Blood tracking your deer

Moose

Moose

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
Came across this article and thought it was a good reminder.

www.deeranddeerhunting.com

5 Blood Trailing Tips for Deer Hunters | Deer & Deer Hunting

Blood trailing tips for real-world experiences in the deer woods. Use these blood trailing tips to find your deer this fall.
www.deeranddeerhunting.com www.deeranddeerhunting.com

I'll admit I've never thought of taking a compass reading for the direction of travel. I guess on most shots it's unnecessary but there have been a few that it would of been helpful.

I guess ill add a few things I've learned over the years from some of my tracks and maybe others will add some thoughts too.

Never assume the trail is the direction you saw the deer run.... one evening I had been watching a doe around my stand and the end of shooting light was coming on and obviously no buck was going to show. I shot the doe with the muzzleloader and between the smoke and the flash I momentarily lost sight of her but then saw her running along the trail I walked out on. My shot had also scared up a few more deer that ran the same general direction but I didn't see them before they busted out of there. I climbed down and walked out to where the doe had been standing and there was a drop of blood about the size of a dime and some hair. I looked around and saw nothing else so I walked the scuff marks to my trail out and just couldn't find anymore blood. I gave up and went back the next morning and still couldn't find any. So I went back to the shot site and started more closely examining it. I eventually found a blood trail going a totally different direction and found my doe. The only explanation I can come up with is another doe crossed her path and that's what my eyesight told me was direction of travel. Our minds can play tricks and we have to be able to start over and question everything we think we know to be true.

Most of my difficult track jobs have been with my muzzleloader. I have lost some blood trails because the blood has gotten so spotty but one I remember it was still warm and I found the trail a few times finding ants on Pin drop blood spots I had missed.

Waiting on a deer you have shot is what we are almost always told to do. I did that one time I marked the shot site went and got a coffee and came back about 90 minutes later. Meanwhile a flock of turkeys scratched up the woods my blood trail went through and I never found that deer. So remember it's not only coyotes bears and vultures you got to worry about losing your trophy to.

Another buck I shot at end of shooting light and he ran out the far end of the field. We had a decent blood trail on him at first and it just dried up. We jumped on it within minutes after I shot him. In the dark we never found him I suspect fat plugged the hole. We found a bloody bed we clearly pushed him out but not much after that. I went back the next day and never found much after that bed. I found him that spring turkey hunting and he had circled back to the field my stand was on and died on the trail he had originally entered the field on. Since then if I lose a trail on a deer I always go back to where I first saw them and check that area out looking for sign. Seems to me if he is trying to avoid danger going back the way he originally came maybe safer then running into a place he hasn't been.

Long winded today just thinking about getting into the woods this week and hoping for a short blood trail or at least a trophy on the end if it turns out to be longer then I want.
 
DBCooper

DBCooper

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Moose said:
Came across this article and thought it was a good reminder.

www.deeranddeerhunting.com

5 Blood Trailing Tips for Deer Hunters | Deer & Deer Hunting

Blood trailing tips for real-world experiences in the deer woods. Use these blood trailing tips to find your deer this fall.
www.deeranddeerhunting.com www.deeranddeerhunting.com

I'll admit I've never thought of taking a compass reading for the direction of travel. I guess on most shots it's unnecessary but there have been a few that it would of been helpful.

I guess ill add a few things I've learned over the years from some of my tracks and maybe others will add some thoughts too.

Never assume the trail is the direction you saw the deer run.... one evening I had been watching a doe around my stand and the end of shooting light was coming on and obviously no buck was going to show. I shot the doe with the muzzleloader and between the smoke and the flash I momentarily lost sight of her but then saw her running along the trail I walked out on. My shot had also scared up a few more deer that ran the same general direction but I didn't see them before they busted out of there. I climbed down and walked out to where the doe had been standing and there was a drop of blood about the size of a dime and some hair. I looked around and saw nothing else so I walked the scuff marks to my trail out and just couldn't find anymore blood. I gave up and went back the next morning and still couldn't find any. So I went back to the shot site and started more closely examining it. I eventually found a blood trail going a totally different direction and found my doe. The only explanation I can come up with is another doe crossed her path and that's what my eyesight told me was direction of travel. Our minds can play tricks and we have to be able to start over and question everything we think we know to be true.

Most of my difficult track jobs have been with my muzzleloader. I have lost some blood trails because the blood has gotten so spotty but one I remember it was still warm and I found the trail a few times finding ants on Pin drop blood spots I had missed.

Waiting on a deer you have shot is what we are almost always told to do. I did that one time I marked the shot site went and got a coffee and came back about 90 minutes later. Meanwhile a flock of turkeys scratched up the woods my blood trail went through and I never found that deer. So remember it's not only coyotes bears and vultures you got to worry about losing your trophy to.

Another buck I shot at end of shooting light and he ran out the far end of the field. We had a decent blood trail on him at first and it just dried up. We jumped on it within minutes after I shot him. In the dark we never found him I suspect fat plugged the hole. We found a bloody bed we clearly pushed him out but not much after that. I went back the next day and never found much after that bed. I found him that spring turkey hunting and he had circled back to the field my stand was on and died on the trail he had originally entered the field on. Since then if I lose a trail on a deer I always go back to where I first saw them and check that area out looking for sign. Seems to me if he is trying to avoid danger going back the way he originally came maybe safer then running into a place he hasn't been.

Long winded today just thinking about getting into the woods this week and hoping for a short blood trail or at least a trophy on the end if it turns out to be longer then I want.
Click to expand...
I won't add much......except that most stories I hear about botched tracking jobs revolve around hunters being too impatient.

Case and point......there's a chance you'd found your buck in the last story, if you'd waited longer. I'm not harping on you. The amount of blood at the POI dictates how far I go down a tracking job trail. I wasn't there. I'll give the hunter the benefit of the doubt.
 
dobber

dobber

Old Mossy Horns
Moose said:
Another buck I shot at end of shooting light and he ran out the far end of the field. We had a decent blood trail on him at first and it just dried up. We jumped on it within minutes after I shot him. In the dark we never found him I suspect fat plugged the hole. We found a bloody bed we clearly pushed him out but not much after that. I went back the next day and never found much after that bed. I found him that spring turkey hunting and he had circled back to the field my stand was on and died on the trail he had originally entered the field on. Since then if I lose a trail on a deer I always go back to where I first saw them and check that area out looking for sign. Seems to me if he is trying to avoid danger going back the way he originally came maybe safer then running into a place he hasn't been.
Click to expand...
similar situation for me, deer came out and i shot it, took off on a main trail - so many deer tracks i couldn't figure it out even though there was snow on the ground. I walked up and down a few trails that looked good, but to no avail. On my way back to where i hit the buck i decided to try and come out where he came out and sure enough there he was, likely ran 100 yards total to land 20 yards from where i hit him
 
Moose

Moose

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
DBCooper said:
I won't add much......except that most stories I hear about botched tracking jobs revolve around hunters being too impatient.

Case and point......there's a chance you'd found your buck in the last story, if you'd waited longer. I'm not harping on you. The amount of blood at the POI dictates how far I go down a tracking job trail. I wasn't there. I'll give the hunter the benefit of the doubt.
Click to expand...
You are absolutely right. This was a Saturday evening no hunting on Sunday and people were wanting to get home. I should of declined their help or insited we wait before we start trailing. If we left him alone for even 45 minutes to an hour he'd of been dead in that bed. He had gone less then 200 yards into the thick brush off the field and we pushed him up and got him moving. That skull and antlers I look at every day to remind me of how I need to be more patient. It's not a big deer but at the time it was the biggest buck I'd ever taken with my muzzleloader.
20211018_115259.jpg

Thanks to QBD for cleaning it up and mounting it for me months later.
 

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
Always look for ants and grandaddy long legs on blood. They can help you find the smallest specks. While tracking soon after the shot or starting to find fresh blood and the trail starts to backtracking then turning, back out the deer is not dead. Wait some more. On a marginally hit deer I have had good success pushing the deer to keep them bleeding, works good if you have plenty of daylight. Always look in circles to pick up lost blood trails. Circle the last blood and circle out wider every time. That's how we have figured out the deer back tracked many times. Let one person work the trail, others stay at last blood. That way leaves don't get turned over and they can look to the sides for blood. We too have found deer in the opposite direction of where it ran. Compass, well that may be OK, but marking the shot spot with a land mark is always a great idea.
 
TobyScreams

TobyScreams

Twelve Pointer
Peroxide trick is good and cheap. Maybe I’m crazy but I even have luminol and a blue light to search, for when things go really sideways.
 
bowhuntingrook

bowhuntingrook

Old Mossy Horns
I could write a ton on this subject, what I've learned at seminars and events after spending time with the best dog trackers in the country and then seeing it in my own tracks in the woods. Dog has taught me a lot, anyone would learn a ton with a good dog and some knowledge of anatomy and physiology and how and why things die. My favorite tracking advice comes from a friend Al Sherman, I will post some later.
 
bowhuntingrook

bowhuntingrook

Old Mossy Horns
DB is on point with his comment, the reason most deer are not recovered besides poor shot placement is a lack of patience from the hunter and a lack of understanding of how long a liver vs gut vs instestinal hit takes to die. Also how many 1 lung hits survive. Fact is most fatally hit deer, almost all will die within 200 yards of the hit if NOT pushed. They don't know what happened, they calm down sooner and bed sooner. You track too early and jump them while wounded and they're running in fear. Sympathetic nervous system response = vasoconstriction. Deer running 30 mph now, 45ft a second. How good can you track a walking deer vs a deer at full speed through thicker terrain? We even have people tracking deer at night, gut shots, jumping them and still continue to track the deer, I don't know what outcome they are trying to achieve with this. The argument for tracking early to save meat can be made, but if deer takes a few hours to die, thats a few hours the meat isn't spoiling.

Another thing, lots of blood does NOT indicate death. Deer die of 3 things, hemorrhage, suffocation (cannot oxygenate vital organs, brain heart) or infection. Based on my experiences, quantity of blood on arrow or at hit site, statistically has little correlation with deer mortality. And most hunters have no clue how much blood loss it takes to kill a deer, it's always "5 gallon buckets" of blood, yet deer isn't laying there?
 
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aya28ga

aya28ga

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
bowhuntingrook said:
DB is on point with his comment, the reason most deer are not recovered besides poor shot placement is a lack of patience from the hunter and a lack of understanding of how long a liver vs gut vs instestinal hit takes to die. Also how many 1 lung hits survive. Fact is most fatally hit deer, almost all will die within 200 yards of the hit if NOT pushed. They don't know what happened, they calm down sooner and bed sooner. You track too early and jump them while wounded and they're running in fear. Sympathetic nervous system response = vasoconstriction. Deer running 30 mph now, 45ft a second. How good can you track a walking deer vs a deer at full speed through thicker terrain? We even have people tracking deer at night, gut shots, jumping them and still continue to track the deer, I don't know what outcome they are trying to achieve with this. The argument for tracking early to save meat can be made, but if deer takes a few hours to die, thats a few hours the meat isn't spoiling.

Another thing, lots of blood does NOT indicate death. Deer die of 3 things, hemorrhage, suffocation (cannot oxygenate vital organs, brain heart) or infection. Based on my experiences, quantity of blood on arrow or at hit site, statistically has little correlation with deer mortality. And most hunters have no clue how much blood loss it takes to kill a deer, it's always "5 gallon buckets" of blood, yet deer isn't laying there?
Click to expand...

Bowhuntingrook's post is pretty near the perfect synopsis of what happens when tracking a wounded deer is handled incorrectly.

It's my belief that many of the deer shot and lost by hunters could be recovered, if the hunter would just practice a little self-restraint and let time work to the hunter's advantage. Problem is, we all have schedules to keep: the wife's expecting me at home, I've got to to go to work, I need to pick the kids up, etc, etc. Put those things out of your mind as much as possible (don't piss off the missus) and concentrate on the matter at hand; you owe it to the deer you shot.

Bowhuntingrook is also spot-on about about fatally hit deer not traveling more than 200 yards IF NOT PUSHED. A fatally shot deer will lie down and die within 200 yards (usually less). But let the hunter start tracking too soon and windup pushing the deer out of it's bed, then its a proverbial roll of the dice. The deer then knows it's being chased, and it will do whatever it can to get away, with whatever strength it has left.

Lastly, in my experience, the amount of visible blood on the track is usually not the best indicator of whether a deer is fatally hit. A small amount of blood spread on the ground can look like a lot to the inexperienced observer, but in and of itself, may not be proof of a fatal shot . Blood sign can tell a hunter where the deer was hit (muscle, gut, or liver), and can give a hunter a trail to follow, but unless a major artery is severed and fortunate circumstances allow for warm blood to freely spray the trail the deer travels, (a rare occurrence), the amount of blood on the track is the least important factor in determining whether a deer is dead or not.
 
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