READING, Pa. – For three hours, Justice Mannino searched in vain for the bear he shot during the archery season this year. In the morning, he returned to the area in Lehigh County to pick up the blood trail but to no avail.
Mannino’s luck changed in a hurry, however, when a phone call brought Andy Bensing and his blood tracking dog to the scene. The dog picked up the trail where Mannino left off, and 200 yards and 15 minutes later the bear was found.
“It was so thick and it turns out I passed within 12 yards of the bear and didn’t even see it,” Mannino said. “I wouldn’t have stopped looking, but I could’ve been there for hours. It’s incredible what the dog was able to do.”
Mannino’s success story is one of many that occurs every year since Pennsylvania allowed the use of dogs to track game in 2018. Bensing, who is a director with United Blood Trackers, said he worked for 16 years to get the use of leashed blood tracking dogs legalized in Pennsylvania. Prior to 2018, Bensing traveled to other states with his dog to aid hunters in recovered deer and bear, and he knew it would be a valuable asset to hunters in Pennsylvania.
The demand has proven his hunch to be correct.
“It really took off fast right from the start. The demand blew up, as expected,” Bensing said. “It’s been getting busier every year and this archery season, during a 10-day stretch during the rut, I was getting 30 calls a day.”
United Blood Trackers maintains a list of members in each state and their contact information for hunters. In Pennsylvania, there are 48 trackers on the list and Bensing said it continues to grow.
And so does the number of successful recoveries.
One handler in the southeastern part of the state placed his seven-month old dog into service this year, Bensing said, and as of early November he recovered 21 deer out of 60 calls.
Success rates are dictated by the circumstances of each call, but the average recovery rate is approximately one-third.
“Some handlers just take the easy calls when they know there’s a dead deer, such as one that was gut shot. If you take only the easy calls, you’re looking at a 50% to 60% recovery,” said Bensing, who takes about three calls each day and travels from his home in Reading.
The busiest time for calls to come in is during the rut in archery season, he said, while the demand drops in rifle season.
“Everyone is out shooting deer in the rut, and there just aren’t as many hunters in rifle season compared to archery,” Bensing said. “The phone rings more on the first day of archery than the first day of rifle.”
The majority of the calls – two-thirds – are for bucks, he added, and archery season produces significantly more calls from hunters looking for antlerless deer than rifle season.
Bensing doesn’t screen his calls based on buck or doe because every deer deserves a full recovery attempt, he said. Most handlers don’t charge for their service but hunters are very gracious with tips to cover mileage and time, Bensing said.
“We just really love to see our dogs work and prevent a deer, bear or even elk not be found and go to waste,” Bensing said. “We’ve been getting plenty of calls for bear, and now all of the elk guides know about the dogs and we’ve made some recoveries there as well.”
Most of the handlers are located in the southeast part of the state, and Bensing hopes more handlers turn up in other regions.
“I feel bad when I get a call from someone in Williamsport, which is too far for me and there aren’t a lot of handlers in that area,” he said.
“I think we’ll see more handlers in areas where needed because this is still growing. Eventually, I see the use of blood tracking dogs becoming more a part of our deer hunting culture, like it is in the south.”
For hunters like Mannino, blood tracking dogs have been the difference between a devastating loss and a lifetime memory.
“I didn’t even know about dog trackers until now, and when Andy came in with his dog that morning it was really exhilarating to watch the tracking process,” he said. “I hunt for just about everything for years, but following that dog to my bear was by far my favorite hunting experience.”
To find a tracker in Pennsylvania, visit www.untiedbloodtrackers.org.
- Cutline (Photo submitted by Andy Bensing): Since the use of leashed tracking dogs to recover game became legal in 2018, demand from hunters has skyrocketed. Andy Bensing, left, and his dog successfully recovered this bear shot by Justice Mannino (right) during the 2021 archery bear season in Lehigh County.
- This story appeared in PA Outdoor News.
