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Boots on the ground This page is for our Bavarian Hound Boots. Boots is a deer tracking dog. Give us a call or a private message if you need help finding your deer.

Boots is UBT2 Certified.

Boots and I had a rough day yesterday. The first one we believe was a shoulder shot. He never locked in and just looke...
10/19/2026

Boots and I had a rough day yesterday. The first one we believe was a shoulder shot. He never locked in and just looked for blood the whole time. We never really advanced the track. Pretty confident that one will show up on camera soon.

The second one was a doozie!! We arrived ~22 hours post shot. They had tracked this deer a little ways with a dog the night before and the dog didn’t seem to find anything he liked. Then they
proceeded to track it another 3/4 of a mile on their own and finally came to a cut bean field and lost blood.

That’s where I started Boots. It took him about 10 minutes to put the puzzle together but I knew immediately when he figured it out, his body language completely changed. Off we went across the field at a 45° angle wasting no time.

The hunter was following me and he kept saying “I’ve got blood”. I was like, bro this dog is LOCKED IN, there’s no need to look for blood. LOL

About 300 yards into the track we hit a property line that we didn’t have permission to enter. Well, 45 minutes and about 20 phone calls later we got permission to proceed. Boots was NOT a happy camper during that 45 minute wait. 🤣

Once we obtained permission the speed of the track increased quickly. I told the hunter “we are going to jump this deer; he’s still alive”. Sure enough another ~200 yards and we jumped him out of a bed. We followed him a total of 2.2 miles yesterday and called it off. Pretty confident this deer has a broken shoulder but he had no trouble staying in front of us and was climbing some of the steepest hills I’ve ever seen.

While I was driving home from that track I got a call from Marcus. He had shot a real nice buck and his arrow missed its mark, hitting the deer in the intestines. I told him we could do it but we needed to wait until morning because the deer would probably live through the night. We agreed to meet up at 8:00a.

We drove to the scene of the crime. I harnessed ole Boots up and gave him the command. He hit the line immediately and 16 minutes later we had gone 400 yards right to Marcus’s beautiful Buck!!

This was a nice change after yesterday! Also, this Buck had a HUGE body and his neck was crazy!!

Congrats Marcus, you handled this one perfectly.



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Boots did 3 tracks today. We found 2 and confirmed the other one was a muscle hit.The first track was at 7:30a. I told ...
10/18/2026

Boots did 3 tracks today. We found 2 and confirmed the other one was a muscle hit.

The first track was at 7:30a. I told them I only had 90 minutes because I had to be at the second track no matter what. I started him at the point of impact as they were only able to track him ~75 yards. I didn’t feel great about it from the word go. He struggled and was just searching for blood instead of tracking.

Well, about 85 minutes into the track he picked it back up about 300 yards away. I flagged it and told the hunter where it was. We had to leave. He text me later they picked it up there and tracked another 425 yards with blood but no deer. No beds. No pooling. Most definitely a muscle wound.

The second track was 10:00. Dylan shot this deer, his first with a bow, around 7:30 yesterday morning. They tracked him ~800 yards. No beds. No pooling. Interesting enough, they got a trail cam video of the deer walking in front of them still packing the arrow. They backed out and called Boots in. I started him where they stopped.

It didn’t take him long to lock in and go straight to Dylan’s trophy, 600 more yards, ~1,400 total. Dylan’s arrow hit low. A beautiful first deer for this young man.

On the way to track Dylan’s deer I got a call from young Trevor. Trevor had shot a buck last night. He thought the hit was perfect and they took up the track fairly quickly. After a couple hundred yards they bumped him. At that point they backed out. They went back in this morning and did a heavy grid search looking for the deer to no avail.

This was a tough one. Several beds, some back tracks and a lot of human intrusion. Boots worked his magic and after about 20 minutes he put the puzzle pieces together and started dragging me through the thick stuff. We got to the creek and he barreled off in it, there was no doubt he was on. We crossed the creek and about 200 yards later he was standing over Trevor’s deer, his second archery buck.

Ole Boots did his job well on all 3 tracks. He can’t find them if they aren’t dead.



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Danner found one for Connor Saturday evening. It was Connor’s first deer!! I was in the blind when he made the shot an...
10/13/2026

Danner found one for Connor Saturday evening. It was Connor’s first deer!! I was in the blind when he made the shot and it was obvious she wasn’t going far. I was pretty sure she I heard her crash.

I knew we weren’t going to “need” the dog, but thought it would be good practice for Danner. On second thought, that might not have been the best decision because we were in a hurry and the bugs were AWFUL!!!

We started Danner at the impact point. He didn’t lock right in but he kept going in the right direction. He was nervous and had trouble advancing as quickly as I wanted him to(because we were in a hurry) so I had to nudge him a couple times.

Either way, he went right to Connor’s deer in just a couple minutes. A nice, easy 60 yards track that Ray Charles could have followed.

Congrats Connor on your first deer!!!

Video of the track is in the comments.




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Danner ran 2 tracks yesterday. Both of them for young Connor. I was in the blind with him for both shots. His dad and...
10/11/2026

Danner ran 2 tracks yesterday. Both of them for young Connor. I was in the blind with him for both shots. His dad and I both thought the first shot was perfect. I was videoing and when I slowed it down I thought I saw blood behind her shoulder.

I figured this would be a perfect track for young Danner. We take him to the hit site and start him there. We saw a few tiny specs of blood but Danner lost interest pretty quickly. I chalked it up to inexperience and went back to the lodge to get Boots. I was pretty confident he’d make short work of this one.

I put the harness on the old boy and gave him the command. He did the exact same thing Danner did, tracked about 50 yards and lost interest. I was stumped as I was sure this was a fatal shot. I let him check around for about. 30 more minutes and he never showed any interest.

We went back to the lodge. I slowed the video down again and turns out he barely grazed her belly. She wasn’t hurt after all and both dogs were right. I have attached the pic showing the wound.

Again, the second track was also for Conner but an entirely different story. This time when the doe left the field I knew she wasn’t going far. I was fairly certain I heard her crash. We didn’t “need” Danner for this one, but I figured it would be a good one for him after the first track of the day.

We let her lay for about an hour and went after her. Danner needed a little encouragement early on in the track to get through the thick stuff but once he did he went right to her. She only went 60 yards and there was so much blood Ray Charles could have found this one. A perfect track for the young pup!

Congrats Connor on his first deer!!



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Boots got to do his very favorite thing today, track for a youth hunter at The Country Lodge. It’s his favorite place o...
10/10/2026

Boots got to do his very favorite thing today, track for a youth hunter at The Country Lodge. It’s his favorite place on the planet and he loves finding deer for young hunters.

Jocelyn shot this huge doe at 7:20 this morning. I was sitting with another hunter about a mile away and I heard the shot. Her dad was filming and sent me the footage. You could clearly see the bullet entered a little low and a little back.

Having this footage helped us recover this deer in the easiest way possible. If they’d have gone in after her before noon she’d have probably ran to the next county. But, I watched it, knew it was low and back and decided to wait until 2:00.

We went out and cut Boots loose at the hit site. He wasted no time, barreling through the briars like it was an open field. I wasn’t seeing any blood, didn’t expect to with that wound, but there was no question he was on.

161 yards to her final resting place. Boots never missed a beat. We didn’t weigh her, but she was huge. This is Jocelyn’s second trip to the lodge and her second deer here.

Danner and Ebby get their first deer!!!I got a call last night from our Lodge client Tony. His 9 year old son Ebby had ...
10/05/2026

Danner and Ebby get their first deer!!!

I got a call last night from our Lodge client Tony. His 9 year old son Ebby had just shot his first deer ever. Tony felt very good about the shot. They waited 2 hours and took up the track.

They found some blood at the hit site and followed it maybe 15-20 yards into the thick woods. The blood looked good, but Tony was stumped as there was some stomach matter in it and he was sure the arrow entered through the shoulder.

I told him to keep looking, maybe 20-30 more yards and if they didn’t find anything back out and I’ll bring Boots. He text me a few minutes later and said they could not advance the track. I told him I’d be there around 10:15.

I’ve really wanted to get Danner on a fresh known kill. I thought about it and decided to take both dogs with me and let Danner give it a shot first and if he didn’t find her I’d run Boots.

We arrived and young Ebby was excited!! As I was harnessing Danner up Boots was looking at me like what in the world is going on here?!? LOL. He was NOT a happy camper as we walked away.

I was super nervous. Similar to his daddy, at this point in Danner’s life he had never smelled blood, been in the woods or even seen a deer. He was also very nervous. He gave out little half barks through the whole track, it was actually pretty funny, you can hear it in the video I’ll post below. His daddy never barks on a track unless he sees the deer we are after still alive.

I started him at the hit site. I don’t know how to explain it, but he immediately went to work. The switch in his brain flipped. Off we went, straight to the trail they saw her go into. Tony said their last blood was just a few yards down that trail. It was some nasty terrain. I had to encourage young Danner along the way but he basically put his nose down and went right to her, 90 yards into the woods. The arrow did in fact enter through the shoulder, but she was 1/4 to him so it did enter her stomach.

The instinct in these dogs is something special. The little guy wasn’t sure what we were doing but his brain told him what to do. I was more excited on this one than Boots’s first deer. Several reasons but the biggest being Boots’s first deer only went 30 yards down an open road. This one actually had to be tracked.

Super proud of the pup and happy to help young Ebby recover his first deer. I’m quite sure everyone that was there will remember this one for a long time.

Video of the track in the comments. For my UBT judge friends, I know I did a bunch of things wrong but cut me some slack please. 🤣

10/05/2026

Danner just found his first deer!!!!

Boots kicked his Illinois season off yesterday with 3 tracks. I don’t remember ever doing more than 1 a day this early ...
10/03/2026

Boots kicked his Illinois season off yesterday with 3 tracks. I don’t remember ever doing more than 1 a day this early and needless to say, we were both WHIPPED when we got home at 3:00am.

Our first track took us to Franklin County. The deer was shot on Thursday at last night. Quartering away, half the arrow penetrated and the hunter believed it may have been a little high and forward.

The deer was in a clover field when he was shot and ran about 75 yards through the clover into what the hunter described as a switchgrass field. When we pulled in I asked him where the switchgrass was, he said “right there”. I said, that’s not switchgrass that’s 10’ tall Johnson grass.

I’ve been on a lot of tracks and that was the worst tracking I’ve ever seen. I had to take my pack off to even attempt to get in there. I couldn’t see my dog. Boots did find the broken arrow about 50 yards into the Johnson grass, but that was basically the end of it. We didn’t confirm anything beyond that. I believe it was a high shoulder hit.

Our second track took us to public land in Perry County. The hunter informed me that he “double lunged” the deer but it had rained, he didn’t know which way the deer went and he couldn’t find any blood. We arrived 15 hours post shot and in short order Boots led me right to the deer. For the first time in my tracking career, the hunter that said he double lunged this buck in fact did. He went 165 yards and I didn’t see a drop of blood the entire way.

Our final track was in Pulaski County. We arrived at 12:30a, 6 hours post shot. Young Gabe shot this buck on public land, watched him leave the field and enter a nasty thicket. He was pretty sure the shot was liver and the arrow confirmed.

We started Boots in the field and he hit the track immediately. However, he struggled a bit to pick the trail the deer used to exit the field. He finally chose a line and once we were in the thicket he wasted no time taking me to Gabe’s trophy. The shot was in fact liver. 240 yards in 21 minutes on this one.

2/3 on our first day of tracking in Illinois. I’ll take it.




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Some of this is repetitive but it’s worth saying again:Another deer season is upon us. Boots, Danner and I hope that yo...
09/29/2026

Some of this is repetitive but it’s worth saying again:

Another deer season is upon us. Boots, Danner and I hope that your season is made of perfect shots and short recoveries. But, we know that’s not always the case. There are several things you can do to increase the odds of recovering your deer. Here are a few:

1. Check the chart below. It’s not scientific, but it’s a good rule of thumb. Also, do you best to determine the X&Y of your entry.

2. DO NOT rush going after your wounded animal. Dead deer don’t move.

3. Mark your blood trail. It makes it easier for us to get started and move on down the track.

4. Pay close attention to how the deer acts when they leave.

5. The less people you have looking, the better it is. Grid searching rarely results in a recovered deer.

6. Call or text us(or another tracking team) immediately to give us the scenario and determine availability. It’s better to have a team on standby and not need them than the alternative.

7. Save my number in your phone now so you don’t have to look later. 618-806-1405

Good luck and be safe out there. We are looking forward to another fun season of recovering your deer.

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Boots and Danner got a new tracking rig today. They decided if we were adding another dog to the team we needed an upgr...
06/27/2026

Boots and Danner got a new tracking rig today. They decided if we were adding another dog to the team we needed an upgrade.



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IL-149
Murphysboro, IL
62966

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+16188061405

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