ditto Matts comments but I would wait till tomorrow to let the buck lay and stiffen! Also its much easier to track in daylight WEATHER PERMITTING! Lantern tracking works great but can sometimes be difficult. The buck is going to need time, give it to him and start over again tomorrow!

Look for water, thick cover, and movement corridors that the buck might use to aid in your searching! Do semi circles when you loose the blood to maybe find it, or the buck! If you find where he is bedded and you DONT push him out or another animal doesnt, he should be within a couple hundred yards of there in the morning stiff as a cardboard box....no matter what happens, that animal is dead, and I wish you the best of luck in recovering him!

I have shot 2 deer through the gut. Believe me, if you can, wait at least 12 hours or more. If you shot it this morning, I would probably wait until morning, if possible. I made the mistake on the first deer, and I tracked it with my brother in law. We jumped her up ( she had bedded down; as a gut shot deer will do) and I never saw her again. I waited with the second deer, had three buddies help me track her 24 hours later, and we found her.
My advice would be to wait. The deer will die, just be patient.

According to John D.Gill and David C. O'Meara in their 1965 study "Numbers of rigor mortis in deer" in the Journal of Wildlife Management: Stiffning of wounded deer does not occur until after death.
[From Trailing Whitetails; John Trout Jr. copyright 1987; Stackpole Books ISBN:0-89621-109-6]

Although John Trout Jr.'s Trailing Whitetails is out of print, he now has a new version "Trailing Wounded Deer." I've been a bow hunter since 1963 and got this book a year ago and I have learned a tremendous amount from this excellent must read book.

Bowhunter

As a last resort, if you know someone who has a tracking dog you could try that.

I shot a doe in 1994 and I had a similar situation.I was hunting on private property and was hunting with a 30-06 well I shot this doe as she was running and only caught her hind quarters well she took off and we couldn't find her I waited for about 4 hours after I shot her to get out of my stand.We must have looked for her for 6 hours or so and no trace,so,we tried the next day and only looked for about 2 hours and found her leaning up against a tree deep in the woods,she was still alive a bleeding heavily so I finished her off with a 4/10.It was a miserable process but the point is that I keeped looking not giving up.

If you are alrady thinking 'lost cause' after two hours of looking maybe bow-hunting isn't for you.

I hesitate to throw stuff in the fan, but "gim reaper's" point is becoming indisputably valid.

There comes a time when diplomacy has run its course. If you have to come here to ask how you can find your wounded deer, hang your bow up and get out of the field.

By the time you find the buck, if ever, he will have been so stressed you had better have nothing but gound venison made, and with a lot of spice added.

Keep looking. Spend at least a total of 8 man hours looking for a deer.
Next time, don't shoot unless you're sure of your shot.

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I jus't have to say something I shot A dear in the tarsal gland A couple of days ago and I pushed it that night and went back the next day still kicking it up but finally I got up to him and he was laying down looking at me with nothing left in him and shot this 8 pointer again..I did not give up...The farmers land I hunt here in wisconsin only lets me hunt on his land..BECAUSE he finds bucks ever year with arrows in them..And that makes him very angery..

PS:I aimed for the front showlder on this deer but he jumped and the arrow hit him right in the tarsal..I thought it was an ass shot but it wassn't when I finally got him it was right in the tarsal..He bleed ever where that is why I would not give up..I would have looked for A week if I had to..

Oh yah I shot him at 55 yards..Got to get A hoyt and A rang finder..



Brent Schroeder