Koa recovers his first deer

We were very happy to hear from Chris Surtees from Georgia. His tracking partner is Koa (Grock v Moosbach-Zuzelek), an eight-month-old son of Billy and Gilda.

"I shot a small buck tonight while bow hunting in a special archery hunt area and decide to take a chance and put Koa on the trail. As far as blood goes it was a steady easy track but the terrain the buck made his death run through was another matter.

Koa started out fine for the 25 yards but after entering a large ditch he hung a right and broke off trail. I let him go to see what he was going to do and to my surprise he found an easy way out of the ditch and came back on to the trail. While I struggled to climb out of the ditch Koa jumped back in with me and to add insult to injury he gave me a look of I showed you an easy way out and went back out the ditch his way.

Back on track Koa was moving at a good pace, nose to the ground, weaving in and out of the thick brush. Now we hit the next obstacle, another small flood area the deer ran through. Before I reached the area Koa was in the water trying figure out which way the deer went. Once I arrived he gave me a look of I lost the track. We crossed the flooded area, and I worked Koa up and down the back even though I knew where the trail was. I wanted to see if he would pick the trail up or just take off on a false one.

He locked back on the trail and was off again at a good pace. Koa only had one other issue on this track, and that is when my dad and daughter heard me tell Koa he was close. They moved in on my light and distracted Koa from the track. All it took was for me to tell them to stand still and remain quite until he was on the deer.

I put Koa back on the last blood and he finished the trail in grand fashion. He was extremely excited over the deer and enjoyed his tug on just about every part of the deer. To finish it off he was rewarded with a piece of fresh deer heart.

I could not be more proud of Koa and seeing him prance around the house when we returned home I could tell he was proud of himself."

Great job Koa!