The big 10-point appeared out of nowhere and quickly moved towards the young hunter's treestand. With his heart banging like a bongo drum, he tried in vain to calm himself as the buck quickly moved within range. As the huge deer stepped behind a pine tree, the young man came to full draw and with trembling hands, tried to hold the site pin behind the shoulder. As the deer emerged from behind the tree, only 15 yards sepa­rated them, as he jerked on the release and sent the arrow on an agonizingly wayward flight into the huge buck's paunch.— it all happens so quickly!

Mistakes made, while in the field are a fact of life that often leave us with more questions than answers. Why didn't I grunt and stop the deer before I shot? Why didn't I squeeze the trigger like the hundreds of times before, while practicing in the back­yard? What do I do now?

As conscientious stewards of this tremendous animal, we owe it to everyone to pull out all stops in the recovery process. Anything short of that is not acceptable. A fairly new option is tracking wounded deer with dogs.

Bill Yoder knows a thing or two about deer. In fact, he is so passion­ate about them you could say his whole life (and near death) has cen­tered on these amazing animals. You may recall several years ago, one of Bill's captive whitetail bucks attacked him, leaving him near death, resulting in years of rehab and hospital visits. In spite of what hap­pened to him, Bill still loves deer and hates the thought of them not being recovered after questionable, yet lethal hits. Because of this deep respect for deer, he bought himself a Wire Haired Dachshund named "Daryl" to help combat this age-old problem of un-recovered animals.

A popular and valuable breed in Europe the Dachshund is valuable because of their ability to continue tracking a wounded animal when the visual blood-trail ends. They do this by being able to discern the escaping gasses, particles of hair and dandruff from the target animal. Small in stature, Daryl was purchased out of New York by Bill, who began work­ing with him at eight weeks old by creating artificial trails with deer hearts and livers. By (Michigan) law, you must keep your dog on a leash when tracking wounded deer, which as you can imagine, makes for some very difficult walking (or crawling) for Bill as deer tend to head for the thick stuff when wounded. This was the case when Kurt Buche from Ionia County, called Bill in early October after an uncertain hit had resulted in poor blood trail that had all but dried up. At only eight months old Daryl quickly picked up the trail and locat­ed the deer in some dense brush after a long, tough 2 ½  hour track. The result was one very happy hunter arid a great start for Bill's puppy.

After several more successful recoveries, Daryl and Bill traveled to Iowa in Late October to offer their services to noted bowhunter and friend Barry Wensel, who had sever­al clients up for some classic Iowa deer hunting. Bill received special permission from the Iowa DNR to use Daryl for tracking and found work as one of the hunters made a poor hit on a buck. Even though the deer did not appear to be fatally wounded, they took up the track that eventually worked down a steep slope towards a river bottom. During the descent down the precarious slope, Bill slipped and fell dropping the leash as he tumbled down the hill. Not knowing what happened behind him, Daryl pressed forward on the track, soon disappearing in the underbrush. Unfortunately, Daryl is not a barking dog and even if he got hung up in the brush he would be difficult to find. The group looked everywhere but to no avail. After three days of intense searching and posting signs in the area, Bill sadly gave up and drove back home to Michigan, heartbroken, because of the loss of his unique little dog.

On November 10th, Yoder got a call from Barry Wensel, who gave him the old line, "I've got good news and some bad news. The bad news is, I hit a monster 160 #class buck but can't find him. The good news is —we found your dog!" After taking care of some business around home, Bill once again took off for Iowa and arrived there on November 12^th. According to Wensel, Daryl showed up at a neighbor's farm two miles from where he disappeared. The neighbor then called Barry after seeing one of the "lost" signs posted by Yoder before he left. Daryl had lost a lot of weight, but otherwise seemed healthy and very happy to see Bill when he arrived. It was a joyful reunion to be sure but now Barry Wensel was feeling horrible about the big buck that got away.

After talking it over, they decid­ed to take Daryl back to where the deer was hit and were amazed as the tiny dog enthusiastically took up the two-day old track of Wensel's buck. Forty-five minutes later, the little Dachshund led the trio to the huge, downed buck nearly a mile away from the last trace of blood. The deer was gut shot and not fit to consume but at minimum, the huge buck is now displayed as a testimony to the effectiveness of using a well-trained dog in the deer recovery process. For the year, Daryl ended up recovering 9 of the 11 deer thought by Yoder to be lethally wounded, not bad for a "rookie" less than a year old. Because of this success, Yoder now receives more calls than he can handle and he hopes to spread the word about his service, which includes books that will help you train nearly any breed to recover deer.

For more information and prices, contact Bill Yoder directly at (616) 693-2156. Remember, recovering wounded deer should be a top prior­ity for all hunters so give Bill a call and find out more about this unique and valuable service.