Not every recovery is a two-minute flight. This one took two days.
Washington County, after two and a half to three inches of rain, in a flood plain. Those are the conditions that beat both tools this work has. As Blake Rider of Gear'd Up Wounded Deer Recovery put it after we had spent two days grinding on the same deer together:
“a dog can't track in a flood plain after 2.5-3" of rain and a drone can't bay a deer”— Blake Rider, Gear'd Up Wounded Deer Recovery, January 27, 2026
People online love to argue dogs versus drones. We do not. A good tracking dog does things a thermal camera never will. The camera sees things no nose can reach. Two days in a flooded river bottom with one deer on the line will settle that argument for you fast.
What we wrote at the time is still where we stand: no need to argue over ways to find a deer — work together, within the law, and make it happen. We both care about exactly one thing, and it is not whose method gets the credit. It is a hunter getting their deer back.
Neither of us ever posted whether that deer came out of the bottom, so we are not going to claim it here.
Some finds take two minutes. Some take two days of mud. You take the job either way.