7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
08-19-2005, 11:51 PM
#11
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Upstate NY
Posts: 493
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
ORIGINAL: rtread
Scoobiedoo....thanks...good info! I did a search on John Trout Jr. and found a variety of subjects and books...do you happen to know name of book?
Scoobiedoo....thanks...good info! I did a search on John Trout Jr. and found a variety of subjects and books...do you happen to know name of book?
I think it was called 'Trailing Wounded Whitetails' or something like that. It had a tan cover with an autumn scene on it.
08-19-2005, 11:53 PM
#12
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Upstate NY
Posts: 493
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
ORIGINAL: sprintflyer
One of the, if not the most, important thing to tracking I have learned over the years is to walk next to but not in the blood trail. If you are off to the side and mark the last spot of blood with toilet paper (biodegradable) you can easly go back to the last spot you found blood. If you walk in the trail and don't mark it you may destroy the trail and lose the deer.
SF
One of the, if not the most, important thing to tracking I have learned over the years is to walk next to but not in the blood trail. If you are off to the side and mark the last spot of blood with toilet paper (biodegradable) you can easly go back to the last spot you found blood. If you walk in the trail and don't mark it you may destroy the trail and lose the deer.
SF
08-19-2005, 11:59 PM
#13
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Upstate NY
Posts: 493
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
ORIGINAL: Dairy King
I've been waiting for this to come up. I loved last years, I still remember most of it, but Im going to re-read this one. If it wasnt for this post, me and my cousin wouldn't have found one of his deer last year. It was a gut shot, and he only wanted to wait for an hour before going to find it, but I told him I think we should sleep on it. We found it the next morning. Thanks to you guys!
Thanks!
I've been waiting for this to come up. I loved last years, I still remember most of it, but Im going to re-read this one. If it wasnt for this post, me and my cousin wouldn't have found one of his deer last year. It was a gut shot, and he only wanted to wait for an hour before going to find it, but I told him I think we should sleep on it. We found it the next morning. Thanks to you guys!
Thanks!
08-20-2005, 12:14 AM
#14
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Upstate NY
Posts: 493
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
ORIGINAL: HNIJustin
Courtesy of "The Man" - Rob/PA Bowyer and edited by the HNI staff.
[ul][*]Use bright fletch. You need to be able to see your arrow in flight, in the animal, and on the ground afterward. Dark arrows don't do you any good if you can' t see them. If bright fletchings aren't enough, try using lighted arrow nocks for better visibility in low light conditions. [/ul]
[ol][*]Coyotes can and will give the location of your animal, if your worried about them, get down, listen for the them and move on them if you know they are on your animal. IF they are there, your animal won' t be so move on the coyotes and they may lead you to the animal.[/ol]
Courtesy of "The Man" - Rob/PA Bowyer and edited by the HNI staff.
[ul][*]Use bright fletch. You need to be able to see your arrow in flight, in the animal, and on the ground afterward. Dark arrows don't do you any good if you can' t see them. If bright fletchings aren't enough, try using lighted arrow nocks for better visibility in low light conditions. [/ul]
[ol][*]Coyotes can and will give the location of your animal, if your worried about them, get down, listen for the them and move on them if you know they are on your animal. IF they are there, your animal won' t be so move on the coyotes and they may lead you to the animal.[/ol]
GREAT post man! Right on!
1) Bright Fletch - this IS a biggie and often overlooked by many bowhunters. I shoot feathers because I shoot my bows off the shelf (yes, my compound bow too!) - and I use bright orange and white feathers. In G. Fred Asbell's book entitled 'Instinctive Shooting' he states that he uses 3 of the same colors on his arrows since having the cock feather (or vane) a diff color gives the arrow the appearance of not flying right. I don't seem to have any issues of such so I use 2 orange feathers and 1 white feather. I use Easton GameGetter shafts because I do not like camo shafts. Why? because I want to be able to SEE my arrow in flight and FIND my arrow after the shot! camo shafts make that very hard to do. I used to love the Easton XX75 Autumn Orange shafts when they were still available.
2) Coyotes - is I am worried about coyotes in my area (yea, we have 'em) - I'll simply leave something behind - such as a handkerchief or piece of clothing I can live w/o if taken by someone. I'll take this item and rub my face with it. If I have been sweating I'll mop up my perspiration with it in an effort to leave as much as MY scent as possible on this item so as to deter them from the site.
But, this is an excellent post by Rob/PA Bowyer!
08-20-2005, 05:46 AM
#15
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Oct 1998
Location: Hughesville, PA USA
Posts: 18,322
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
Scoobiedoo,
Thanks, I wrote this thread several years ago and I usually get requests to bring it back every year. I brought it back this year and what I didn't realize was HNI took my post and edited for better reading and HNIJustin reposted it and I am flattered. Everyone always adds great tips as well and if it aids someone to find their animal when they otherwise may have not, it's certainly worth it.
Other posts that we're waiting on are Matt's Quality Photo thread and Franks, Trophy Thread....these are annual thread that are always great....
Thanks, I wrote this thread several years ago and I usually get requests to bring it back every year. I brought it back this year and what I didn't realize was HNI took my post and edited for better reading and HNIJustin reposted it and I am flattered. Everyone always adds great tips as well and if it aids someone to find their animal when they otherwise may have not, it's certainly worth it.
Other posts that we're waiting on are Matt's Quality Photo thread and Franks, Trophy Thread....these are annual thread that are always great....
08-23-2005, 12:18 PM
#16
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location:
Posts: 97
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
About 5 years ago I shot a doe at about 15 yards. I was about 2-3 inches further back than I expected. It was a clean pass through. The deer walked about 10 yards into some brush and I watched as about another 15 deer came to the same water hole. The deer stood there for 18 minutes until its head started bobbing and down it went. Right there. If that deer would have gone 75 yards away and I would have purused quickly I am sure it would have run off and who knows. I also think all of the other deer hanging around the staging area kept the deer in place.
08-23-2005, 04:44 PM
#17
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 140
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
Thanks again for this thread. I read it and re-read it last year. This is what helped me to recover a nice 8 pt that my father had shot with his crossbow. It wasthe first deer he ever shot with a crossbow. Not a very good shot, but a very good lesson learned. #1 just because the poundage is high doesn't mean it has the knock down power of a rifle.[:-] #2 don't give up. There were also lots of great tracking tips. Thanks again everyone for sharing such great information!
08-29-2005, 02:40 PM
#19
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location:
Posts: 81
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
These are the kind of tips that make me glad I found this forum. I have few hunter friends, and no family that are interested in hunting. As a result I always hunt alone. And being from NYC not too many people I know have hundreds of acres of land for me to hunt. Needless to say I have to learn things on my own.Sometimes painfully
My last deer was shot a few inches back and bolted right into the thickest tangle of brush I have ever seen. Cedars, briars and thickets in an ungodly tangle. I needed one hand to peel the thorns from my face and clothing and the other hand to cut the branches with my clippers, progress was slow. Now I did initially wait 40-45 min and I thought that was enough. Wrong! I traveled 50 yards on a good blood trail when she upped and ran. Stupid me...Kept going and found her bloody bed. Now is when the light should have went on ...but it diddent. Kept going.....slowly...I went from spurts of blood, to spatters of blood, then drops of blood and even to specks of blood. Eventually, and 4.5 hours later I confess that after being bruised, scarred and now loosing more of my own blood than I was finding of hers I left the trail. I started walking back to the truck when I got a burst of determination (I have a lot of those) So I followed my GPS right back to the spot where I left the trail and picked it back up. I needed to do a lot of backtracking, and I had resorted to turning the boughs of the cedars up and looking on them for blood deposits as she brushed past them. This helped but eventually dried up too... Doing my honest best to recover game, and having no special tracking abilities I gave the footprint method a try..tough stuff. I tried to sort out her tracks from the others by the gait. She was wounded and I assumed she was the one dragging the hoof. Another 50 or so yards now .43 miles from the shot I stood up to take in the big picture and saw her laying under a young cedar about 25 yards away. 5 hours later and she wasn't dead! Now seeing how the terrain was with the briars and all and how I needed both hands to navigate there is NO WAY I could have possibly brought my bow along for the recovery mission. So I waited. She knew I was there but I just sat on the ground and quietly waited. Looking at her through my binoculars. Waiting....Waiting...waiting. Eventually she made one last attempt to get up and move, took one last big breath and that was it...silence, stillness. but while I waited I thought about a lot of things. The excitement of the shot, the long odds of the track, and how bad I felt that I couldent ease her pain at the very end. In retrospect I know I made mistakes, taking up the trail too early, continuing to track after a push. I do feel good however that refused to give up and eventually found a deer that many hunters would probably thought of as lost. Needless to say, some trophy rifle hunters out there won't understand, but that Doe,shot from the ground with a bow followed by that track and recovery will always be one of my most memorable kills, and a lot more of a trophy than if I had gone and paid a few G's to a preserve to kill a fenced animal...no matter how big the antlers. After all, no matter how long you cook'em you still cant eat the antlers!!
So.. my contribution to this discussion is
1. wait
2. dont push(wait some more)
3. Dont give up..
4. If you have to fill in the blanks...go towards water
My last deer was shot a few inches back and bolted right into the thickest tangle of brush I have ever seen. Cedars, briars and thickets in an ungodly tangle. I needed one hand to peel the thorns from my face and clothing and the other hand to cut the branches with my clippers, progress was slow. Now I did initially wait 40-45 min and I thought that was enough. Wrong! I traveled 50 yards on a good blood trail when she upped and ran. Stupid me...Kept going and found her bloody bed. Now is when the light should have went on ...but it diddent. Kept going.....slowly...I went from spurts of blood, to spatters of blood, then drops of blood and even to specks of blood. Eventually, and 4.5 hours later I confess that after being bruised, scarred and now loosing more of my own blood than I was finding of hers I left the trail. I started walking back to the truck when I got a burst of determination (I have a lot of those) So I followed my GPS right back to the spot where I left the trail and picked it back up. I needed to do a lot of backtracking, and I had resorted to turning the boughs of the cedars up and looking on them for blood deposits as she brushed past them. This helped but eventually dried up too... Doing my honest best to recover game, and having no special tracking abilities I gave the footprint method a try..tough stuff. I tried to sort out her tracks from the others by the gait. She was wounded and I assumed she was the one dragging the hoof. Another 50 or so yards now .43 miles from the shot I stood up to take in the big picture and saw her laying under a young cedar about 25 yards away. 5 hours later and she wasn't dead! Now seeing how the terrain was with the briars and all and how I needed both hands to navigate there is NO WAY I could have possibly brought my bow along for the recovery mission. So I waited. She knew I was there but I just sat on the ground and quietly waited. Looking at her through my binoculars. Waiting....Waiting...waiting. Eventually she made one last attempt to get up and move, took one last big breath and that was it...silence, stillness. but while I waited I thought about a lot of things. The excitement of the shot, the long odds of the track, and how bad I felt that I couldent ease her pain at the very end. In retrospect I know I made mistakes, taking up the trail too early, continuing to track after a push. I do feel good however that refused to give up and eventually found a deer that many hunters would probably thought of as lost. Needless to say, some trophy rifle hunters out there won't understand, but that Doe,shot from the ground with a bow followed by that track and recovery will always be one of my most memorable kills, and a lot more of a trophy than if I had gone and paid a few G's to a preserve to kill a fenced animal...no matter how big the antlers. After all, no matter how long you cook'em you still cant eat the antlers!!
So.. my contribution to this discussion is
1. wait
2. dont push(wait some more)
3. Dont give up..
4. If you have to fill in the blanks...go towards water
08-29-2005, 07:57 PM
#20
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Upstate NY
Posts: 493
RE: 7th Annual Recovery, What To Do After The Shot Thread
Thanks for sharing Woodman 454. I too share a similar story.
I congratulate you on your effort invested.
Your a 'true' hunter in every sense of the word.
A Preserve hunter just wouldn't understand...
PS Where are you from?
I congratulate you on your effort invested.
Your a 'true' hunter in every sense of the word.
A Preserve hunter just wouldn't understand...
PS Where are you from?