After the shot: Tracking wounded deer.

[newtradgreenwood]

Listen after you shoot
Shoot another (field tip) arrow where you shot
Memorize for 5 min. where you last observed deer
Find the first arrow & observe
Use binos from stand after you shoot
Use binocs to look ahead when trailing
Use binocs for scanning if you loose the trail
Mark trail,really helps if you have to come back
Follow trail for practice if you see deer fall
Do not give up
Get good help
listen for bluejays, crows, other deer snorting
Check fences & creek crossing if you lose trail
Trail does as hard as you would a big buck

[newtradgreenwood]

Brian, great job & thanks for taking the time to write so much

[Michael Arnette]

Arrows can penetrate through the body cavity but bounce off of the opposite ribcage giving the appearance of poor penetration. I have never had it happen but have heard of it happening several times.

[mscampbell75]

WAIT!!
Even if you think you had a perfect shot.  Give the deer time to expire.  Great shot=30min,good shot=45-1hr, questionalbe shot=4-12hrs


GO SLOW!
On the blood trail.  Nothing worse than missing blood signs and trampling over it.


GET LOW!
If blood starts getting scarce.  Get on your hands and knees.

KNOW YOUR TERRAIN!
It helps.

[Maxflight]

Another good book that is loaded with good info is Tom Brown's "The Art of Tracking and Seeing"

[Mint]

I'll second the John trout book mentioned earlier. What it did for me is give me the confidence to know that a gut shot deer will be dead within 200 yards if not pushed. Also, you have to realize the sign is there but you might be missing it so keep looking until you find it. When hunting hogs in florida myself and my friends could not find which trail a hit hog went down. Well it was my hog so i got on my hands and knees and crawled on 4 different trails for 25 yards till i found a small smear of blood. I followed that trail and found the hog dead another 100 yards down the trail.

[Kip]

When hunting from a tree stand I shoot another arrow where the deer was standing even if close.Things change when you climb down and sometimes it helps if you find hair and you need to be right on top of the hit.Kip

[Michael Arnette]

I used to get stuck on going slow when I lost blood. Now I mark my last blood and range wide. If I find new sign well ahead. I leave my previous sign marked for reference. I have tracked deer that only left blood every 100 or so yards. That's a long way to crawl on your hands and knees.lol

[overbo]

Never leave your bloodtrail for someone else to follow

[Horne Shooter]

Last season I arrowed a big eight point.  I was on the ground and the shot was only about 12 yards.  I saw the arrow take him tight and low behind the shoulder.  I waited 30 minutes and walked to the last place I had seen him running.  Just as I got there, he got up and walked away at a quick pace.  I quietly took out some marking tape, marked the spot and (as slowly as possible) moved out.  I called a buddy who had a tracking dog and came back two hours later.  The buck had only gone about 40 more yards and bedded down.  He was still warm (but dead) when we found him.  The arrow shaft was still in the chest cavity and the broadhead was in the offside shoulder.  This deer lived close to two hours after being shot (based on the cold weather and that he was very warm when we found him).  I still don't understand how a shot placed where it was can allow a deer to live that long.  I learned a lesson that no matter how good you "think" your shot is.  Take nothing for granted and stay focused on your task.  If the deer gets up...back out and do it quietly.

[highPlains]

I don't think there is much more to add. I apologize if this has already been stated.

I have found that it is very important to visually mark where the last place was that you saw the animal.

Often times they don't bleed right away. Finding the first blood can sometimes be difficult ESPECIALLY if you don't remember exactly where it ran.

[hawkeye n pa]

If helping someone keep an open mind.  Have helped tracked alot of deer hit "right behind the shoulder".   We recovered one doe, after 4 or 5 hours of chasing that ended up being hit behind the ear.  And alot of paunch hits-  examine that arrow if at all possible or search for it before starting.

[ChuckC]

I try to teach. . .   if you don't see it or hear it go down, wait at least 30 minutes.

Take a compass reading on the direction it ran and memorize it or write it down.

If you believe you made a less than perfect hit ( to far back, bad sign like green etc)wait, then get your stuff quietly out of the woods and go somewhere else to think.  

Unless it is really scared, like, a bone was hit or broken, or a huge noise was made, a deer will likely run a distance,  around 100 yards in normal woods, then stop in a thick area and turn to watch its back trail.  If you are not following, or not jumping up and down and doing high fives with your camera man and telling how you "smoked " this one (  Sorry. .  back down off of my stump)it will likely bed down nearby.  Given enough time, it will expire there.

If scared, a deer is more likely to run  and run.

Heart shot deer often run hard till they drop,  and that could be several hundred yards.  How long does it take a deer to run several hundred yards ?   Not very.

A measuring stick oftens does help a lot.  I have been in places where they are not a lot of use, and others where without a doubt they can show you where to look for the next sign.

ChuckC

[Canyon]

All very good advice. My favorite is to mark all sign associated with the shot animal,tracks,blood. Parts of the trail in thick stuff where there is no doubt the animal had to pass get marked too. Then use my compass to check for a back azimuth on these marked flags to insure I maintain a general direction of travel.

As to waiting I generally follow the NBEF guidlines. However I  had some Coyotes steal a Bull Elk this year after I waited 2 hrs on a shot back a little and took a bit of work out. Nothing but rib cage with the only holes from my STOS head when I got there. Of course these Coyotes wore boots and rode in on ATV's

[Don Stokes]

I'm slightly red-green colorblind, so I had to learn to track by signs other than a few spots of blood. Unless the blood is just gushing, I have to rely on reading the sign and knowledge of deer habits to find my game. The best way to practice this (and it does take practice) is to go out soon after a good rain and follow whatever fresh tracks you can find. If you can jump a deer, even better, so you can learn what running tracks look like as compared to walking tracks, and how the leaves or grass look when freshly disturbed. When the ground cover starts to dry, fresh tracks will show wetness that gives them away as fresh.

The tip others have given about getting down to their level is very good advice. Many times you can judge their travel path by looking at what's ahead from their perspective.

Mortally wounded deer will rarely travel uphill if there's a choice, and if dogs are a factor in the area they will commonly find streams to walk in to hide their scent. Knowing this has helped me stay on the trail at times when I might otherwise have lost it.

[straitera]

Monster load of great experience here! Thanks. Imperative to mark your tracking trail. Generally, it will lead in a straight line away from the threat (shot). If blood sign thins, you'll have the line direction to guide.

Concentric circles is the only way I found my first bow kill, a 12-point mortally wounded buck. I waited 1 hour and found a huge blood pool where he lay down 85 yards from the shot. Didn't know deer had that much blood. Then nothing, not a drop, no direction, nada. Ever increasing circles discovered pin size red blood drops 30 yards from the pool. How did that happen? Hands & knees towards the deer another 127 yards away. About 50 yards away, the trail became explosive with heavy red blood on both sides. I shot him at 5:00PM and found him by Coleman lantern light at midnight deep in the woods.

[fishone]

All these items have been discussed but:

1. Shoot an arrow in the ground where the deer
  stood when the shot was taken. Things look
  different on the ground than in the stand.
2. Shoot bright fletching so you can tell where
  the arrow hit the deer.
3. Try to pay attention how the deer reacted when
  the arrow hit it and the direction the deer
  ran.
4. Take a compass reading from the tree, where you
  last seen the deer.
5. If the shot looks good, wait at least an hour,
  yes an hour to be on the safe side.
6. If the shot was questionable or you don't know
  where you hit the deer and the shot was in the
  evening, wait until the next morning to start
  tracking. You can see so much beter in the  
  daylight.
7. Use only two or three people to track. Too many
  people tracking that don't know what they are
  doing causes way too many problems.
8. Use toilet paper to mark the blood trail.
9. If you jump the injured deer out of a bed, back
  out quietly and give the deer another 6 hours.
10.Go "SLOW" when tracking the deer and be QUIET.
11.Use a "deer tracking" dog is you have access to
  one.
12.Most big bucks seriously hurt go to the
  thickest cover they can find.
13.Gut shot deer is a dead deer. They will not
  survive. If they hunch up when the arrow hits
  them they are gut shot!! They will normally go
  about 100 yds and lay down and there will not
  be any blood. Give the deer 12 hrs and you will
  find the deer dead where it layed down.

I have probably been on close to a 100 deer tracking events over the last 30 plus years. You learn from your mistakes. Alot of hunters don't know where they hit the deer or where it ran. We have had a wirehaired dashound (not mine) the last 2 yrs and she has found some deer we would have never found due to the lack of or no blood trail.

[hawkeye n pa]

I've also tracked to high lung hit bucks that went  straight for water crossed the creek and went up the steepest hill around.  First one we didn't find untill it was to late.  Mostly because of the saying deer run to water so we stayed on the  flats or looked down stream.  Did not make that mistake twice.

Also help track one old buck that was hit high that walk in the creek for a couple hundred yards before exiting. This was almost a "in town" buck.

[Dave Bulla]

One last thing.  When you are marking a trail that is in a reasonably straight line and seem to loose it, don't always expect that the deer continued in the direction it was going.  Often they will jun a "J" pattern right at the end.  Very often they will make the turn in the direction of the side they were shot on.  I had this explained by a horse trainer who said deer and horses are what are called "into pressure" reaction animals.  Supposedly it is from the days of attacks from animals such as big cats that would leap on the deer (or horse) from the side and embed their claws.  If the horse or deer were to pull away from the pressure of the bite or claws, it tears the flesh and causes further damage.  Therefore, they go into the pressure.  You can sometimes see this if you watch closely when the rodeo is on TV.  When a horse is all jammed up against one side of a stall you can't push him the other way but you will see a handler push from the side they want the horse to go and he moves into the pressure.  Seems weird but I asked my sister about it too because she trains horses also and she says it works.   Often you only need to push with one finger and the horse will react.  I expect that a dying deers last ditch effort to "escape" is to turn into the pressure provided the hit is such that he has time to think about it.

[DAGATOR]

Always have a "second chance" arrow ready. If a deer is hit and offers you a second shot...take it!
I took a 10 yard neck shot on a buck and knocked him down. [The buck was walking directly at me on the same path I took (smelling my foot prints)]. He rolled a few time trying to get to his feet. He remained 20 yards from me for about five miniutes then got up and jogged away. Lost him! I really think the shot knocked him out. The broadhead somehow slid between the skin and meat and lodged there not cutting anything vital. The buck was seen, at a close distance, a week later with a knot in his neck (healthy). Had I stuck him the second time he would be on my wall.

Also, I don't take neck shots anylonger.

I have another story of a lost deer that I could have stuck a second time...

Point is, keep slinging arrows if given the chance! This mental tip could save you a bad tracking adventure.

Clay