you got it, you know.

Speaker 3: 18:37

Yeah, well, I was gonna ask matt. So the um, what do you see?

Speaker 4: 18:40

like for um as like.

Speaker 1: 18:42

Yeah, well, I was going to ask Matt. So the um, what do you see like for um, as like hunters, like what's like the most common mistake that like hunters make before like they call you? Is it like do they chase them and then bump them? Or like what do you usually see?

Speaker 4: 18:58

So I see a lot of times and I don't say this is a mistake by any means, you know what I mean Um, but I find that a lot of guys, you know, with so much information that's out there now with the tracking industry out there, there's not really anywhere that you can't go and find like a timeline that maybe you could use to your advantage, right? So like I tell guys, you know a shoulder shot unless you saw that deer go down right in your plain view. You know three to four hours. You know you want to wait it out. Gut shots, six to eight at minimal. You know what I mean and if it's, if it's a pure gut shot, I want to wait, you know. But I find that, like some guys they say like I've had guys that'd be like, oh, I waited two hours. I usually cut that in half and so you waited an hour, know I mean, and a lot of times guys miss like the little signs and I and I understand that you know I'm doing this all the time. So I I learned a lot more than what I knew, you know, six years ago.

Speaker 4: 19:54

So guys will miss little tiny wound beds where, say, the deer only laid down for a half hour. It doesn't have a big compression radius to it, it might just be a little drip of blood there. And they said, oh well, you know, keep on going. Well, but now they've jumped that deer out of its bed three and four times and it's went over a thousand yards and then they lose. They lose the track.

Speaker 4: 20:13

Um, those are kind of the situations that I find. A lot of times it'll be like a no blood thing where they'll go and they lose the blood. And then it's kind of like oh, oh, maybe he went this way, maybe he went that way. And then they start doing a grid search. And the biggest thing I always tell guys, if you do a grid search, that's fine, but just let me know, you did it. I prefer you don't do it. But if you did it, just give me a heads up. And people will be like no, I didn't grid search. I'll be like OK, and I'll be working a perfect straight line all the way down. And then all of a sudden, she's here, she's there, she's over here, she's over there, and that's usually tell that's telltale sign, like, okay, now I hit that spot for the grid search.

Speaker 4: 20:49

And I always tell guys and when I talked to about grid searches and things that they could potentially maybe do a little better. If you were to wake up in the morning and your front yard's covered in snow and you walk from your front door to your mailbox and you walk back in your same exact tracks, right, that's what the dog sees on a one on one trail. Now you let your kids out the front door in the front yard looks like a bomb went off. That's what the deer that the dog sees, with that fur moon, because it's all over the bottom of your feet and now you're tracking it all over the place. So that's kind of what you know can happen and make that a problem. But as far as like hunters doing the wrong thing, no, I I can't say they do it, because I know I've been there. I'm sure you guys have probably been there, everybody you know you want to recover your deer at your own rate with your buddies, cause it's it's part of it, right, nobody wants to call me.

Speaker 1: 21:45

And when they call me it's like oh, I got to call me and when they call me it's like, oh, I gotta call this guy.

Speaker 4: 21:47

You know, I get it like you know what I mean, but I'm here for when you need me. Um, you know, I want everybody to go out and try to recover their deer. And I've had guys call me and just hey, you know what do you think about this situation? And they would show me some stuff or pictures and I would tell them you know, hey, this is how I would handle it, you know, and I always try to check back with those guys like, hey, any luck? Oh, yeah, we found them the next morning 60, 70 yards away. Okay, great, you know. Or they'll call me say hey, you know, can you come out? Yeah, no problem, you know. So I always want everybody to kind of do their own thing before they have to call me, for sure, but not that I don't mind helping. It's just, you know, I know what it's, so yeah, so real quick, I mean hey guys.

Speaker 2: 22:26

I was letting you guys go, you know. So I don't know what I missed a little bit. I don't know what you guys really covered, but I've had a color tracker once and that's honestly just because I just didn't know much about color. You know dog tracking and everything like that years in the past. But kind of, when somebody gives you a call I imagine during the season you guys are busy and you guys are constantly getting calls how do you kind of dictate which call? Are you taking it first come, first serve, or are you listening to the story, getting as much details as you possibly can, and then kind of evaluating which calls you're going to be going to, going to and prioritizing first?

Speaker 4: 23:14

um, so when a call comes in, they definitely come in in order. I try to take them in order. Um, the biggest thing would be what time of the shot was and what type of forensics you have. Um, you know, I always tell guys, the more information you can give me, the better off. I can give you a timeline of what I feel is a timeline that we should go. I don't really necessarily ever skip around to try to like get somebody first, but like say, if I'm going, let's just say I'm going up to Jackson, new Jersey, and there's a guy in Browns Mill, yeah, I might hit Browns Mill first. And I'll just say to the guy, hey, you know you mind this. And if he says, hey, I'm pressed on time, well, brown's mill was second on the line, so he's getting second call.

Speaker 3: 23:55

So um you know.

Speaker 4: 23:56

and then, depending on, like you know, if it's a gut shot and you shot it at seven in the morning and you called me at 8.00 AM Well, night before we'll take that one, no.

Speaker 3: 24:11

Matt, how many runs can you actually run arrow on before you tire the dog out? I mean, you know, like I would run the beagles typically between an hour and maybe an hour and 45 minutes, pushing it maybe two hours.

Speaker 4: 24:34

But you know how much is too much for your dog. I really tend to not run any more than three calls in a day. Um, now, if it's something like where I showed up and it was like first hunters, deer, you know what I mean. It was boom, boom done. Okay, I don't even count that. You know what I mean because she'll map it up. But in the early season it all depends on the temperature arrow. You know she's a big dog, she's 100 pounds and she doesn't. She's not very nimble through the woods, she crashes through shit.

Speaker 4: 24:57

So you know her using all that you know energy.

Speaker 3: 24:59

I can relate.

Speaker 4: 25:00

Yeah, she's hard on it, you know. So it all it really depends on the weather and how long the tracks are and what. I'm really getting involved in things like that. I've learned to really watch her when it's warm out. Two times, you know. One time she, basically she found her own cool spot by this little drainage ditch underneath the road that was blowing some cool air and she laid right down. She said I'm done, you know, and that's me learning. Like, hey, you know, I got to remember.

Speaker 4: 25:27

Like I've got two little girls and a wife and she's a family dog first you know. And that's me learning like, hey, you know, I got to remember like I've got two little girls and a wife and she's a she's a family dog first, you know you know, most people don't care what happens to my dog when I leave, but my family does, you know. So that's the number one thing. I have to make sure that I bring her home and and she's healthy.

Speaker 3: 25:46

So I'm glad to hear that, because I feel the same way. Even though they were hunting dogs, they were house dogs and they're our babies. And these guys will tell you.

Speaker 1: 25:58

I've seen it first hand.

Speaker 3: 26:01

Frank's seen me go into like overdrive because there was a snake in the yard that snake. That snake met a mean fate with a shovel.

Speaker 1: 26:09

So I've got you, man. So what's like, um, like your most challenging recovery that you ever made?

Speaker 4: 26:22

yeah most challenging? Well, you know there's. I feel like they all present a challenge in themselves. Um, some of them, some, a lot of them, are very cut and dry, just like with no blood kind of deal, and we can boogie down those tracks, but uh, I'd probably say the most challenging one. I got two of them actually.

Speaker 4: 26:44

So the first one was out in Pennsylvania. Um, a young girl called she had shot a deer. Um, I showed up, she shot it in the morning and the way she described it, right out of the gate, it sounded like a possible liver hit. So I told her, I said I'll be out the next morning, so I waited until 7 am. We ran out there. We got there and I mean to tell you like there was a house here, there was a house here, there was a house, there is a cul-de-sac here and I'm like, oh man, you know.

Speaker 4: 27:11

So I, the line we crossed the little road, went down through between, like right down along a fence line, and then we came to a running creek, like like a trout brook, but it was. It was probably a good 45 yards wide and it was running water. And she wanted to go across that creek and I'm like man, so I took her back a little bit, made sure she was right. She brought me down to the creek again. She crossed the creek and, you know, a little bit wet getting across there, whatever get up on the other side and she shows me a bed right on the edge of the water. So she knew, I knew she was on it.

Speaker 4: 27:47

At this point it was figuring it out. So then we go, we go straight up this mountain face and we're going straight up, up, up and we get to the top and there's like a small logging road at the top and just on the other side there's a big ditch. So our is working down there and I'm kind of looking down the ditch and looking up the ditch, not really looking where it possibly could be, and our makes a hard right down into this ditch and there's this deer laying down in the water, like his whole half, the whole side of his body that was out of the water was completely chewed off Everything that was on the bottom side, he was perfectly fine you know.

Speaker 4: 28:21

So it's like those are the situations, that it's kind of like that deer was shot at 7 am the day before, so somewhere in the middle of the night the coyotes jumped him out of the bed, so that means he was alive for, let's just say, 12 to 14 hours and then, you know, died a miserable death, getting chewed up you know, what I mean.

Speaker 4: 28:42

But and that would probably be one of them and another one I had a uh, a guy called him and his buddy had already tracked a deer said that they had uh, he thought that he had gut shot the deer. I said okay, so we waited till like 11 o'clock that night. I get up there and they showed me where the hit site was. I put an hour to work and I'm like, how far did you guys go? And they're like we might have trailed them like 100, 200 yards. I'm like, okay, I was like four or five hundred yards away and I found a boot print in the mud. I'm like, well, you got, you guys went further. What you did, whatever, no big deal. So we kept working and, uh, we get up to the point and all of a sudden arrow goes ballistic. So I know I just jumped the deer. So I pull her off of it and we go home. I tell the guy I'll come back up tomorrow. He's like, no, he's like I don't think we're gonna get that deer. I'm like, well, I can't force you to to let me to come back up here, but if you want me to, I will. So we start again in the next morning.

Speaker 4: 29:37

But the problem was the temperature plummeted that night. It was like I think it was like 14 or 15 degrees out in the morning. It's so wow and and that's hard on a dog working in that really, you know, um, frozen temperature, you know. So once the thermal started to rise she got back to it. So she brings me right across, she brings me to a gut pile and I had blood before the gut pile to a gut pile and she just walks right across the gut pile with no interest in it whatsoever, kept right on going. I'm like I hope somebody didn't steal this guy's deer. You know what I mean In the morning here, you know. Oh man, so we go out into this rye field and the ground was so dry that the blood that I was finding in the rye field I had to rub it between my fingers to actually tell if it was a dust ball or if it was blood.

Speaker 2: 30:23

And it was smear red.

Speaker 4: 30:26

So we go a little further and up jumps the deer in front of us Now we. So we go a little further, and up jumps the deer in front of us. Now we're talking like 17 hours now after the hit. I can see him running away and he's definitely hitting the liver, but he's just blowing out blood low. So I'm like you know all right, so I let him lay for a little bit. I told the guy, I said I think we're probably gonna have to get another shot on this deer, and he says we're never going to catch that deer again. I said well, we're going to see him again. If he let us get that close to him, we're going to see him again.

Speaker 4: 30:52

So we're walking back to the truck and I see the deer walking down the edge of the field like hunched up and his head dragging like real low to the ground. He was sick, pretty good. So we waited an hour, hour and a half and went back after him and needed to get another arrow in him. But you know, we got the deer recovered and that track was, I think it was like 20, 24, 2500 yards and by the time we recovered them we were talking, you know, 19 hours old, you know.

Speaker 4: 31:18

So those are the kind of situations where I find it to be a tough track. You know, um, not knowing. You know what's going on, or, or here or there. But you know the guy thought that he had shot further back but what happened was is the shoulder was forward and when he hit it, he hit it, it actually cut the hair on an angle and it kept cutting before it actually hit the body cavity. So you know, talking about like those quarter and two and quarter and away shots, they can be like man, you can either have really good or really bad, you know and been there and done it.

Speaker 3: 31:54

Yeah, yeah, they can say they haven't you know?

Speaker 4: 31:57

yeah, I find it like a lot of people have a misconception about the deer's anatomy. But you know, the liver sits on the right side of the deer. It doesn't transfer all the way through the deer oh, no, no, yeah you got the you know stomach chamber comes up on the left side. So if you shoot a quartering two shot and you hit, say, here in the front of the shoulder and it passes through the deer and comes out, you might only get one lung and come out in front of the punch on this side.

Speaker 4: 32:23

But if you do it on this side you can come out and go through the liver. So you know, know if you draw an x in a deer, it's amazing what you can and can't hit. You know um, and I don't really. You know it's funny because one lung hits in october will be fatal in november. They're not fatal, you know what I mean. A lot of times like you'll get lucky sometimes but you blow, you blow through that top search and you catch one lung. A lot of times you'll probably either see that deer back on camera within a couple days or something more, or maybe somebody else will shoot them and you won't ever know what happened to them. That does happen too. But you know it's amazing what they can live through.

Speaker 3: 32:59

So I read something matt and I don't know how much truth there is to it because I don't believe everything that I read. But we have between our lungs a flap, so if and that's through, you know, genetics, through years of mutations and stuff, us getting hurt as cavemen and falling down and puncturing the lung and still being able to survive. Now I have heard and what I read, some deer do develop and have that flap that shut down one side to the other and some don't. I don't know how much truth there is to it. I don't know if you've ever seen it when you've maybe, you know, got into a deer and gutting it out and seeing if it happens. And, like you, over the years I I can't even tell you how many deer are shot. Over the years I've seen them go down with one lung and I've seen them never again with one yeah, and.

Speaker 3: 33:51

I've seen them never again with one. So I don't know if it's something in that factor that that deer was born with that genetic or or not, but I it's amazing what they can endure. You know, sometimes they'll just go, go, go, and you know.

Speaker 4: 34:05

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 34:05

I would think it would be more or less of like uh, I don't really know about that. You know if there's a flap inside the bronchioles that are heading down into the lungs, but I would say the more that the thing it possibly could be is just like humans, you know we're built with three and two, so if you have more tidal volume on one side, you know you may be able to sustain life a little bit more. You know, and I've always come to this conclusion, like when I dealing with like to go off topic a little bit about the lungs, but with a liver hit deer, I find that if a deer is hit in the smaller lobe of the liver, they die faster and if they're hitting a big portion of the lobe, they can last longer.

Speaker 4: 34:41

So it's like you know, and it could be the same exact cut, it could be a perfect punch right through it, and they'll live longer if they're hitting one side of the liver.

Speaker 3: 34:48

So I think that that has the same outcome when you're talking about livers and lungs, depending on which portion of the liver you know, and that's an awesome point, because being able to cut a liver up and eat it when you dissect that liver, when you're actually cutting it up, you'll see there's more blood vessels in that smaller lobe, like you said, which is a pressure point for that animal to bleed out faster where the fatty part of the liver it's not, and that you know. I'm willing to bet that's probably the same thing that goes on with their lungs. It's probably how close they are to the ventricles. You know the small tubes in their lungs, yeah, fingers that are in there. If it's a more forward hit, where the lung is tighter and it's more blood vessel area, they probably fold faster. But that's, that's a key point.

Speaker 1: 35:33

That's really interesting yeah, yeah, because I would have never thought of that, but now that you guys actually like bring it to my attention. Now I'm actually thinking about them like holy shit, like yeah, yeah huh there's a lot of science there's a lot behind it.

Speaker 4: 35:50

Now I'm just kind of scratching the tip here. You know what I mean In my, in my time of doing this. I mean some of some of my mentors and friends have a lot more time in the game and I I know they've seen stuff, cause I call them up and you know I'll be on a track sometimes and I'll call some of my mentors that I talked to on the phone. I'd be like you know, am I missing something? They're like Nope, it's just part of it. You know so and that's and that's what I like about the tracking community. You know there's a lot of really good trackers and we're very fortunate in New Jersey to have good quality trackers and dogs.

Speaker 4: 36:23

And you know, years ago, this used there only used to be like a handful of guys. Like in 2010, because it was under it was under a research permit by um, there was a group of guys and there was a researcher his name was dr walgas, I think was his name, and he basically came up with the the whole system for us to be able to use dogs. But there was only a couple guys like you know, darren doran, and you know I think it was like maybe kyle gilson and those guys you know. So there were just a couple guys. So guys that lived way up North had to travel all the way down here to the South, and now that there's more trackers out there, you know it's, it's easier for them. They don't have to come all the way down here and we don't go up there.

Speaker 4: 37:01

You know, I try never to go up. I don't go past the one lot, uh, route one, 95 in the state, unless it's for a friend or something like that. Usually I'll call a tracker north of that and ask them if they can handle it for me. So you know. You know they want to run their dogs too, and you know just like I want my dog. So you know, that's all, it's just. But if they're busy they'll call, you know they may say, hey, can you run this track? And yeah, I'll come up and do it, you know. So we try to work together.

Speaker 1: 37:25

So yeah, no, that's important because I was actually my next question. I was gonna. I was gonna ask you, like, how far are you willing to go compared to like some of your other you know, some of the other guys who track dogs, and that was actually. You just answered it, so that that's actually good to know and that's actually perfect yeah, I'll run.

Speaker 4: 37:43

I run right from the, from the ocean of the delaware river, on the 195, all the way down south. Now, if it gets into the deep south, like down by, like bivalve and stuff like that, I'll venture down there to, you know, every now and then. But if not, I'll pass it off to two guys down there, you know, because they're right there, you know, and if they're busy they're going to say hey, matt, I can't make it. You know, go ahead and run it.

Speaker 3: 38:05

So I'll go down there and take care for you. So for your efforts I mean, do you have a set fee that you charge, or do you ask for just a donation towards your time?

Speaker 4: 38:30

base and I ask you just to keep in mind, like you know, I'm traveling from here. This is how long it's going to take me, and I got to go home, and most guys are very good at it, you know they're willing to pay you for your time just because they, they know what it's like to go to work or go to do something. Um, now, if I go outside of the state or if I'm going north of that, it's usually about 125 hours for me to show up and then, um, that includes if I don't find your deer, that it's included in that. If your deer is recovered, then I ask you to tip me on top of that.

Speaker 4: 38:55

So yeah, I just got to cover my time in the truck and fuel and you know so it gets expensive running all over the place, but you know at the same time you know I don't get in a tree for it.

Speaker 3: 39:06

So the fellow that I had come out, he was about 45 minutes away from me and right over the phone. First thing he said was like hey, man, I get 150,. You know, for my efforts and I'm like, dude, you find that deer, you'll get more than 150.

Speaker 4: 39:20

I mean.

Speaker 3: 39:21

I'm going to take care of you. You know I'm going to take care of you no matter what, but just just not to really get off track or anything. The guy had a new dog and the dog got away from him. He let the reins go because he was tangled up in briars and my deer jumped, ran across the street and he's like oh, my dog. I said, listen, bro, I got four beagles, your dog comes first, I don't care about my deer, we're going to go get your dog. And I ended up. I ended up finding his dog and bringing it back to him and he looked at me and he's like you're all right, man? And I'm like listen, I got dogs. I told you I love dogs. Now, let's go try to find my deer. But the deer had jumped and ran again. I caught it high in the shoulder in the front. I let him a little bit too much. I should've. It was a real short shot. I was just thinking he was moving faster. Totally my mistake, but you know. But you know what I paid the guy. I thanked him.

Speaker 3: 40:18

We had him on my other podcasts that I do. He was a guest. He came on and I like what you have to bring in your your knowledge of the actual internals of the deer and how you explain things. I think you're a little bit more of a seasoned veteran and and he has no, no you know, demeaning stuff towards him. I mean, everybody's got to start somewhere. Yeah, uh, very, very good information what you're bringing to the table, man, I'm really enjoying this very good.

Speaker 4: 40:49

I appreciate it, you know and you know a lot of it has come from you know, reading and understanding and talking to guys. You know I wouldn't be where I was today if I didn't have guys that were willing to share information with me.

Speaker 1: 41:01

You know, and and I always you know younger trackers.

Speaker 4: 41:04

I talk to them, um, there's a, a page out in pennsylvania it's blood, uh, pa, blood trackers or something like that, and they've asked me to like mentor junior guys and you know I I call them up and I tell them, like you know, if you've got questions and you're on a track or whatever I said, give me a call. I said because that's what it's, it's based upon. You know, like for me, like calling tracker John, that time on the phone, before I even got a dog, he didn't have to tell me nothing, he didn't know me, you know, and he's not like he spent almost two hours on the phone with me, you know. So, like that's the way I kind of have to look at that, like it's time for me to give back to you know and and I'm still, I'm still in my, my own theory, like I'm not the best, but I don't believe I don't believe that people put in as much work sometimes as myself or some of the other trackers that I know, like I make sure that when I leave there I did everything possible to recover your deer. You know, either I saw it alive, I watched it get up, I found it dead, or it's already back on camera.

Speaker 4: 42:07

Like you know, there's been times I've literally like this past year I had a guy call me on Thanksgiving morning. He was like I shot a deer this morning. I was walking into the seat I thought I made a good shot, but I'm not sure I can't find anything. I'm like okay. I said well, you gotta understand it's Thanksgiving, I eat some with my family, I'll come out tonight. He said yeah, man, no problem, you know whatever. So so I told him I'd be there like nine o'clock at night. So I'm here at the house like eight o'clock getting suited up and phone range. He said hold on a second. I said what's up? He's like I'm waiting for an hd photo to come through for my trail camera. He's like you don't have to call my dears. I guess I never even hit it. It was standing right there on the on the game camera.

Speaker 3: 42:43

Oh, my gosh you know it's.

Speaker 4: 42:46

it's truly amazing, like what white tails, willails will do. Like people were like oh, the dog's going to blow up my woods, they don't care about that.

Speaker 4: 42:55

They don't care, not one bit, and I always try to like get in and get out. I don't want to spend any more time than I have to there. You know what I mean. But there's some instances like where, like, I feel like, okay, the the conditions are in our favor, it's not hot, it's nice and cool. This morning it's nice and misty out. Everything is optimal for her to be able to track. So let me utilize that and make sure that we're not missing a turn or something like that. I mean, she is a dog. She makes, she has good days and bad days, just like we do.

Speaker 4: 43:25

So, those are the things we have to look into when we're when we're out there, so, but you know, I definitely appreciate you with good feedback, for sure I got a quick question for you.

Speaker 2: 43:35

Um, you know so through your, you know the years that you've been doing this and everything like that. Are you keeping a track on? Um? You know shot placements, the broadheads, anything like that do, and what is kind of like your, the history so far, far seen, seen with that, like what is your highest um, do you see a big difference with fixed and mechanical and all these things in the realm of you know bow hunting and everything like that. That's always the big debate. You know fixed, mechanical or the hybrid now that that they have and everything like that. Um, and what can, what have you seen you?

Speaker 4: 44:09

seen. Yeah, so, like when you talk about history, you know like these books are are filled with every track I've ever ran. You know, um, and I use, like you know, I can't show you everything just because the hunter's information in there, but, like you know, here, like this is a diagram of the deer and this is all you know, has all the quadrants on there. So like when I, when you call me and I ask you like where do you you hit that deer, I send you this picture so you can kind of give me that. Then I'm going to ask you, like you know, okay, what kind of broadhead were you using?

Speaker 4: 44:36

And here's my thing with broadheads right, if we're going to be shooting up in that front shoulder area, I want to fix blade. If we're going to have a marginal shot, and let's say it's going to be a little back, I want an expandable, because a big expandable going through soft tissue does a ton of damage, right, but a fixed blade going through soft tissue, it kind of like, just kind of gets closed. It's not closed up, but it gets filled up everything and it just goes in and it's done. Now sometimes they can sit there and they can cut, and there's that controversy. Well, a fixed blade will cut and a expandable won't.

Speaker 4: 45:13

So I think it all really depends on what type of shot we're dealing with and you know what type of angle we're dealing with. Like if we're dealing with a out of a ground blind, I want an expandable, no matter where you're hitting it, on deer, because most of the time hunters always shoot high. When you're shooting out of the ground blind, you know, especially if you're new at it, because the deer they're on the same level with you. You have zero angle going down, you're just going through and that deer is dropping as the shot's going. So a lot of times you're getting them a little taller, so hopefully we're going through the top of both lungs or something like that. You know um downward shots. You know how tree stands me. I'm a fixed blade guy for the most part I shoot a.

Speaker 4: 45:53

I shoot a. Uh, it's basically a one blade bevel. I shoot a helix broadhead from america's best bow strings makes them and, um, they're called helix but they're a single blade bevel on two sides and it's cut in diameter all the way around. Um, it doesn't have a big hole, it just leaves a nice gash going through and I've had good luck with them. Um, I shot rages for years, I don't know. I never had no problems with them. You know a lot of guys like you know. I heard guys say oh, you should get a dog with a rage I don't know.

Speaker 3: 46:24

No comment, no comment.

Speaker 4: 46:26

Yeah, I ain't gonna say nothing either, yeah, I mean if you're, if you're hitting bone and you're shooting an expandable, you're breaking it. I don't, I don't care who you are, you know what I mean. Um, you know, like bomar's got that new blade out the beast. I've never shot one, I've never trailed for one. That's been shot, but I don't know. It's still an expandable, like it's going. It can possibly Right. So that's my whole thing, like when we're dealing with depending on what type of shot. So for me it's it's fixed blade for the most part. But you know I'm not scared to shoot a rage. I'll shoot a rage tomorrow, like with no trouble at all.

Speaker 2: 47:03

I'm pretty confident in a bunch of the mechanicals that they have now on on the market now not saying you know it's gonna just blow through the shoulder and everything like that, but I, I will tell you some of the mechanicals that they're now making are just way different from from back in the day, um, you know, and but I think it's. It all comes down the biggest part also is confidence in your equipment, and it comes down for bow hunting it's. If you're not confident in your equipment, then that's where a lot of the issues come. And you know, for me, like, if you know, if I go to I don't want to say this, but potentially, if I switch to rage right which you know, frank and I we've talked about just because of certain situations and everything like that and and things popping up right, would I, would I be shooting a hundred percent with confidence throughout the year?

Speaker 2: 47:56

No, and that's a big reason why you know, we talked to the one guy who was like hey, listen, I want you guys shoot rage like this. This is like the deal and everything like that, and I was like I don't, I, I don't like you could say that you guys have created now the best broadhead. That's going to hold after my experience with them, that you know, when I use them I'm just never going to like be able. I'm always going to have that in my mindset because now my mind is set in stone and then I to just have a hundred percent confidence, yeah, in everything that I'm running, when I take, um, you know, when I go out into the woods, you know every hunter is, is like that, so and that's where it comes yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 48:42

So I think that's, that's the big, that's the big thing. Um, I mean, it's it.

Speaker 4: 48:50

It all depends, like yeah it could go either way on this one and you know it's like there's no right or wrong answer, right, it just depends on what, what you're comfortable with, like you said. You know like things happen. It doesn't matter. When you're hunting you can be 100, like. I'm behind my bow every day, on the most part, like you know, 56 hours a day, no trouble, you know. And then when it comes hunting season, I spend just as much time behind my hunting bow as I do my target bow. And that gives me that confidence level because I'm a firm believer that when muscle memory takes over, it's over it's done, but having the ability to have a very well-tuned bow.

Speaker 4: 49:31

It doesn't matter what broadhead you're going to shoot, but, like you said, you have to be comfortable with what you're shooting. So you know, if rage let you down one time, that one time is going to stick in your mind for that uncertainty forever, you know. And that's just what you have to boil everything down to, because, like you said, if you don't have confidence in your equipment or confidence in the shot or whatever, you're just something's brewing disaster. That's the way I look at that.

Speaker 1: 49:57

So no listen, I agree because it happened to me last year quite a bit. I mean, I just recently switched to severed bra heads love them, by the way. But you know I I, you know it was um early season in jersey got my first doe. No problem went. It was a couple weeks later, shot a big 10 pointer, was completely on me. Now I hit them high in the shoulder, squatch and mike notes they, they were there for the tracking job on it.

Speaker 1: 50:29

I mean this deer did a backflip, flipped over, did everything in the world right, I've never seen anything like it. But it wasn't the broadhead's fault, because I know in my mind when, when that deer came and he was leaving, when I drew back, what happened was I thought he, I thought he took a step because I watched him move. But what happened is he just moved, just like the top part of his body. So he went to turn the look but his body never moved, it was just his neck and his head. But I saw movement and thought he stepped. I released and I ended up hitting them high. And I mean, they know the deal. He did a back flip and we only. I think it was what maybe like a hundred 150 yards when we found blood guys or something like that.

Speaker 3: 51:20

Yeah, it was close to I think it was around a hundred from where you had shot. Yeah, it was about a hundred.

Speaker 2: 51:26

Yeah, but the complete op. I mean it was you know everyone who's listened to us. It was the craziest thing like and just breaking dissecting the video, because we had it on video and everything like that.

Speaker 2: 51:37

We thought the deer went one way and actually just bounced the complete direct opposite way and I think randomly, I think Frank pulled up on the four-wheeler or something like that, whatever, and looked down and there was this tiny drop of blood and then we were able to get on blood. But then it came to the conclusion that it just and which he was alive and well.

Speaker 1: 52:06

He was alive. He had a scar for a couple months. I started watching because it took him about a month before he he showed back up on camera and then he had a huge scar at the top of his shoulder, but they ended up killing him during during the gun season. But uh yeah yeah, it was just. It was just one of those things you know yeah, it's yeah, both ways.

Speaker 4: 52:27

Man, you know, like, yeah, and I always tell guys, when I'm dealing with a, an upper shoulder shot or maybe a shoulder hit indirect, I'm like we got a 50, 50 shot that's how I base it.

Speaker 4: 52:37

Like I got a 50% shot that I'm going to either recover or the deer is not going to be recovered. And you know, and that's the only way I can base it, because you know, if you don't get a full pass through, I have no forensics to go off of. Like you guys, if I would have showed up on that track and you were like the deer went this way, but the dogs tell me we go this way, and now we start trailing it and we find your deer, that kind of like, yeah, you're happy you found a deer, but I'm like at the same time you were like, well, what did I see that made me think the deer went this way? And it plays tricks on your mind. It does, and I know that for a fact because I've been there, I've. I remember the first time I shot a deer my dad was like which?

Speaker 2: 53:21

way to go.

Speaker 4: 53:21

I'm like I don't know, I know, I shot it.

Speaker 2: 53:23

He's like okay, you know, and then you know, as you learn, it's just like the more you pay attention it ran like hell, dad yep so I get it, I get it real quick, something that I'm because I I see it all the time and I'm always like wow, like I can't believe this happened, where you see a shot or someone calls you up and it's like, hey, like I made this good shot, yada, yada, yada. And when you do actually find the deer, it's not a hit the artery or something like have you ever walked up to a deer that you know? It was just a direct opposite of what the person said and, like you, were just absolutely baffled by how this, this deer, actually died and something like I saw some video of a guy hitting like the back hind quarter or something and it just, thank god, clipped the and a main artery and everything like that.

Speaker 2: 54:15

So the gear went out, but yeah, have you ever come across something like that?

Speaker 4: 54:20

yeah, so I had. I had a guy, uh, an older gentleman, called me and he said, hey, I took a, a quarter and away shot. I said, okay, how, how hard quarter and away? He says, pretty sure I could see the white of the ass. I'm like, all right, now I'm like, okay, we're taking a pretty hard quarter and away shot here. So you know, go on and on. He's like of the ass. I'm like, all right, now I'm like, okay, we're taking a pretty hard quarter and away shot here. So you know, go on and on. He's like I got blood. And I'm like, okay, you know how far, tells me everything about. Boss said, okay, I'll come out in the morning. You know, that way we could see. Okay, so I get there in the morning we went about 150, 200 yards and recovered a deer. He shot it through the neck. It was facing him. It was facing him when he shot it. He shot it through the white patch. The deer was looking up and he shot it through the white patch. He thought it was walking away.

Speaker 3: 55:05

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4: 55:06

So like that was a, for instance, like and whatever you know.

Speaker 4: 55:10

But, you know, and I've had other ones where, oh, I got it in the front shoulder and you hit it way back in like the ham. But the thing I always try to like give the hunter and respect that thing and I never like be like, oh, what the hell are you looking at? Like it's never like that. But like when a deer is positioned in the heat of the moment, like guys will say, okay, this is broadside, right to all of us on the computer. Well, they'll say it's like this. Well, that's broadside, but in reality it's not not. Now we're talking 30, 40 degrees, you know what I mean. So, like when they say it's broadside, I'm usually like, okay, if he wasn't broadside, could have been more quarter, two or quarter and away, because most of the time they're never broadside, like you know, everybody be like oh, I smoked him, he was broadside. Well, okay, but if he was 100 broadside and he was 100 smoked, you wouldn't be calling me yeah so what was cool

Speaker 4: 56:03

I use. That term is, like you know, not breaking anybody's balls. I'm just saying you know, trying to give the the whole situation here, so, but those are usually the situations that I find I've never had one like hit, like anywhere, really crazy, and it's died, anything like that.

Speaker 1: 56:19

But you know some, I guess misinterpretation hits, I guess you'd call that see now what they need, matt, is they need somebody like Squatch, because every time I shoot one I'll call Squatch. He's like listen to me, brother, to me brother, calm down, you're in distress.

Speaker 4: 56:37

Just take a breath.

Speaker 1: 56:38

Relax, what did you see? And then if I can't, if I can't like get the words out, I'm like I'll just send you the video.

Speaker 3: 56:48

Yeah, that's one of the key points that I was just going to bring up was we're very fortunate to be able. We're using cameras. So when I shot that eight pointer that that I didn't recover the, for you know, I didn't have blood immediately. I just turned around, walked out of the woods. I'm like, no, I know better than that. Let me go home and review the film. And I had my neighbor. He's a great hunter, great guy. He, he stopped down.

Speaker 3: 57:11

We're on the laptop and we're going frame by frame, watching that arrow go into that like high shoulder and he, he's like man, dude, you know, we got the apps out. We're looking at like 3D deer for the vitals. He's like, yeah, you had to clip that long and you heard him gurgling when he ran away. I'm like, yeah, man, he's got to be down. And you know, you sit there and you play that video over and over. And Frank, when he had what happened with his deer? This thing was break dancing. It looked like some gymnast out on a gym floor and then it's screaming going down to the woods and I'm like you could hear him dying. Frank, he's gurgling blood and I mean it. Just, you know my grandfather. He always said, son, when they got the will to live, they'll live.

Speaker 3: 58:00

When they want to die, they just give it up. And he says you're going to learn. The more and more you hunt, be prepared. You pick that bow and arrow up or for whatever you use, understand you're going to lose some deer. It just happens. It's just one of those things.

Speaker 3: 58:18

And you know, I had a quick question to ask you too not to get off track and interrupt, but I was just wondering how does wind and the weather itself dictate how you're going to recover that animal? And you know, like I know, you're saying, okay, I mean, I'll give you for an instance. And you know, like I know, you're saying, ok, I mean, I'll give you for an instance. Let's, let's just say I liver shot a deer at about 20 yards, slightly quartering away. You're going to say, hey, I want to give it six to eight hours before I come up there and look at that deer. But let's say, all of a sudden it starts downpouring rain, the wind picks up and it's like it's, let's just say, it's like a late October day when everything gets cold and dreary. I mean, how fast do you feel that that's going to affect you?

Speaker 4: 59:05

How does that weather play a role with you? So the wind doesn't bother me, especially especially when we're working in the woods. Now, if we're working in like a football field, I'd be a little worried about it. But the only thing is I'll notice our shift. I'm going to notice her shift to the downwind side. Now, with that being said, arrow's a lefty. She's always on the left side of her scent and anytime that she loses it, she circles to the left and comes back into the line and picks it back up again. Wow, and have dogs that are righties. You know they're always working on the right side, um, but the wind will play, for instance, in that when it comes to rain. I've worked through some pretty heavy rain, I've worked through snow and it's never affected her. Um, I do have one, and you know I'm kind of up. Till this year well, it was actually last year I have never had anybody call me and say they found their deer dead after I was done working All right.

Speaker 4: 1:00:00

So I prided myself on that. I can't say that now. So a buddy of mine shot a deer. We went in and trailed it. It tarantula rain poured that night. Arrow picked up the line. She took me straight up. By God, on my phone my track line takes me right over where that deer was found dead. I think we jumped the deer and pushed him around a block of woods and he came back and and and laid back down. But I can't guarantee that.

Speaker 4: 1:00:27

Um, so when I talk about rain it doesn't bother me, but sometimes that kind of pops into my head, like when we're having this conversation now, like okay, you know, I did lose one in a heavy downpour, but I did run one a couple years ago. The guy called me in the morning. He had gut shot a doe and he said, hey, you know it's going to start raining. I said don't worry about the rain, we'll be fine. It rained all day long. It was still raining when I got there and three, four hundred yards later she had the deer and never, she never hiccuped, not one time so like I look at that, like, okay, you know, just like we were talking about with the broadheads.

Speaker 4: 1:01:06

You have one bad thing and it sticks in your mind, so but I'm never going to allow the rain or that one bad inference to make me stop my timelines. You know, liver hit deer. I'm not showing up, probably for 12, until the next morning. You know what I mean. I won't even go after a liver hit deer prior to that. Now, if it's, you think like, hey, I shot the deer. Like guys, you know, I'm trying to see here, like I'm just looking at this graph real quick, but like a seven or an eight D on this graph, which you know is directly behind the shoulder here we're double punching, double lungs here, right, so somebody gives me that and they're like OK, I shot at seven this morning and I'll go out. Well, the problem was that's the call I got. The guy said you know, made a great shot, I had some blood and then I just lost him. Ok, so me and our showed up I think it was like six, six hours after the shot.

Speaker 4: 1:01:59

So Ara's out front of me working now in the state of New Jersey. They always have to be on the lead, they can't be off the lead when we're trying. So she's at the end of her lead, which is 50 feet, and I'm maybe like a foot or two from the end of the lead and all of a sudden I hear all this commotion. I'm like what in the world? So I'm running up the lead as fast as I can through all the brush here. She's got this guy's buck by the back of the neck and he's trying to like over top of the back. You know he's trying to stand up so I pull her off the buck's growling. You know she's trying barking at the freaking deer finally get another shot. Well, here it was a liver hit, but it was the back of the lung and the liver, so he was pretty, pretty sick. He couldn't really get away. So the hunter was able to get another shot.

Speaker 4: 1:02:38

But you know, those are the only times where, if I get information that they felt was this and that's all they can do, is by their feeling, and then it turns out to be something different. But if you know, and we both know, we're dealing with a liver hit deer and it's raining, I'll see you guys in the morning, you know, especially if it's that night. You shot the deer, you know yeah, so you know it's, it can be.

Speaker 4: 1:03:01

And there's also signs, like you know, like guys will be trailing the deer themselves and they're like, oh, we're finding watery blood. I'm like, okay, you know what color is the blood? Well, it's red. I'm, yeah, I know it's red, but is it like, is it a real watery maroon blood? Does it have a sheen to it? Is it real bright red blood? Like, what kind of blood are we dealing with? And they sent me a picture of this corn leaf and there's blood running down the corn stalk and it's like dark maroon blood. I said stop. I said that deer is 100% liver hit. And we went in the next morning and got on that deer and we were able to get it, and that was after, like a rainstorm, you know, through a cornfield. So it really all depends on the situation at hand. But wind, rain, snow within reason, like an inch, inch and a half. I've never really trailed through anything deeper than that after, like where it snowed on top of the trail, but I don't so anything deeper than an inch or two.

Speaker 1: 1:03:53

I would kind of be like, oh, maybe I should get on a little bit earlier, but you know, still I have to let those thermals rise in the morning anyway, yeah yeah, I got another question, matt, a little bit off topic too, but, um, did you ever see anything where like, let's just say, like the deer crossed the property line or posted and you weren't they weren't sure if they would get permission? Like what would something like that like when you run into that situation, like how do you usually go about that?

Speaker 4: 1:04:22

Anytime I hit a property line and I don't have written permission, or the hunter doesn't have written permission or the landowner's not with us, the track stops immediately. It does not matter. Um, I, I tell everybody, um, I'm not losing my license or getting a fishing game violation for entering anyone's land without their permission. So what will happen is I tie off a ribbon at the tree, I mark it in my phone, I mark it in my GPS and we pull out and we get permission and we go back in. I've had so this past year.

Speaker 4: 1:04:53

I was trailing for a young lady. I always use Onyx. She had another app I forget what it was called, but she was able to bring up the owner's name, phone number and everything right from the app. She didn't have to look them up. She called the guy right on the phone. He said where are you guys at? She told him kind of where we were on the path. I'll be right there. He got in his truck, drove down the road, rode in this bicycle path and met us right there and walked us with. You know, came with us.

Speaker 4: 1:05:20

So, like those are the, for instance, is that you know it makes it easy, but sometimes when you're in the middle of the night, you know, I had one close here by the house and I came to the guys like right to his horse pen. I mean, the deer went right through the horse pasture. So I came up and the horses are in there and ours getting all antsy because you know there's other animals. So I pulled her off and I'm like all right, am I going to knock on this guy's door at 11 o'clock at night, you know. So I saw a light on in the garage and it sounded like people were in there. So I knocked on the door. Nobody ever answered the door. I said, all right, we're done for the night.

Speaker 4: 1:05:53

So you know, the next morning the hunter goes over there and ends up knowing the people through a long ross, friend or whatever, and they ended up giving us permission. Well, the deer wasn't on their property, went into another property and then it's like okay, we got to get that permission. And then we got across through some state land onto another piece of property and I just saw the guy working in his yard. I tied arrow off to the tree, I walked out there, I told him who I was, showed him my credentials and he said yeah, no problem. He said thanks for asking.

Speaker 4: 1:06:20

So I feel like I'd rather just ask you know, like I don't ever want to get jammed up, you know, and and I I know like guys would be like, oh, I had permission. I'm like, okay, do you have the permission with you? Because I'm not just because if I get in trouble you're gonna say, well, I didn't tell him I could go on there, and then that's really you know, and then you're going to get the, because there's a couple of numbers in my phone that it comes up do not track. I don't have their name in there, it's just do not track and I won't even answer the phone. You know, it's like they've either tried they've either been hostile with me on things or they tried to get me in trouble by allowing me to go on property that they didn't have permission. So yeah, I don't really like to. You know, I'm straight shooter. I don't like to play games and I don't want people playing games with me.

Speaker 1: 1:07:08

So yeah, no, absolutely, and but it's just crazy that you got that you like ran into situations like that where, like you know, people are just like that, like I, I've had you know I had one guy mf me up and down in the woods and then his buddy called me like two and a half weeks later.

Speaker 4: 1:07:26

He's like hey, I just want to let you know that deer's back on camera.

Speaker 4: 1:07:28

I know he won't call you, but I'm like okay I appreciate it, you know yeah, wow and I always ask guys I'm like, if you can let me know, like, hey, the deer is alive, it doesn't change. It doesn't change my stats, like if I run up, if I run, you know 50 calls and I recover 20 of those deer. Those are my stats, even if they're alive or not. You know what I mean when, when the one is done, but I can't change. You know, it's not like it goes on there and says okay, I'm still batting 100 because that deer was alive. No, I'm still down one, you know, or down to whatever it may be, you know. So, like you know, last year um, I forget what I, I think I ran like 40 around, like 40 some tracks and I and I was at 52 on my recovery rate.

Speaker 4: 1:08:14

You know and I find I think that anybody that's doing more than that like and and I always say like I must have the worst dog in the world. That's why you know jokingly saying that, which I know I don't, but I always say that because guys would be like oh we're, you know, 75, 80, I'm just like man, I don't know, you know but, you know when I write it down, you know it's in here and like I'll put an asterisk next to in this book.

Speaker 4: 1:08:37

You know when I write it down, you know it's in here and like I'll put an asterisk next to in this book. You know it's just, it's every track I've ever been on um, for the most part and the other one, but it'll have an asterisk in there, like okay, the deer was back alive.

Speaker 4: 1:08:46

Or the hunter called me and said he, you know, he shot it in late muzzleloader season, whatever it might be, you know just just so I know, you know and like I get guys, I tracked one down down in Salem County for a guy and he he thought he had made a pretty good shot. It ended up being a. I can't really say which one it was, because when the kid had actually killed the deer, I was trailing a deer for two miles. And I came, I was going through the woods and I heard somebody say yo and I was like I stopped, stopped the dog, like looking around I don't see nobody. And the guy says hey, over here, and I look up and there's two guys up in a tree stand One's videoing. He says you after a big eight pointer. I said yeah, he's like just went through here a couple minutes ago. I said well, what's a couple minutes ago? He said probably about five minutesing. I'm like okay. So I called the track, I told the kid and he was like yeah, after two miles I got. I feel I got my answer I was looking for.

Speaker 4: 1:09:45

So a couple of weeks later I get a Facebook message said hey, uh, were you the guy trail on this deer down in Salem County? I said yes, that's me. He's like just want to let you know I shot it last night. I said okay. I said you know, congratulations, awesome, deer. Where was the other hit? And there was two hits on the deer. There was one high in the top of the back and one right in the front shoulder, um, so I don't know which one it was. You know what I mean, per se. You know I can't, you know I didn't. The guy told me that he hit it, I think in the front shoulder, but you know the way that I perceived the blood when I was going through the woods, when I was trying to deer, it told me that I was dealing with a shoulder hit, because where the blood was on the trees, you know and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 1:10:27

So those are kind of the situations I find at hand. So you know, awesome, awesome, but uh, boys, you got anything else. We're getting to that. That marks that time we got.

Speaker 3: 1:10:37

I just wanted to ask uh, matt, real quick is? Um, when I had the tracker come, right over the phone, he asked me what my license tag number was. I don't know if you do that with your guys, but I thought that was kind of. It was like I had another tracker years before come out never. Just was like yeah, just know, tell me where to meet you and whatever. This guy's like, yeah, I need your hunting license number or this and that.

Speaker 3: 1:11:03

And I was like, wow, and it was funny, he actually tracked a deer for my cousin who's about 45 minutes away from me. When he saw the same last name and I was like, yeah, that's my cousin. He's like, oh, I tracked a deer for Bob last year. I'm like, oh, no, kid. I was like he didn't tell me about that Cause he's probably too proud, cause he's a good hunter and he doesn't really make mistakes. But anyway, I just thought it was. You know, it's, it's kind of professional. I was like, you know, that's, that's cool, the guy's checking out and make sure you're legit. And, um, he, I believe he called in on the start of the track and at the end of the track, I think he called in.

Speaker 4: 1:11:40

I don't know if that's something that you have to do or it's required for you to do, but I was just wondering about that Prior to the last couple of years they used to have to call in and talk to the warden whenever they would start a track or finish a track and they would have to let them know the status of that track. Now it's changed to at the end of the year still, like when you call me up, I'll ask you to just shoot me a text where I'm meeting you with your full name and your and your cid number. Not that I'm checking up on you. I mean it's not my business to check up on you.

Speaker 4: 1:12:07

Um, the only thing is, at the end of the year I have to let them know every track that I ran, no matter if it was recovered or not. Now they asked for a location and that location I put in there within an intersection, you know. So if, say, we're hunting at 206 and and route 70, those would be. The intersection is there. You know. I mean it's not an actual gps location of where you were hunting at. Now I have ran in situations where, um, people recover the deer but say they may not want to tag that deer or something like that. You know what I mean. But I always let them know like, hey, no matter what you do. At the end of the day, your license number will be in my report with a recovered deer and that's just you know like.

Speaker 4: 1:12:55

I told you guys before and anybody that's watching this I shoot straight, I'm not going to lose my license or having trouble for nobody.

Speaker 4: 1:13:03

So you know, but a lot of guys always ask like well, you know, what do you do with our information? And it's just, you know, I always try to. I keep a form right in there and I say this is the form I have to send to the state and I show them exactly what it looks like. You know. And guys ask like you know, do you keep our, you know your track lines? Well, I keep my track lines for myself. I don't ever share them with anybody. I don't show anybody anybody's hunting spots. If I'm in a piece of woods that I tracked in before which has happened I trailed and one piece came over this way and the track line a year later overlapped, I never tell that guy like, hey, you know, I tracked for this guy over here, you guys are hunting the same block of woods. Like it's not my place to blow up anybody or put anybody on the hot. You know, in the seeing eye of everyone, I just kind of let it be. So that's the information I have to give.

Speaker 1: 1:13:49

So yep, cool, very good, awesome, really cool. Mike, you got any last questions, or you're good?

Speaker 2: 1:13:56

no, I mean. I mean, you guys are asking all great questions awesome we happy.

Speaker 1: 1:14:04

Well, that's good news. Well, matt, we have to get you back on bud, because this was awesome. I'm sure we're going to have another thousand questions when we next time we talk to you.

Speaker 4: 1:14:13

Yeah anytime any guys have any questions. You want to do another podcast? Reach out, like I said you know. If you guys Any of you guys have any questions, you want to do another podcast. Reach out, like I said you know, if you guys ever need anything or you have a question about a track, you're doing yourselves, not even if you want a dog come out, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:14:27

Before you go, I actually got one question for you. You know, in New Jersey, since you've been doing this, what have you seen of um with the deer numbers and your calls and everything like that is? Is there any trend that has been sticking out to you, um, in the last like a couple years?

Speaker 4: 1:14:47

especially with the, with the deer number and everything like that. Um, well, for me it's kind of hard for me to gauge because even though, like this, is going to be my fifth season coming up, it's still that I'm new in the game, you know what I mean in a way so like. But I have heard of, like some of my more seasoned guys in the state have said, like, hey, you know, my calls were down a little bit, but it seems like they always fall in the same realm of calls, so maybe it's just not like a an influx of calls in that early bow season and during the rut it might be a little bit more extended out into, like, say, shotgun or whatever you know. So, um, but for me my calls, like lately, they've kind of just been steady you know, I don't really have anything to say like it's been up or down really. So.

Speaker 4: 1:15:31

And I don't really, and I don't look for work either, so you know if my friend brings more help. But you know, if my friend rings, I'm more than gonna help. But you know, like I'm not out there like trolling social media trying to find somebody who needs a tracker, like I got enough stuff to do that was actually my last question for you.

Speaker 1: 1:15:47

I was going to ask, uh, how people get a hold of you, um, so you can say, my phone number 609-457-5904.

Speaker 4: 1:15:56

Call or text anytime. Um, I also run a facebook page called on the Trail Deer Recovery, and same thing on Instagram. My phone number is listed on both of those sites. So if anybody needs to reach out to me and it's in the middle of the night, I don't care what time of the night it is If you don't want to call, you want to shoot me a text, just reach out to me that way, because sometimes social media like I find it I might not get the message for like a day or something like that.

Speaker 4: 1:16:20

Or somebody would be like you know, I sent you a message, you didn't get it. Well, I'm sorry, you know stuff happens, but at least if you, if they call, I can at least get ahold of them. Um, you know, and if I'm away, you know I'm going to have it a hundred myself. You know I try to go to the Midwest during the hype of the rut, which is probably pretty stupid on my behalf, but, um, you know, I like to chase them. I like to chase them just as much everybody else. And you know people call me all the time while I'm out there and I'll be like you know where are you at and I get you the best tracker that's going to give you the same amount of work that I would give you, as if I were to show up and you know, amount of work that I would give you is if I were to show up and you know I try to pride on that too, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4: 1:17:01

Like I'm not going to send, not that we have any bad trackers but if you call me, I'm going to get you somebody that's going to give you the same exact work that I would give you so awesome, awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:17:11

But hey, matt, we appreciate you coming on the show everybody. Please, please, give matt you know a big uh, look over there on. He's on on the um, what was it, I'm sorry? On the trail, on the trail, deer recovery. Give him a big shout out, give him a follow. I'm sure you'll probably be hearing from us relatively soon, but we appreciate having you on the show, man all, all right. Well, I appreciate you guys.

Speaker 4: 1:17:38

Definitely it was a good time, very good information we appreciate it yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:17:43

You're very knowledgeable man. We appreciate it again.

Speaker 4: 1:17:46

All right, guys, we'll shoot straight and have fun. We'll talk to you?

Speaker 3: 1:17:49

Yeah, absolutely, man, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:17:50

Well, thanks a lot everybody. We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you all next time.