thank you a ton
im a beginner and im starting next year and this will help very much

Great initial post, Rob! And an awesome thread. Tons of good info.

One thing I could add that applies more to elk than deer, is use your sense of smell. We have recovered a lot of elk by walking around the last known spot of blood in large concentric cirles, and walking slowly into the wind. Elk have a pretty powerful odor that is pretty easy to pick up in a light breeze, and we have recovered a lot of them over the years using this method.

Knowing how the animal is hit gives you a good idea of the general area you should find it down, and sometimes as mentioned before, the blood trail can peter out.

Most important, as Rob mentioned, do not bump the animal. Give them a good long time to lay down and die, without knowing there are humans in the area.

Very Nice!

Bump
 

Bump - great thread.

Walk NEXT TO the blood trail and not in it. I think I post that every year on this thred but to me it is super importaint not to mess up the trail. You never know when you are going to have to backtrack and if you have stomped thru it you can't see small clues like disturbed leaves and so on.

I always have a roll of toilet paper in my back pack or some just rolled up in my pocket. I use little pieces to mark the blood trail. It's water soluable so it disperses quickly.

Spudrow from Mo

Great post! It is full of very useful information, and the dead deer pic's are always a plus! Congrats on the nice doe!

Cheers n Deers

GREAT post, Rob !
And GREAT Forum, Guys !
What a pleasure to spend time here...
Thanks

This is the most important thing I found, to do when taking up a trail. It will show which direction the deer is going as well and help you if the blood trail begins to slow down.

solid post!
 

My pops taught me that back when, I started using bio-degradable when it became available. If you hunt public, I tried to recover it, points like a smoke trail back to your spot!