Blood trails and the missing airliner

[Mojostick]

This may seem like an odd analogy but it's really not.

One of the critical aspects of hunting that doesn't get near the "air time" is blood tracking Both blood tracking "do's and don'ts". TV shows rarely cover it, magazines rarely do articles teaching the finer aspects of blood tracking, even internet chat rooms don't touch on it that much.

Perhaps one reason is, while many hunters have lots of experience with everything before the shot, not nearly as many have vast experience after the shot. Meaning, if a hunter has only killed 10-20 deer in a lifetime or been on 10-20 track jobs, that really isn't that much experience for when the trail goes cold.

I've been lucky to be a part of a club where we've always had lots of deer and lots of deer hunters, as well as liberal tags. I've never counted the number of blood tracking "jobs" I've been on over the last 35-40 years (we always called them "tracking job", for some unknown reason), but it's over 500.

With all those track jobs, I thought that the missing airliner story was a lot like the needle in the haystack attempt of trying to find a dead deer once you're lost blood. Basically, it's nearly impossible without a line of clues.

Sure, some have stumbled on a dead deer if they leave last blood and go on a goose chase, but your odds crash to the low single digits, percentage wise, if all you do is walk in a grid of the suspected direction, without blood.

So for those reading that may not have lots of blood tracking experience, here's a few suggestions.

1. Make sure you have flagging tape. Toilet paper can blow away or become useless in the event of rain. You can go back and pull the flagging tape. Don't be afraid to tape every couple of feet, even if you can clearly see blood. You may have to come back and it may rain.

2. Keep the number of trackers low. Too many guys make noise and can jump wounded deer and too many boots can kick over leaves with blood. Also, with too many guys, someone is always jumping too far ahead of the last blood and you end up going too fast. That's leads up to #3.

3. Go slow. Then slow down some more.

4. This one is critical-if you lose blood, go back to last blood. Never give up on finding blood, even a speck, unless you're about ready to give up finding the deer. It may take 4-5 times of going to last blood to find either where the deer turned or finding the next drop. Without blood, you have no idea what direction the deer went, just like the investigators don't know if that airliner went down to the tip of South Africa or up towards Mount Everest. It could have crashed or it have landed at some airport in unfriendly land and is hidden in a terrorist controlled jumbo jet hanger. No clue.

5. If after dark, take several additional flashlights and leave them on the ground with 2 points of last blood. That creates a reference point of direction. Without it, it's really easy to get totally twisted around in the dark.

6. If you hit the deer too far back, you really should wait until the next morning, if an evening hit or at least give the deer 8 hours if a morning hit. If a liver or gut hit, you'll find the deer if you play it right and you won't find the deer if you play it wrong. In my opinion, hunters rushing a liver or gut hit is the main reason deer hunters lose otherwise recoverable deer. If you give the deer time to die with a liver or gut hit, it will likely go about 150 yards and lay down-and if you don't bother it, it'll die right there.

7. If you must look for deer hit too far back within 3-4 hours, due to rain or time limits, be as quiet as possible. If you find a spot where the deer laid down, a pool of blood but the deer isn't there, then you simply have to back out and leave. You jumped the deer, even if you didn't see or hear it, and all you'll do is jump it for a mile and lose blood as the deer will invariably bolt off in an odd direction. Walking deer are easier to blood track than one bounding off at high speed. Come back the next day or ask a friend to look the next day if you can't. That's another reason why ample flagging tape is good. Someone not on the original track job can come in and take over. Always pull the tape when all is said and done.

8. If you swear you double lunged the deer, but now you've gone 150-200 yards and still no dead deer, quietly back out and give it a few hours.

9. I like a mix of light. Lantern light is good, but it's also nice to have a big Q-beam type with an over the shoulder battery pack. You can use it only when needed and you'll get lots of life from the battery. The big light is nice when blood is temporarily lost.

10. Don't always look down. Often you'll find blood at waist level, on ferns, branches, saplings, etc.

Anyhow, these are just a few tips. But the mystery of the airliner and looking for a deer without blood is actually more similar than it may seem. The key is, if you lose blood, go back and find blood and go back again and again and again, if you must.

[Mojostick]

Another tip-in the excitement of finding a deer, many overlook the first thing to do. And that's tag the deer! Lots of guys give handshakes and high 5's, drag the deer out, throw it in the truck and drive down the road, all the while they simply forgot the tag the deer in the excitement.

It'd be a real shame to lose that deer at that point, if a CO stopped you and got you with an untagged deer.

So tag the deer before gutting or pictures.    

[Dave Bulla]

Good advice!

Funny, but I was telling people a week ago that I hoped the plane had not been hijacked and taken to some hangar size building where it could be refueled and packed to the gills with explosives.  They all thought I was nuts but now that is sounding like more and more of a possibility.  It would also explain why nobody in the terrorist community is claiming responsibility.  They simply are NOT DONE YET.  So far, they've only "stolen the car", they have not yet "taken a joy ride".  Hope like heck it gets found before they have the chance.

One tip I'll add, if blood simply stops, continue first in the general direction looking for more but if you continue to come up empty, be sure to consider that the deer made an abrupt turn or doubled back even.  Take into account obstacles like hills, fences, ditches etc.  A deer that avoids them is likely weak.  One that ignores them is strong with the exception of one that is mortally wounded and on a blind "death run" with no attention to exactly where it is going other than "away" from the area.  Those don't usually get very far anyway.

Oh, and a second one now that I'm thinking...
After the shot, always mark both the last place you saw the deer and the last place/direction you heard it.  I once found a doe by going back to where I was at the shot then taking a compass heading on the direction I last heard brush popping and walked straight to her through some really thick, nasty brush.  Might have been luck but it was the plan and it worked.

[ChuckC]

Awesome, thank you

If you don't see it go down, or hear it go down.  Wait for a while.  Let the wound do its work.

As well stated above, most animals will run away from the danger until they feel safe (often the first heavy cover) and then they stop to see if something is after them.  If you aren't, they likely stand and tend to the wound or lay down to bed and that may be where you find them, if given enough time.

Yup.  Good job
ChuckC

[bofish-IL]

I also like to check the shot sight for clues before tracking. Like white hair for a low exit wound or the arrow it self to prove the arrow passed through or is still in the deer.

Don't be afraid to get on your knees it is amazing the small blood specks you can find by being on your knees from poor blood trails.  

I like to take a compass reading from the stand to a tree the deer ran by as it ran off before ever climbing down.. Once you get down from the tree it is hard to pick the same tree especially on poor blood sign trail.

I gave up one year after losing a blood trail and started circling around looking for any sign. The trail ended near a small patch of head high briars and tall grass. I looked all around this area that day and the next, even called a friend to help but finally gave up. Later that fall after the vegetation died off I shot another buck that I trailed to the same area.  As I bent down to drag this deer out I spotted the first deer skeleton. It had crawled into a small depression and the grass and briars had wound together making like a small tunnel. We had walked past this deer a half dozen times.

Here is how a friend found his deer this hole was under a brush pile.

 

[Jayrod]

Amazing how things can go so wrong...very good input fellas it's easy to screw up the show if ya don't know what your doing!

[jt85]

Thanks for the tips mojostick, it really helps guys like me with little experience to get advice from those with more experience.

[Jake Scott]

Great thread, Mojostick.  Very informative.

Jake

[Mojostick]

Keep in mind, most blood trails aren't perfect where you can just walk with it and there's blood everywhere, like in some type of horror movie. Nor is the ground itself ever perfect, with a bed of thick oak leaves that makes finding blood easy. If you get a double lung hit with passthru on uniform leaves, then you can get those super blood trails. But often, deer cross a plowed field, grassy openings, cut corn, pine needle understory, fresh maple leaf fall where there's red splotches everywhere, etc.

More often, blood can go in spurts, starts and stops. Lots of shots are perfectly fatal, but they can be quartered away, which is a fantastic shot, but often will result in a one lung/liver hit. Again, that's a dream shot, but it doesn't always result in either a passthru and certainly not necessarily a deer dropping in sight.

In my memory, I can think of one blood trail that would be learning experiences for anyone.

We started muzzleloader hunting at our club back when very few others did, since before I could even hunt, in the 1970's. Around 1980-82, I shot a buck with a .54 ball at about 40 yards, with a foot of snow on the ground. After the smoke cleared, I went to the spot where the buck stood and I found like 3 stands of hair on the top of snow and I could see where the ball hit the snow on the hilltop behind the deer. There was no blood, not even a spray or speck on the snow. I walked his bounding off tracks for maybe 20 yards and there was not a speck of blood on the snow along the way, nothing, so I left and went back to camp. When I told my dad back at camp, he said "if there's hair, you hit it". So we went back and sure enough, at about 30 yards, and the deer was making huge bounds, we found a drop of blood. By 40 yards it opened to buckets of blood and at about 100 yards, my dad points and says "there's your buck!". I had hit that deer in the lungs. Being inexperienced, I walked away from that deer and figured I must have grazed it. It took someone experienced to know better.

From all my years working retail in sport shops, I've heard so many stories that were based on hunter error that it's kind of sad. From guys hitting deer with big rifles and the deer kicked who wrongly concluded they must have grazed the belly hair to bowhunters rushing a liver hit and "jumped him all night and lost blood after a mile" that you just want to help guys from not screwing things up.

If one hits a deer with a firearm and it either kicks or is knocked over, flops around and gets up and runs off, that deer wasn't grazed. Sadly, lots of those deer never get retrieved. A gut hit with a rifle, while certainly not desired, should end with a deer hanging on the pole. The same with an arrow hit deer in the organs. While a high shoulder or brisket hit with an arrow is typically survivable, a liver or gut hit with an arrow is not. How one plays that hit determines if they find the deer or not.

Good luck to all!

[Gator1]

Great thread and excellent things to focus on...

   

[Archie]

This kind of stuff us what makes Tradgang a priceless resource.  Thanks for posting.

[olddogrib]

Good advice.  I've always been a fan of white gas lanterns, but even an "olddogrib" can learn a new trick now and then. The current class of compact LED flashlights is truly amazing and IMHO puts incandescent and white gas/propane lanterns to shame. If you have to leave and come back my all means bring an armada of lights of your choosing, but I've found it critical to be able to flag that first spot of blood before leaving, because when you come back it will be totally dark...nothing will look the same and your mind will play tricks on you. My LED and extra CR123's are always with me when I hunt and I no longer forgo that last 45 mins. of prime time. Do a search for Kentucky TJ's posts on them from this past fall.  
P.S I've stepped in hornets nests at night and had them tear my tail up following my lantern like a beacon through the woods with me screaming like a girl. At least you can throw a flashlight without setting the woods on fire, lol!

[Hummer3T]

I was called to help a friend track a deer he shot late in the day and lost, I followed the trail for several km (almost on my knees, lost many times, but was able to relocate) except for the last time, track, blood every thing was gone.  I circled and finally figured it out, two tire tracks 3 feet on each side of the last deer sign.

mystery?

[Overspined]

Good post, Bob. Gut hits are the worst.  

From what I've seen, if that deer isn't put down and cleaned out within a reasonable amount of time, the whole deer is inedible. When left to die in their beds, they will die and you'll find them in the morning, but I haven't seen one yet that is edible.

They permeate with the smell of guts. If they happened to die from a gut shot, I've found deer friends have shot within a few hours and they were still good.  I think if they are alive for a while it's bad, and when left dead too long after a gut shot it's bad too.

Just my experience.

[kbetts]

Glow sticks.  After this year, I'll always have them.  You can mark your ditch crossings, last blood, anything.  Most have a hanger for branches and you can see them from a long way away.

[SuperK]

Good stuff there Mojo...I like to carry 3 to 4 chemlights in my pack.  I use them to mark last blood and/or to find my way out.  They will last   8 or more hours, are cheap and you can hang them high on a limb so they are easy to see for a long ways.  You can also leave them out over night if you have to come back the next day to resume tracking and they will normally be bright enough to see them.

[Owlgrowler]

Lot of good stuff here, I have some input I'd like to add.

Most deer I've tracked establish a line of travel when wounded and pretty much stay the course. If they go to an open field of low grass don't bother trying to find blood it in. Look across for an opening/exit and look there for the next blood. If it's not there look for other exits close by until you're back at last blood. Sometimes, especially if it's daylight they won't cross an open space and that's where they'll do a 90 degree turn.

In my experience gut or liver shot deer most times stop and lay down much closer than 150 yards, sometimes 50 feet or closer. If you can stay with them without them detecting you stay there for hours if possible. Then the challenge is getting out without them knowing. I think there's about a 4 hour period, maybe more, after the shot when it is imperative that you don't jump or spook them, because if you do I think they get a shot of adrenaline and then it's good by because they will just go and go and go...A lot of times to water. Found more than one in ponds and streams.

[Thumper Dunker]

Real good stuff.        Also Deer and other game can go long distances real quick.

[JamesV]

Once found a gut shot deer by following a opossum, he was on the trail and led us to the deer. Also if you are loosing you blood trail in warm weather, look for daddy longleg spiders, they will eat your blood trail.

[BowsnLabs]

I was enjoying this thread until James' post mentioned spiders haha - I hate spiders!  Especially those big brown tree spiders down South that wrap around your face in the dark!  Unfortunately, bow hunting in warm weather down south it's hard to keep em off you.  When I lived in NC, it was always a little unsettling waiting in the stand for first light so I could see what I collected on my bow and hat walking in.  Not much of an issue during mid-late bow season in MN...but then there is the cold...