Damon, Jaeger and Dad 2

Damon, Jaeger and Dad 2

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Tracking an elk can be a difficult challenge. That's for sure. Yesterday, we left Damon Bungard, who had taken a great shot at a bull elk and was tracking him. He also had with him his trusty tracking dog, Jaeger. The bull got into some oak brush and kind of disappeared. So we pick it up from there.

Well, now I'm super nervous. Let's go get Jaeger. And when got him, too high altitude too far to the hit site, which is usually the rule you want. But with elk? I don't know how he was going to be because, you know, you can smell him. I can smell them. You know, I've never been walking into the white tail woods and just stopped cold cause I smelled a deer. It happens all the time hunting elk. I don't know if that's going to be overwhelming for him. You know, they tend to be herd versus tend to be solitary. So I have no idea how he's going to react. And until he kind of started them cutting in that meadow and he kind of worked his way up the face and starts getting a little excited and I’m getting from the feedback I'm getting from the dog and getting into the oak brush and worked his way in. And I'm like, OK, OK,.He’s pulling. He's pulling. And then, boom, there's an old calf elk carcass. And I was like, no, that's not what we're looking for. Not what we're looking for. We keep looking. He's getting excited again. He's searching this oak brush. And then I see… it looks like an organ laying up under a bush. I've got down and crawled in there and it was a half eaten, inverted ground squirrel.

But where in the world is his elk? We'll talk about that tomorrow.

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