One thing I'll note here is this. Being color blind, I have an extremely hard time seeing small amounts of blood on the ground. This fact has forced me to pay even more attention to the actual track/ sign a mortally hit deer will leave. Ruffled leaves, tracks in the dirt and other sign like hair or (heaven forbid) guts will lead you to your deer when the blood doesn't flow. This came in handy about 7 or 8 years back when I was on a muzzleloader hunt in north Missouri. The deer up there were heavily feeding on crops, corn and soybeans mostly, and had an absolute enormous amount of fat built up by early november. I shot a huge old doe at about 50 yards with a .45 caliber saboted slug. I knew I had a hit because it literally knocked on to herhaunches with the shot. To my dismay, she got to her feet and left with the herd of deer she was travelling with at the shot. I climbed down, fairly confident I'd find a ton of blood......nope. I called my buddy over and felt sure he could track her because he's found too many deer in the past to count. He couldn't find any either. After I assured him it was a hit, I started walking the way she left and reading the sign on the ground. About 100 yards from the shot, I spotted a couple of scuffed leaves and a dim down trodden path through theweeds where I suspected she had left the other deer. Sure enough about another 75 yards in to the weed patch we found her. The hit was double lung shot but high in the kill zone. I was amazed to find an absolutely HUGE puddle of blood under her where she lay, but we never found a single drop of blood along the trail. What I think happened was a combination of fat cloggingup the wound and her hair soaking most of what leaked out up. It was cold already and she had a thick winter coat. If I hadn't been sure of the hit and then trusted my ability to read regular deer sign, we'd have been hard pressed to find her.

Don't forget the "other" sign as well! Great thread!

GH