Blood trail

[maddawg]

#3553

Need a little advice shot a nice 6 point at 2 pm, complete pass thru. Dark red blood, waited a half a hour. Rain and coyotes are a strong possibility. Started trailing and noticed that the only time I had blood was when he stopped to rest. Marked the area and with cool temperatures expected left. Tracked for three hours with no signs, rain did not come as expected. What could I have done better in this situation?

[Doc Nock]

#21246

Cant tell where you’re from… and area conditions can be important.

Dark red sounds like gut or muscle. Gut can be fatal but takes many hours to bleed out internally…5 + from some accounts, over-night if cool enough…

Finding an animal wounded like that would be paramount to me and days would be spent if required. Grid search, watch for buzzards, etc.

If you move a gutshot animal from it’s 1st bed, it can go for a long, long way…

I like to spray cap my arrows to help me see where it hits… that can dictate a lot of things in the recovery.

Grid search. Bedding areas. Water. All can be areas a wounded animal might go to lay up in security.

Muscle wounds…some heal, some don’t. Good luck if you continue the pursuit!

[David Petersen]

#21285

Did you wait a while before starting after it? The less lethal a hit (dark red blood can also be liver, fatal but slow), the longer we should wait. I’d take Doc’s advice, get a friend or two, maybe a dog, and either grid search or make widening circles. If it’s cool the meat should be OK until morning. Good luck ..

[jason samkowiak]

#21317

Use a GPS with the tracks or bread crumb trail feature in your grid search. This way you will know any areas you missed or skipped and can go back and check those better. A gps is one of the best grid search tools you can have IMO.

I wish you the best in trying to recover it.

[Doc Nock]

#21332

I’m hardly an expert at any of this stuff…but like most of us, it’s a darkly dreaded fear I have, so I read all I can and listen to others…. what I shared is simply advice gleaned over many years of listening and reading.

I once crawled on my hands and knees for a mile or more following leaf scuffs…when they get in with other deer, it makes it ridiculously hard…but if one then veers off, down hill, or toward water, it’s a good one to give a bit more attention… flagging allows one to gather direction of travel… but now you’ve limited options outside a grid search… and them buggars can hide in the simplest patch…witnessed to the grass patch she hid in originally and allowed you to walk past…

I didn’t mention “liver” but consider it “gut” cause it still takes 2 hrs easy for them to die… don’t ask. Almost gave up hunting w/ a bow when I had a deflection shooting light arrows at higher speeds in the “SIN” days…

That deer lay down near me in view, but under a wad of serviceberry bushes I couldn’t shoot thru and the state line was only 100 yards off… took that deer 2.5 hrs to die… horrible thing to watch, but taught me more than all other kills!

I also gave up small heads, fast, light arrows and compounds! Went back to what was around when I started… shortened my range and started shooting HEAVY arrows…now focus on EFOC, but still won’t shoot far not for accuracy, but I can’t see tiny brush twigs that can deflect as happened then…one lone twig of green briar was “ticked” by my shaft and it hit behind the 11th rib and out behind the 5th, missing diaphragm and got liver… died within 10 yards of where hit… but it was NOT pretty!

BTW, there was NO blood on the ground where it lie for that 2.5 hrs! None! All inside! ugh! 🙁

[grumpy]

#21487

Wish you luck, Dude.

This is why I’m not hunting this year, don’t want to be in your shoes.

[Author]

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