Big Game Recovery Products

[Roger Raisch]

#164564

Fellow hunters….as all of us know who have ethics, a sick feeling enters our being, and stays for a long time, if we aren’t able to recover our quarry after a hit with an arrow.  This topic is intended to offer tips, products, and advice on how to recover game that doesn’t leave a good trail to follow.  I have my personal advice based on experience from bow hunting for over 50 years….matching wits with deer, elk, and my favorite….wild turkeys.  I will share my tips here, as I continue to post content.  But, I welcome everyone’s tips, product ideas, and advice as well.  I learn something new every day, and I hope you will too.  My goal is to eliminate crippling losses of game.  Not everyone makes perfect shots, and perfect shots can lead to losses too.

[richard roop]

#164569

Welcome aboard, Roger.

Yes, sometimes it’s just that one little thing that leads to the next drop of blood that leads to the next drop of blood.

So ………. Where abouts are you from  and what kind of stick are you shooting ????

[Raymond Coffman]

#164570

Welcome to the forum Roger…

Sounds like an excellent forum topic.

I am looking forward to seeing the posts and hoping to add a few ideas of my own that would be helpful.

Scout aka Ray

[Roger Raisch]

#164571

Hey Richard,

Thanks for the welcome greeting!  I have found that every bit of knowledge, product, senses, woodsmanship often will blend together to help recover an animal that otherwise is not recoverable.  Nobody makes the perfect shot every time.  A friend of mine has a nose like a hound dog, and he has helped recover deer with that nose a few times for clients of mine.  I am located in North Central Missouri…the land of plenty of trophy deer and trophy gobblers.  I usually hunt on my own property, managed for trophies for over 25 years, and I do invite guests.  One of the best products I have ever used to recover any game is a product that my company manufacturers….it’s called “The Tracker”, which is basically a high quality string tracking device.  The thin, strong line attaches just behind the broadhead on the arrow shaft.  Depending on the line strength you chose, it contains either 1,700 feet or 800 feet of tracking line per spool of line.  It’s easy to recover the animal, or find your missed arrow, by following the tracking line.  It is available at TurkeyHuntingSecrets.com.  I never shoot at an animal without using this product…have used it successfully for many, many years.  It should be mandatory for all turkey hunters, because a turkey that doesn’t drop in its tracks after being hit with an arrow will almost never be able to be recovered….they don’t bleed much, and if they fly away, you have no chance to find them.

[Robin Conrads]

#164572

Welcome Roger. To be clear, Roger asked me first if he could mention his company’s tracker, so chat away about it…or your methods for making sure you find what you shot.

Mom

[richard roop]

#164580

Cool.

Beautiful country there in Missouri. I lived in Rockaway Beach for a while. The fall colors were awesome.

We used to have turkeys up on the Rim where I hunt here in Az.   Now we have wolves & turkeys not so much.

I used a string tracker years ago on a bear hunt over bait. After a summer of fishing for catfish, there was an overwhelming urge to ‘set the hook’ as the line peeled out of the tracker.   Bears don’t always leave a good blood trail, either.

FWIW; I normally carry a good supply of broadheads and blunts.  When I get a hit on an animal my usual routine after the animal runs out of sight is to shoot a blunt to where the animal was standing when I shot it, another to where the last place that I saw the animal and stick an arrow in the ground where I shot from.  I can then go over in my mind where I ‘think’ that I hit the animal and how it reacted.   Then I can decide how to proceed.

[Stephen Graf]

#164584

That’s a good idea Richard!

It’s important to mark the 1st and last place you saw the deer as well as where you were standing.  I remember the closest tree or object to each spot.  But shooting a blunt is more reliable (was it this tree or that one?)  As for where I am standing, I normally hang my hat on a branch or something.  Easy to see from a distance.  But using an arrow instead will keep my head under roof, which I like.

[Roger Raisch]

#164586

Gentlemen,

When marking blood trails…or lack thereof, and I’m searching, I use surveyor’s bright orange tape, even when following my line that has peeled out with the animal.  The two together gives me a good visual of the path the animal took.  I have found that deer usually follow a fairly straight path for a good distance before deviating, which I have proven by following my line from The Tracker unit.  I like the idea of shooting a blunt or field point to the place where the animal was standing at the time of the hit, but I’m pretty much a ground blind hunter now.  That’s about the only way to get a very close shot on turkeys, especially wary spring gobblers.  So, when using The Tracker, I just have to follow the tracking line. By the way, I prefer using the heaviest line (30# test).  It seldom breaks.  Here’s one incident of mine:  Hit a nice spring gobbler a little too far back, penetrating the liver.  The bird flushed, went straight up and over the top of 50′ high trees, leveled off, and pulled out about 1,000 feet of tracking line in about 15 seconds.  It took a while to locate the white line over the top of the trees, plus the white color blended in with the color of the sky that day.  After a bit I was able to see the line laying in the spring  tree leaves, and followed it to a very dead turkey laying in a narrow opening on the ground with its wings outstretched like it had simply glided to the ground and hadn’t move a muscle, which was exactly what had happened.  The arrow was deep in the bird with the line attached.  That bird bled out internally while flying away, with no blood trail to follow.  The same is generally true for a bird that runs away after a hit…little blood.  This is why I always use The Tracker for any quarry, plus if I miss, I can retrieve my arrows.  I have also noted with my hunting clients at my north central Missouri farm…that even a decent hit often doesn’t leave as much blood as I think it should.  If I had a better nose that would help me too, but sadly I need to be very close to a dead deer before I can smell it.

[Roger Raisch]

#164587

By the way, lots of bear hunters use The Tracker unit, plus quite a few hog hunters too.  The environment both hunt in is usually a tangled mess, and the tracking line usually will slide through, leaving a good trail to follow.

[Raymond Coffman]

#164613

I normally  do the surveyors tape method ( policing it up when I am finished of course).

I mark my shooting pos with rock/stick etc. Start the tape where I hit the animal ( or as close as I can tell ) then put tape periodically along the track… Mostly… that has worked pretty well.  Always willing to look at new methods / ideas / gear ….the tracker unit sounds interesting. I’ll check it out …

Scout aka Ray

[richard roop]

#164621

Unless there’s snow on the ground I’ve been leaning toward Kleenex instead of tape. Multi-use; tracking, toilette paper, rub a little candle wax on it for fire starter, clean my glasses & blow my nose.  Kleenex  makes a sorta wound dressing with a bit of duct tape, although the nurse at the clinic won’t be too happy when it comes time to change the ‘bandage’.  Plus it’s bio-degradable if I do miss picking some of it up when the trailing’s done.

Since I’m primarily a still hunt / spot & stalk or a varmint caller I haven’t used a tracker since the bait / bear hunts.  When I was setting up for that, though,  I had two spools. The ‘hunting’ spool that I tried once to make sure it was good to go and the ‘practice’ spool to adjust the mind to shooting something ‘different’.

And lastly;  Stephen ………………. Some friends & I have been trying to figure out what the arrows are sticking into on the cover of The Long Fix. We’ve narrowed it down to a sycamore leaf, the souls of competitors who have shot against you or (my th0ught) a shirt tail from an old camp ritual where a missed shot resulted in a shirt tail being chopped off. Inquiring minds want to know ????

 

[Stephen Graf]

#164624

Thanks Richard, I had a good chuckle when I read your question😁

Firstly, I have lost at least one shirt tail in the manner you describe.  The one that comes to mind most quickly was lost in Newfoundland.  What a magical place.  I was hunting caribou and flubbed an easy shot.  I did finally kill a bull and am looking at him as I write this post.  But he is not the monster big bull that made me choke and shoot like a two year old with a suction cup arrow.  That shirt lived on as my lucky hunting shirt and was responsible (I am sure) for the many deer I killed while wearing it.  It has long since fallen apart with age and use and mysteriously disappeared from my drawer.  I guess my wife does have some minimal standards for what she will allow in the house, myself excluded.

Secondly, you are almost right about the “souls of competitors who have shot against me”.  They are crimson not because they were skewered by my fierce competition, but instead are so red from laughing at my ridiculous attempts to keep up on the score card.

And finally, I believe the leaf is from a red oak tree.  Red oaks stubbornly hold on to their leaves long into winter after the rest have shed their leaves and gone to sleep with the bears.  Occasionally you can find one of their shiny red leafs in late winter freshly dropped to the ground.  The one I found had a strong stem that stuck easily into the thick bark of the tree.

 

[Stephen Graf]

#164625

I use tissue (TP) for tracking too, for the many reason Richard mentions.   And sometimes for the purpose it was made for.  Survey tape doesn’t work for that💩

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