This is all great stuff. A couple of things that we always cover when we teach the blood trailing section of the IBEP are:

1. You might not have blood at the site of the hit, so don’t get upset if you don’t see any.

2. We should really be talking about trailing, not blood trailing, because sometimes you don’t have any blood for some portion of the trail, especially on a high hit where it just leaks onto the body or if it wasn’t a passthrough and the blood is collecting inside of the body cavity. Here are some things to look for other than blood:
– leaves turned over the passing of the deer
– spider webs broken, or not being broken; if you see two trails that the deer might have taken and one has a web across it then you know it didn’t go that way

3. When you look at a drop of blood on the ground it can tell you alot about what the deer is doing.
– If it is mainly round in shape the deer was standing still when it fell.
– If it has little “fingers” on it, the fingers point in the direction the deer was travelling when it fell off of the deer.
– The longer the “fingers” on the splash of blood, the faster the deer was travelling when the blood drop fell off.

4. Don’t just look at the ground!
– Check out bushes up to the height of the deers back as you move down the trail as blood from its sides often rubs off on the leaves.
– If you know that it was hit on the right side and was NOT a passthrough, then the side of the trail with the blood on it will tell you the direction of travel; in other words, if it was hit on the right and the blood sign is on the left side of the trail the deer was moving in the direction you just came from.

5. Spiders and other insects love to feed on drops of blood, especially Daddy Long Legs. Look for them if you (or your older eyes) are having trouble finding blood.

6. Look for tracks or scuffed areas of the trail to see where an animal (hopefully your deer) went by.

7. And finally, always look ahead, or have someone else look ahead, for the deer. Too many of us have been intent on looking for sign and walk right up on the deer, or right past it. You might miss seeing it or wind up jumping it from its bed. A pair of binoculars can be a useful tool here.

Snakeeater