Originally Posted by
Valentine
Maybe I look at it differently. I was spoiled by rifle hunting. Great shots; well aimed in specific area; deer dropped on the spot and no tracking.
Got into archery due to the long season in this one state, and I KNEW the old ways were gone. I would have to really learn to track. I was going to have to do it, and pay the price. And perhaps different than many, I don't depend on blood trails entirely. Sometimes not at all.
I take a compass reading of the deer direction from the stand. I'll move out on the specific reading, looking to the left and right on the ground. Looking for blood, but also looking for the easier sighting - the deer laying dead on the ground. My first pass is tighter on my compass read and I look for 100 yards. Then I move back to the tree stand and do a wider search of the compass reading. I work on the probable. If the deer runs off in a specific direction, You'll probably find him in that direction, or close to it.
If you make a good shot, why shouldn't the deer be laying within 100 yards in the direction it went. I just make sure I'm heading in the same direction, by compass reading, at 25, 50, 75, 100 yards.
The last deer I didn't see any blood. It was so thick I moved off the track and then got back on. Took a compass reading, not seeing the tree stand, some 50 yards away, I moved a few yards and found the dead deer laying near to the original compass reading in some very heavy cover. I was glad I played deer tracker and not 'ol Indian blood tracker.
If all of that work's for you then good, but I have had many deer circle back around. In fact I don't know if I have ever had one run in a straight line. I agree a lot of factors play into tracking deer but you must find blood, blood is the key to all of it. I follow four simple things, time of shot, the temp, blood and water. I make sure I give the animal enough time to expire, if its warm out I try to get on it ASAP without thinking the deer is still alive. I see if the blood is full of bubbles, what color the blood is, is it light, dark, green. Water is big because the deer's core temp is high because of internal bleeding, its the deer natural instinct to go to water to cool down. I find a lot of dead deer when I trap, or hunt ducks and geese by streams, ponds or lakes.