I track every deer out, even if I saw him go down. It's good training and no two have ever been the same exactly. I start at the arrow and go to it. Yes I've marked the last place I saw the deer really well because a lot of the time there is no blood for a distance. I track it out to get my eyes custom to the blood. Sometimes there's a lot and sometimes there's not. I follow them all for practice. Been doing that for 50 years.

The first thing I do after shooting a deer is watch him/her for as long as possible. Then I do a visual mark (tree, bush, blow down ect..) where I last saw the deer leave my sight. I wait a reasonable amount of time, then come down and check the POI. This spot gets marked (white cloth strips).I try to locate my arrow if possible, check it for blood and how much. Then I look for first blood. Again, it gets marked. I continue this process blood spot to blood spot. I look to see if it brushed against any trees or shrubs. Every 20yrds I mark the spot until I find my deer.
If the trail is perfuse, I may jump ahead. If the trail dies, I go back to last blood (marked) and start over. If the trail doesn't start again, I'll do a semi-circle until I pick up blood again, then continue untilI find my deer.If it gets dark beforeI find my deer, or it seems the deer will go a long way, I'll let it go until first light the next morning and pick up last blood again, and continue the process.
I could count on two fingers the number of deer that I didn't find within 75yrds though.

Jeff I think you've posted up a good one here.

There was a thread not terribly long ago about what you did best as a hunter.. be it the hunt itself or playing guide etc and so forth. My personal niche is blood trailing/recovering shot game.

I have a few tips I can share, but I also have a few general rules that I follow:

Rules:

1) Too many people on a blood trail nets you a much bigger penalty than too many players on a football field. Instead of losing ten yards, you'll often lose the deer (thats become a rule not an exception).

2) Always!.... mark last blood. Leave your flagging tape, toilet paper etc etc in place and follow that trail on the way back out. Collect your flagging as you go out.

3) NEVER EVER EVER EVER skip ahead because you lose blood. Treat the blood trail like a crime scene... disturb nothing!


TIPS:

Patience is the key here. If the deer is dead, it will still be dead thirty minutes or four hoursfrom now. However, if you rush on the trail and overshoot a turn, then you can end up lost and spend a lot of time trying to find your blood trail again.

Use lots of lights. I keep a Coleman lantern in my truck and use two Surefires in addition to a headlamp.

Sometimes you have to guess. Its sad but true.. however, if you use logic it isn't necessarily a guess. Think about where the deer may be headed. Look for other signs... tracks or scuffed tracks... messed up leaves or pine needles. Try and think like a deer. African trackerscall this "bringing the ground up," if you seriously trust yourself, and try and think about where the deer went... you will often suprise yourself at how seldom you are ever wrong.

Don't forget to look ABOVE the ground! Especially in thick cover! Lots of times blood spoor will be left on vegetation that is waste high to a human... be sure to look for it.

As Jeff said.... focus on the task at hand... don't go storming down the trail because you found a bit of blood.... I usually track on my hands and knees and it might take me 45 minutes to follow a simple double lung passthrough blowing out both sides 80 yards... but as I wrote a few paragraphs ago... the deer is going to be as dead in 45 minutes as it is now. There is no point in rushing and possibly losing the trail. Often, I don't find a deer until its damn near in biting range of me and it usually frightens me because I'm practically next to it by the time I see it. I don't tend to look more than about 10 yards down the trail.... not on deer anyway. If I think the deer has the possibility of still being alive... (this does not pertain to bowhunting by the way.....) I'll have a shotgun toting individual just behind me... and his job is to look ahead and follow me.

The key is patience, patience and more patience.

22 bowkills, but I'm not an expert tracker. The main technique I rely on to assist tracking is taking close range high odds shots. If I can hit the deer through both lungs I can find it without too much trouble. A large broadhead helps put blood on the ground, if you have enough KE to use it; portable soptlight, Maglight, and lantern also help. I'll be finding the deer myself and the shot will likely be near dark.

As has been said, I follow every blood trail as if I don't know if the deer is down or not (even if I saw it go down). I love following a blood trail and more than once I have left my deer and gone back to do it all over again to see what I have missed. I beg my friends every year to please call if they need help tracking. When my dad and I get to hunt together we usually fight while trailing a deer as I'm slow and methodical and he likes to start circling ahead and in my opinion screws up evidence. THen we argue, then we find the deer and then its high fives, I love it. Wish we could hunt more together.

I will say I am a very good tracker, but there have been a few I've had trouble with and then its a call to mommy and beg her to come out to the woods. 30 years old and I'm still dependant on mom! She can see blood that I have missed over and over again and has found 2 deer for me that I was ready to quit on. I seriously have thought about renting her out during hunting season! (for finding deer you pervs!)

The last deer I had to track down it was 2 hours after the shot in the dark and we walked right up to him and he lifted his head and looked right at me. Talk about a sinking feeling. I went from the highest of highs to low in 2 seconds. He didn't have it in him to get up. I felt really bad for him.

I just bring my wife along when tracking. I have a hard time seeing blood sometimes and what I cant see she can spot from 20 feet away

Two different bucks I have arrowed in the last 4 years have put me onto a hell of a track job. One was a gutshot buck that took me probably 8-10 hours to find him under a washed out tree by the creek. I learned alot that day, about what NOT to do after the shot. Another was a single lung/liver shot buck that I thought I doubled. I picked up the trail after 1 hour, but kept pushing forward with the tracking even after it became apparent he wasn't pouring out blood like a double lung. I probably tracked a total of 5 hours to finally find him on the other side of the creek in the nastiest thicket known to man.

David, that is great advice about tracking all the deer you shoot, I will certainly remember that next season.

My biggest in tracking is my height. I'm 6'10", so that blood is a long way away. I usually on hands and knees when the trails get tough. My wife shot her first buck this year, but she whacked him through the jugular. The blood at first was awesome, a little big gross actually, but then it dried up to nothing. I got on my hands and knees like the old indians in the westerns, and we ended up finding him, but that track job was done on specks of blood. Time is the key to tracking IMO, can't be in a hurry. My feet are like the ends of canoe paddles, so if I jump ahead, i WILL step on blood, so now I just take my sweet time.

I always track my deer even if I see it go down. I figure it is good practice. I try not to get ahead of myself even if I have a great blood trail. For example last fall I shot a 130" 10 pt, when my buddy and I started to track him the blood was unreal. We went about 15 yards from the POI and he was looking for the deer instead of following the blood trial. I figure if I am going to put alot of time into trail cams, food plots, mineral licks, and tree stands that I can take that extra time to try my best to recover the animal I have shot.