.45 Cal Blood Trail

[Loyalist Dave]

In all my years of hunting, I have learned not to depend on blood trails. With muzzle loaders and bows, I watch and listen after the shot. I do not go after a deer, unless I know exactly where I hit it, until I give it at least 30 min. to an hour. A lot of hits in the shoulder, just don't leave much of a blood trail. Chasing after a deer, accomplishes nothing, except spooking it. Most deer will lay down within 60 to 80 yards, if not pursued. The main thing to know, is which direction, and in most cases it will be to thick cover and down hill. If thick cover is 200 yards away, and they can make it, that's where they are headed. If you make a good hit,(lung,vital) then a 60 to 80 yard area, should be about as far as they can go. A blood trail is handy, but I've learned not to count on it.

This has been my experience, completely. In fact on at least two times I did not see a blood trail though I found the deer, and then back tracked by following the blood trail back to the point where the deer was hit... to learn about what the deer was doing. The trail was obvious then, not so when I went looking..., because I hadn't learned enough yet.

Many folks who have trouble finding blood trails don't know where to look.. me too at first. Blasting both lungs and the deer may cough or bleed "high"... folks looking on the ground can go right by lots of blood by looking only at the ground. I've seen blood 2' off the ground on a tree or bush, when there was little to find on the actual ground.

nchawkeye Said:

A well hit deer doesn't travel a mile......

I beg to differ. That's a absolute statement that in my opinion, simply is not true.

Except that in the examples that you cite, the deer wasn't "well hit" in my opinion. In my opinion you get both lungs, not the heart, and that's well hit. The farthest that I have had a deer go when this was done was just over 60 yards..., and that's happened only once... normally they are less than 50 yards away and some I could see when I stood at the point where they were hit. I leave a piece of blaze orange overhead where I was when I shot, and then go to the spot where the deer was standing. I'm not always accurate on how far away the deer was standing in the brush, and being off by five yards is 15 feet... you can miss stuff being that far off the "trail". Marking where I was allows me to look back and to check my position compared to where I thought the deer stood. Sometimes it's more a problem of spotting where the deer actually stood than finding the blood trail.

Sometimes you can hear them crash when they "pile up" in the woods. I've noticed that a buck hit goes farther than a doe. I've also tracked deer that were mortally wounded but not in both lungs , though in one case the heart was hit without any damage to the lungs... tracked for more than 100 yards. The worst case was one where my buddy hit only the heart... amazing what a damaged heart but good lungs can do for a deer and how far they can go... especially when you go after them right after making the shot! As the first quote says I wait 30 minutes... about the time it takes to fill, light, and smoke my clay pipe.

LD

 

[S.Kenton]

I was almost ready to chime in....then read your post Loyalist Dave...and your 100 percent correct. A well placed bullet or arrow should take out both lungs...or the heart, that animal should then live long enough to cover no more that 100 to 150 yards. End of story.... Shot placement is key.

 

[nchawkeye]

Maybe I should have said, I've never had a deer go a mile...In fact, I've seldom had one go over 100 yards, most pile up between 20-60 yards if they don't drop at the shot...

I've only killed 300 or so, hope to never find this Bermuda Triangle you speak of...

 

[don hepler]

You make a very good point. If a hunter would walk back from where a deer is found, to where it was shot, they would be surprised at what all they missed. Like you say, not only on the ground, but up on the vegetation. A hunter gets anxious, and begins to have doubt. If your shot was at 60 yards, and the deer went 80 yards, that's 140 yards from where you shot, and that can feel like a mile, when you're searching.

 

[Wes/Tex]

I'm with Dave and have mentioned before that the wonderful old gentleman, a running buddy of my uncle, used the example he followed. basically, get a good hit and then sit down and roll up a Bugler cigarette and smoke it. Only then did he begin to trail. His comment was that they will usually "sicken", his term, and lay down to "rest". His comment was that they seldom get up again. Hey, it worked for him and for me as well. Sometimes simple is best!

 

[Patocazador]

What do Bugler cigarettes taste like? :haha:

 

[Roguedog]

Tobacco :grin:

Jeff

 

[Sean Gadhar]

Years back an old friend taught me to keep toilet paper in my hunting coat. When blood tracking I tear small thumb size pieces and put one at each drop. When they are several feet or yards apart you can look behind you and get a d better direction of where to look for the next drop sometimes. When it gets dark down here using a flash light loog for daddy long legs spiders tiny red eyes.they will gather on and feed on the blood. These new lights will make the blood drops stand out. Too many are lost because people give up. Often they are not that far from it. The blood can tell you about how the deer is hit. Lungs usually produce a lighter more frothy drop than stomach gut shots. They are usually darker and sometimes have stuff from the guts. Gut shots I will usually sit down and wait another 30 minutes or follow slowly. A gut shot deer can do some traveling when pushed. Finding it bedded down and being able to finish it is better than pushing and losing. Murphy's law says it will be in the worst place it can find.

:thumbsup:

I have a roll of flagging tape sticking out a small hole in my pack, 1st I mark where I shot from, then along the trail. I try not to walk on the track, but walk 2-3 feet to the up hill side if I can. I think I'd grade my tracking as C-, so I'm shocked how often I'm the top of the tracking curve in camp :shocked2:

IMO to many hunters become fixated on "looking for blood" and WAY to many walk on the last sign before they see the next.
Now every hunt is deferent and terrain, weather, foliage means that I would be a fool to judge any one hunt without being there. So, generally I think a more overall look at/for sign, with blood being an added bonus would bring more deer home.

We all want that "garden hose" spray that you can fallow drunk, but even with no blood there is sign.

Smell- I can smell blood (not one drop but say the blood at the death bed) at about 12-15 yards sometimes a lot more.

The run you did see- did it start and then turn down hill right away, favor a leg (what leg?)

Others in the herd- If you shot one of a herd how many were in the herd? If you shot one of five & you see four looking back at a thicket not wanting to go on. . . you might want to remember that thicket.

I'm sure many of you could track rings around me, and might need to if this western boy got lost in you thick eastern woods :shocked2:

But I think some of us forget blood trail is not the end-all to tracking. :2

 

[theoldredneck]

We rolled and smoked it as kids and young adults years ago. Stronger than unfiltered camels, after not smoking for over 40 years one would probably make me sick, lay down, and beg to be shot if I could get enough air in my lungs to speak.

 

[theoldredneck]

I'm still learning and agree with what you say. Reminds me of something an old man said years ago about taking note of both what you see and don't see. Being in a hurry blinds you to things you see when you take time to look ahead and behind you. What you say about smell is also good.

 

[azmntman]

Killed alot of elk and many deer. Never lost one with BP (one with .243). I once was with an ol Kentucky tracker who helped me recover a gut shot buck. Tracked to end of sign. waited 30 min, started circling the direction we thought he went and bumped him. over and over. lil blood each time he got up. Long story short per gps he went 4.9 miles and laid up in a gully (150 yds wide) where he could watch. Had to sneak up behind him and finish him off running. 7 hrs but no lost wounded deer. Never give up! and dont shoot trottin deer, I aimed at neck and hit guts, should have aimed t nose.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I don't shoot at trotting deer, as I don't have the skill. Walking... ok, but not any faster.

The local "outdoors" writer where I live recounted his missing a deer last weekend with his flintlock. I think he was using "artistic license" to illustrate that hunting is successful even when you "miss".

I think he hit the deer, but from his account, he scrambled out of his tree stand immediately, then went to where the deer had been standing, and didn't see any blood, so concluded it was a miss. So he went home.



He probably left a fresh carcass about 50 yards away from where he hit the deer, and left it to rot because of his ignorance. :shake:

LD

 

[Spikebuck]

I may have posted before about this book, but IMO, the very best book ever written on finding wounded deer (and imagine most big game would be similar) is by John Trout, Jr. It used to be called Trailing Wounded Whitetails, but appears the new version is Finding Wounded Deer. Anyone wishing to learn something new would certainly find it here.

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Wounded-Deer-Comprehensive-Tracking/dp/1616088362/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1

Overall, not giving up and being patient is the biggest asset any tracker can have. Won't go into all the details :redface: but I once hit a deer across the front of one back leg below the knee with one blade of a broadhead. No "penetration", just a little slice. Hit the tibial artery. Now, for 100 yards I had a blood trail that would rival a lung shot. The next mile + was extremely difficult with only tiny flecks here and there. The tactics and techniques I learned in this book, and the help of my best tracking partner ever, my wife, is what got me my buck early the next morning...dead when I found it. I remember showing my Mom and Dad the deer and they said, "So where else did you hit it?"

 

[stinkyfeet]

I shot a buck the other day at 70 yards and it was perfect tight to the shoulder and mid body nice double lunger, solid blood trail and went 20 yards and dropped. Using 70 grains of 3f and prb out of a pedersoli frontier flinter

 

[Wes/Tex]

He probably left a fresh carcass about 50 yards away from where he hit the deer, and left it to rot because of his ignorance. LD

Sadly, this is an old and often repeated story. The worse case I ever encountered was a guy who shot at three consecutive deer during a morning because when he shot and they didn't fall, he "knew" he'd missed and waited for the next. We finally took the gun away from him and tracked down all three over a day and a half! It was hard work and convinced the land owner to quit allowing muzzleloading hunting on his property. He was convinced deer couldn't be humanely taken with a gun using black powder, all because of an idiot!

 

[mike garner]

i grew up here in sc, with the long season we have, we have a lot of chance to trail shot deer. i have killed seven so far this year and will most likley kill a few more before it's over. there has been a lot of good advice given. the truth is if a deer is hit right, through both lungs or heart shot, the caliber is not going to matter much. waiting time want matter either, if a deer is hit like that they will be dead before you get to the spot were they were hit. they will be down in a matter of 8-10 good jumps, about 60yds or so. if hit wrong then you need to wait and have a good trail dog.

 

[AK in PA]

Of the 1/2 dozen deer I've killed with a .45 and patched round ball, only one ran out of sight. There was no blood trail to be found with that one, but it didn't go far enough to matter. I walked right up to all the rest. I backtrailed a couple out of curiosity and did find reasonable blood trails with those. Twice I recall being able to actually see blood sloshing out of the deer's chest, as each ran off. In any case, I haven't needed a blood trail. They all seem to make their 100 yard dash and slide into home plate.

 

[Roguedog]

Tracking is something that I want to get better at. I too have shot deer that didn't leave a very heavy blood trail. I think sometimes I am too dependent on the blood trail. Tracking is just another of those outdoor skills that I can have fun practicing and getting better at. The main thing is that I see a need for improvement in that area and as others have said, patience is a virtue!

Jeff

 

[mike garner]

if there is no blood to follow down the trail remember, a deer want just run random through the woods, they will follow a trail. when you are trailing down the path go very slow, look for minute drops of blood, broken twigs and any disturbed leaves. if you do find a clear trail keep noticing if the deer starts turning left or right, most of the time when a deer is ready to die they will make a turn off the trail. if you know you made a good shot in the kill zone and you can't find a clear path or trail where the deer ran then start to walk in a small diameter in the direction where the deer ran making a larger circle with each pass, you should soon find him. and remember most deer are just yards or feet from where you stop looking.

 

[hanshi]

The last deer, a nice 8pt, I killed with my .45 and a prb was hit from behind for a quartering shot. He ran and I noticed him staggering as he did so. About 20 yards from where he was shot a heavy blood trail began. There was also waist high blood on trees and brush. He made a run of about 75 yards but his path curved putting him only about 50 yards from me as the crow flies. I recovered the flattened ball from underneath the skin on the off side.