Blood trailing.

[bigcountryok]

Chalk me up as one that lost one on Saturday morning. It was doe and the shot was a little high, and she fell right where I shot her. She kicked around a little and then layed down broadside and begin taking long and heavy breaths.

I eased out of the stand and went back to get the mule to get her loaded up (20 mins round trip) when I got back she was gone. Found blood for about 20 yards and then nothing. Spent the next 5 hours searching and nothing. Went and got the dog at about hour 2 and he was on the trail for a little while and then either lost the trail or gave up.

Very frustrating. Had I known I wouldn't recover her, I would have not taken the shot.

Not bashing on you, but I learned a while back that if they are in range and alive you need to put another round in them quick. Never leave a wounded animal you could put another round in. ( this is assuming you were hunting black powder)

If it's a bow shot and you spined the deer, I've found that its best to get up there and put another arrow in them quick. I've seen deer shot in the spine with an arrow get up and walk away and recover.

Live and learn. Better luck next time.

 

[ProBusiness]

I usually carry about 3 hunter orange handkerchiefs with me. Starting from the location shot and/or a blood sign, i put the first orange handerchief up high on a limb is possible or drop on the ground, then i circle this spot until i find sign and drop a second orange handkerchief. I start looking in an ever increasing diameter circle from the hankerchiefs until i find sign, then drop another handkerchief. If hunting with another, he can come behind and gather up the handerchiefs to use next. If you can hang it up high, it will help you find it after you have gone a ways and have to look back.

When hunting dove or pheasant, i go immediatley to where i think the bird fell, mark with an orange handerchief, and walk in an increasing diameter circle. Without the dropped handerchief, i have had my head down looking for a pheasant, look up after a while, and have no idea where my saw the bird first go down, all that brown grass looks alike.

And like others have said, wait 30-50 minutes before you start off.

 

[MrShooter]

Here lately we have seen some posts they don't have any experience at trailing a wounded deer.
This post would be for tips that you guys have came across to help a newer person to deer hunting find their game.

In my experience, a gut shot deer will head for water or downhill. Both downhill. (Humans have the same reaction)
A deer shot in the lungs will mostly head uphill.
Not all deer leave a blood trail at the point of the shot.
Some deer shot(bow or gun) high will leave no blood trail until they fall down, only to get up leaving a huge spray of blood on occasion.
Deer shot at close range from a tall tree stand will leave a blood trail that a blind hunter could follow.

This is just my experience. Y'all chip in and let the folks gain some info.

FYI, over the years, seeing the deer fall, or knowing where it fell, I have always took the attitude that I know nothing.......and start trailing the deer by the blood signs.
this way one learns how to follow the signs. Trust me, even if the deer is in sight, act like its not and blood trail it. You will learn to spot tiny specs, etc.

I took off work today and left around 5 am this morning to trail the buck i got yesterday evening. I searched for 6 hours, thru thorns,thicks,creeks,fields,everywhere!!!!!
The place he intially dropped, had no blood, no bodily fluids of anykind.
From that point i saw very few tracks that i could positively idenfied to be his.
So i searched, the last direction i saw him go and all the area around it. I searched the area i saw him come out of....NOTHING

Heres the kicker....the direction he was heading was go off my property line.
I will NOT tresspass. It's never worth it. I went back to work and got a legal description of the land west of me. Im looking in the Hughes County assessor website to find the landowners name and phone number to get permission to search for my deer, even if the meat gets ruined by the time I find him....I just have a need to find him.

Maybe he survived? who knows.... I feel terrible abou this whole ordeal but i was confident in my shot. If he survived somehow, I hope we meet again, I'll call him the Hole-In-The-Gut buck. He was a very big deer, biggest Ive seen.(not including hunting shows,and fancy stuff like that) Im not gonna sit here and tell ya'll a damn "BIG FISH" story, so thats all I say about that until i find him.

 

[WNM]

Not bashing on you, but I learned a while back that if they are in range and alive you need to put another round in them quick. Never leave a wounded animal you could put another round in. ( this is assuming you were hunting black powder)

If it's a bow shot and you spined the deer, I've found that its best to get up there and put another arrow in them quick. I've seen deer shot in the spine with an arrow get up and walk away and recover.

Live and learn. Better luck next time.

My ram rod broke on Thursday so I used my bro-in-laws to load. That was the first thing that came to my mind, was to shoot her again. Lesson learned.

 

[imhntn]

Good tips guys. Here is another. If you are trailing a wounded deer on a dark cloudy night, make sure you are carrying a compass. After following a blood trail for an hour with your head down, weaving through brush, you may not have any idea which way your truck or the road is. It can be pretty comical wondering around looking for your way out..especially if you are on a place you are not familiar with.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

And most important of all, wait, wait, wait. Do not even get up to go TO the spot where the deer was when you made the hit until at least 15-20 minutes have passed - back out and go back to camp for awhile or just sit tight. My first bow deer, I hit it good at 7 yards. I pieced together all of the following later, after an ordeal: It only ran about 30 yards from there and laid down. From where it laid, it could see the spot where IT was when I shot it, but due to trees, could not see the spot 7 yards away where I had been sitting, from it's lay-down spot. So, when I, like an idiot walked the 7 yards to look at my arrow, it saw me and ran - and ran - and ran..... Many hours and much headache later, and a lot of luck, we found it 125 yards that way down the ridge, then 80 yards down the hill, then across a creek dead on the far bank. All could have been eliminated had I just sat tight for 20 minutes, as it was double lunged. Wait at least 15-20 for a heart or 2-lung shot. Wait at least 1/2 hour for a single lung shot. Wait at least 1 hour for a liver-shot, and at least 2-4 hours if gutshot, preferably 4.

 

[Red Earth]

I too have tracked many deer for others We have found all but one..... But we do it the EASY WAY!

I agree with what others have said above.... I have seen deer do different things all the time. I haven't noticed to much similarity in actions or reactions.

Our dogs are trained to blood and scent track on their own. When they locate a dead or downed animal they hold a strap attached to their collar in their mouth and return to us. The strap is an indicator to us that they have located an animal (or body for that matter). They in-turn take us back to the body.

Last year we lost our best dog to a tragic accident and had to find one on our own for the first time in years! What a drag!!! Pardon the pun. We are currently working a young dog on the same training regiment...but my time availability has not been that vast this year.

There are several deer or blood tracking dog breeds around.... Our personal breed is a Deutsch Kurzhaar....aka DK. If you contact the local club I'm sure they can put you in contact with a few handlers that would do it for free as we did.

PJ

 

[r00s7a]

Yeah, a lot of people down this way use dogs for tracking deer, mostly beagles. But the deer are still alive when they are tracking them! Haha

 

[Jefpainthorse]

If you dont want to wait... and dont think a "dead" deer can go very far let me share this.

I needed to dispatch a road-hit buck one morning. He was in the ditch with 3 compound fractured legs. I walked up... he stood up... and ran at a flat gallop over 300 yards of cut corn.

If he would have gone in the woods I'd probably never found him. I watched him go across over all that open ground before he piled up in the back yard of a house. I drove over... he was still wild-eyed but winded.. and he stayed down long enough for me to put him down.

6 points... 16 inch spread. The Food bank took him. The man who processed him said he had no internal damage. That deer would have lived till he starved or dehydrated or the coyotes found him.

( that was in Michigan... I guess Oklahoma won't give you legal road kill)

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

You can keep roadkill in OK if you call the GW - in my understanding. Interesting story. Amazingly tough critters with high pain tolerance.