ORIGINAL: GMMAT
Anyone here have any funny things they always do or avoid when blood trailing? This is the one aspect of deer hunting....that when I started....I could never have imagined would be so chock full of emotion. The highs and lows along the trail are part of it.....and I love this apsect of the hunt.
A good majority of my kills have been in the evening.....with night tracking jobs. I've got an "unknown" out there....that I'm not proud of. I don't know whether that deer lived or died at my hands. So I ALWAYS have that fear in the back of my mind.....or RESPECT for the task at hand.
There's one thing I try not to do.....and that's shine my light out way ahead to see if I see the deer. Paranoia? ....lol...probably. But, TO ME, it seems like bad luck. I try to stick to the blood trail and follow what I have to the prize.
I also don't like skipping ahead to where I "think" the deer was headed to try and pick up the blood trail, there. I go to the POI and try to keep to the basics.
These are things I've "acquired" after learning the hard way not to get ahead of myself. It's also why I love blood trailing deer.
Jeff I think you've posted up a good one here.
There was a thread not terribly long ago about what you did best as a hunter.. be it the hunt itself or playing guide etc and so forth. My personal niche is blood trailing/recovering shot game.
I have a few tips I can share, but I also have a few general rules that I follow:
Rules:
1) Too many people on a blood trail nets you a much bigger penalty than too many players on a football field. Instead of losing ten yards, you'll often lose the deer (thats become a rule not an exception).
2) Always!.... mark last blood. Leave your flagging tape, toilet paper etc etc in place and follow that trail on the way back out. Collect your flagging as you go out.
3) NEVER EVER EVER EVER skip ahead because you lose blood. Treat the blood trail like a crime scene... disturb nothing!
TIPS:
Patience is the key here. If the deer is dead, it will still be dead thirty minutes or four hoursfrom now. However, if you rush on the trail and overshoot a turn, then you can end up lost and spend a lot of time trying to find your blood trail again.
Use lots of lights. I keep a Coleman lantern in my truck and use two Surefires in addition to a headlamp.
Sometimes you have to guess. Its sad but true.. however, if you use logic it isn't necessarily a guess. Think about where the deer may be headed. Look for other signs... tracks or scuffed tracks... messed up leaves or pine needles. Try and think like a deer. African trackerscall this "bringing the ground up," if you seriously trust yourself, and try and think about where the deer went... you will often suprise yourself at how seldom you are ever wrong.
Don't forget to look ABOVE the ground! Especially in thick cover! Lots of times blood spoor will be left on vegetation that is waste high to a human... be sure to look for it.
As Jeff said.... focus on the task at hand... don't go storming down the trail because you found a bit of blood.... I usually track on my hands and knees and it might take me 45 minutes to follow a simple double lung passthrough blowing out both sides 80 yards... but as I wrote a few paragraphs ago... the deer is going to be as dead in 45 minutes as it is now. There is no point in rushing and possibly losing the trail. Often, I don't find a deer until its damn near in biting range of me and it usually frightens me because I'm practically next to it by the time I see it. I don't tend to look more than about 10 yards down the trail.... not on deer anyway. If I think the deer has the possibility of still being alive... (this does not pertain to bowhunting by the way.....) I'll have a shotgun toting individual just behind me... and his job is to look ahead and follow me.
The key is patience, patience and more patience.