Tracking wounded deer is hard

Andy Efird of Rowan County bagged this trophy buck the last day of the deer season.

Andy Efird of Rowan County got his trophy deer on the last day of the season. He shot the deer in the Rockwell area.

It had nine points and gross scored 135 1/8 inches on the Boone and Crockett scale.

The buck was 350 yards away from Efird when he pulled the trigger Dec. 31.

"I found hair and bone where I shot him and very little blood, so I waited until the following morning to try to find him," he said in an e-mail.

He went back to the field around 9 a.m. on Jan. 1 and started looking with his father and buddy, Rock Stone.

"We tracked very little blood for six hours through some very thick areas. We actually lost the blood trail and followed some deer trails until we picked it back up. We tracked him to the edge of a beaver pond," Efird said.

They thought he crossed a pond, so they went to the other side to try to find the trail again, but they had no success.

Stone walked back across the beaver dam and looked some more where they last saw blood trail.

"We were on the verge of giving up, and Rock said he would walk back to me. I told him to stay there," he said.

As they were driving around to get him, "I heard Rock yelling. É He yelled, 'Andy, he's coming to ya!' "

They heard the deer splashing through the beaver pond and ran to the edge just in time to see him coming out of the water. The deer started up a hill, and Efird fired a shot from 50 yards away with an 18-inch barreled tracking gun and dropped him.

"I was very fortunate to find and take this deer and learned a valuable lesson about tracking wounded deer: never give up!" Efird said.