Can’t find your deer? Call a tracking dog
When Joey Spradley’s arrow hit the big buck, instead of going down, the deer took off into a cutover – a nearly impenetrable morass of briars, brambles and bushes. “It was impossible to track a wounded deer through there,” said the Aiken, SC hunter who called his friend, Bruce Stone, for help.
Stone showed up with his daughter, Ella, and her registered black Labrador retriever, Ray. The Lab smelled the arrow and took off through the thick brush, Ella hot on her heels.
“I’m 36-years-old and in pretty good shape. But I wouldn’t go through that stuff,” Spradley said, “but in about 15 minutes, 400 or so yards away, Ella called on her cell phone”
“Y’all come on. We’ve got the deer and it’s a big one.”
Spradleys’ buck was one of more than 40 Ella and Ray (803-634-9620) tracked for hunters last season. The handler/dog duo notched a 46-percent success rate for the hunters, all while Ella balanced college and softball practice with the tracking.
Help is a phone call away
She was a private operator last year, but is now a member of the South Carolina Deer Tracking Dogs group which lists a number of deer trackers across the state with their contact information on Facebook. If you shoot a deer with a bow or gun and it runs off, leaving little or no blood trail, help finding it is just a phone call away.
Tracking wounded deer comes naturally for Ella – and for Ray, her 3-year-old Lab. She followed her dad, Bruce, on his hunting trips as a youngster and shot her first deer at the age of 6, sitting on his knee.
She is an avid rabbit hunter in her own right and has 11 rabbit dogs, including five puppies, that she hunts with.
“If I have the opportunity, I will shoot a rabbit, but my favorite part is just watching the dogs run,” she said.
Her hunting and working with hunting dogs took a big step up when she acquired Ray, she said.
“The only reason I got a tracking dog is because I am such a poor shot,” she joked. “Actually, I got Ray as a puppy. Daddy shot a deer and she went right to it.”
Self-taught
“Nobody in my family was into tracking. So I watched videos and talked to people who did tracking. It took a lot of research on my part to help her track better. I had to learn to be patient and to trust the dog. She will tell me what I need to know. I can’t assume anything.”
After trailing a wounded deer for a couple of hours before losing the trail, Aiken hunter Jeremy Randall called a buddy and asked if he knew anybody with a tracking dog. Randall already knew Ella – she rabbit hunts on his property – but he did not know at the time that she was into tracking.
“Once Ella got there and turned Ray loose, it was maybe three to five minutes and we had the deer. I later called her to come and track a deer for another hunter. That deer was still alive, but Ray found it and held it down until we got to it. She is an amazing tracking dog.”
As difficult as those deer might have been to locate – and hold – they were nothing compared to the one a lady hunter shot near the Edisto River.
“I got the call about midday,” Ella said. “It was the hunter’s first deer and she told me she thought it was gut shot. There was corn on the ground where she shot it.”
Tracking deer is a tough job
Ella put Ray, wearing a tracking collar, on the track and monitored the Lab’s movements on her cell phone.
“She just took off into the swamp. I tried to keep up with her, but I was not seeing anything, no blood, nothing. I followed Ray into the swamp and she began running in circles, winding, and she jumped the deer up. The deer was running with a broken leg.”
Ella heard Ray barking and thought she might have bayed or caught the deer. But when she got to the river, Ray was in the water holding the deer down. At that point there was only one thing to do. She jumped into the moving water well over her 5-foot, 6-inch frame, grabbed the buck by the antlers, swam upriver and pulled the deer up onto the bank. Then she yelled for her dad to come help.
“I was afraid the deer would get to the other bank and get away, and there was no way for us to get across the river,” She explained. “Ray did all the work. All I had to do was jump into that freezing water and help her.”
“I’ve been behind some really good tracking dogs, but that dog is something really special,” Spradley said, adding, “and Ella is really impressive, too.”
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