I agree entirely with MATT/PA. I don't know how many times I've come to the aid of others for a trailing job only to find they have NO clue as to where the deer ran. Then it's always.... over there(with a wave of their hand) or I think he went left of those three trees in that group or was it right? Usually you're lucky to drag out of them a North, East, South or West. I mark within a couple feet where they ran and closer if I can. Once I determine the exact last place I saw a deer... I try to keep it in view as I decend... because it doesn't look the same from the ground. A crooked limb from above may look almost straight from ground level. Even when a deer drops within site I track it out from the point of impact to the animal. It's really good practice as some of these shots can still leave very little blood. If someone else shoots a deer and are on it, when they're gutting I will track it out just for the fun of it.

Last year I helped a friend who had shot a deer with a bow. He said the last he saw of it it crossed into posted property. Rather than mess around with going to get permission we waited until dark, left our bows behind and went to look. Well, after I found nothing in the area he saw the deer I said we'll start from the stand and do it right. On the way back to the stand I was flashing the ground. I got 50 yards from the stand and hit a speck of blood. I said, well, I'll start from here. 20 yards later I found the deer still well inside our property lines. He should have seen it fall from the stand and we should have had it gutted an hour earlier. It never left our property. I had another with a young kid a few years back. It dropped 150 yards from the stand still in the open grassy field. The kid had me down in the woods 100 yards from the deer, where he thought it ran. He had called me to come and help since it was his first and I had set him up. The other problem he created was he called 4 of his friends while I was driving to his house. TOO many people tromping around is a NO NO. I finally had to hog tie them and give them a job. One, holding a light ... the other 4 dropping off on each spot of blood and leap frogging when I found the next. I didn't need them but it kept them out of the way and they thought they were helping. I found the deer balled up in waist high grass. I had the shooter on my hip pointing blood trailing and things out to him. We're 5 feet from the deer and he doesn't see the deer. So I concoct this elaborate story of how he rushed his tracking, pushed the deer, see where he was running here etc etc etc. I then told him your deer is GONE. His jaw dropped and with his head hung he ask,"Is he really gone". I said yup, he jumped here and when he got here he was "GONE", with that I put the light on the deer. The little guy went balistic. I made everyone else stay back for a minute while he looked his deer over and had sometime to himself. We critiqued the shot and exit holes. Then I let him strut and tell the story to his friends AGAIN. Kids are fun.





Edited by - shortdraw on 09/03/2002 13:12:39