Buck wounded, resuming track in the morning
Ok here it goes...long story:
So I shot a nice 8-10 pointer this afternoon. We were both in waste high grass and I bumped him from his bed. He ran away from me about 40 yards then stopped and turned broadside to me just past the top of a ridge (I could only see his head and back due to the grass & ridge). I had to take the shot standing, at about 75 yards. I heard the bullet impact his body (never had that happen before, definite clap/thud) and he dropped where he stood. The way he went down I figured he was done immediately. So after 5-10 minutes of chatting with my brother on the phone I see movement in the grass about 75 yards from where I dropped him. Its a buck and he looks real similar to the one I just shot, but as I observed him he didn't act wounded, he was just slowly walking like a normal deer. Well I watched him do a big loop and go into the trees in the property corner. As he entered the trees I noticed him stumble forward like he was going down but kept going and lost him in the trees. So I decided to try to find the exact spot where I first shot him and hope he's laying there and that was a different deer. No such luck, found lots of bright red blood where I knocked him down but that was definitely him walking around. So I waited an hour and headed for the corner trees where I last saw him. When I got in the trees he spooked up ran over the property fence and I watched him disappear in the trees on property we don't have access too.
Well I had a friendly chat with the owner and he has been gracious enough to give me permission to persue it. But I decided to wait till the morning. I don't know much about the lay of his land and I didn't want to keep bumping this buck. So my father and I will head back out in the morning about 10:00 and hope we can find him. I know the exact spot where I last saw him so hopefully we can find a blood trail. Coyotes all over out there so hopefully they don't find him first.
I've never had a deer drop like that and get back up and walk off. Any tracking recommendations? I'm usually pretty good at spotting the tiniest specks of blood, but anything that might help would be greatly appreciated