ORIGINAL: dragonslayer1
You got it, MJ. Here in North Florida in bow season you'd better be on the blood trail pretty quick. Our woods are absolutely infested with bears and it is rare that a dead deer will make it 'till morning without being devoured. If it does, there's a good chance it will be bloated and spoiled. I even had a grey fox eat a large portion of a ham off a deer I didn't find until a couple hours after dark, would've thought it was a 'yote if I hadn't seen him. Anybody else ever had a fox eat part of a deer?
Like I mentioned with the coyotes, be it them, bears, or other predators, personally I'd stay in the woods and listen. Of course tracking in extreme heat, you still have sometime before the meat would spoil. I'd wait as long as possible on the marginal hits. Better to recover then to never know. If you push and animal that is not going to bleed out, ie gut shot, you won't get them anyway. Which is worst, never getting an animal or finding one you cannot use? Knowing or not knowing?