RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

Great topic. Shot a doe this year-double lung (so I thought), couldn' t find her. Looked for nearly 12 cumulative hours. Blood dried up and she was gone. Next day was nearly 80 and lots of coyotes around. I even waited 1.5 hours after the shot. Don' t know how to explain that one. What I did want to say is look for crows the next day. I found a huge doe that way - i hit high and back as she stepped away just as the arrow left my bow. It got her in the back and went between her lungs piercing the diaphram. After the hit, I watched her run for 50 yards, then slow to a trot and circle back and disappear. She went about 400 yards. Couldn' t find her that night because of heavy rain. Went out the next morning, saw crows circling and being really loud - lots of em, went to see why they were congregating and walked right to the deer.

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

new to the boards and bowhunting as well. Great Post tons of info and tips,can' t wait to get out there!

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

This is the first i' ve heard about the peroxide and it' s a brilliant idea. All these tips are excellent and could save time and a lot of worrying.

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

I usually pee

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

Peroxide is a great aid as is the Coleman Lantern. My only worry about the Coleman Lantern is that the wilderness areas where I hunt are usually tinder dry during the archery season . . . and I am petrified of an accident that could start a wildfire.

One thing I had hoped to try this year was my Princeton Tec LED Headlamp. I am thinking that maybe . . . MAYBE . . . the light from the headlamp will make the blood glow as will the Coleman Lantern.

Personally, I will track in rain but much slower and paying even more attention to what lies ahead. I have had two liver shots. One of those my partner thought I had hit in the hind quarter. Such a shot requires pushing slowly. However in about 35 yards (gice or take) I found a pool of bright pink blood with bubbles an a larger pool of dark red. From that point the lung blood stopped and after a few yards the dark red liver blood petered out to one drop every 5 or six yards. We tracked this animal 264 yards before we found her in her first bed 50 yards uphill. She was unable to get up from her bed and after a short wait I was able to put her away with another arrow.

I helped a friend track a gut shot animal in a Pacific Northwest drizzle at dusk. We tracked slowly and gently 100 yards and moved her from her first bed. We paid attention to her direction of travel, backed off and returned the next morning to track her. We found her 75 yards from her bed and she had not beed dead long.

I believe, that if we inadvertantly move an animal from its bed, we have a good idea of the hit, [back off and allow the times recommended by John Trout Jr.] when we return to the trail we should find the animal within 100 yards. But don' t think that a wounded animal won' t go uphill . . . the definitly will.

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

Saturday evening 11/8/03, I stuck a monster buck about 20yds away from my stand. It was late in the evening and I didn' t see where the shot hit. I waited for about 30 mins after seeing the deer cross a field and enter a pine thicket. When I got down I saw that my arrow had passed right through the deer and stuck in the ground. There was dark red blood and no food particals on the arrow.

While tracking the deer I saw where he had laid down about 50yds away from the shot and there was a lot of blood in the bed. He must not have laid there long and was on the move again. I gave up for the night to ensure death, but tracked him seven hours the next day with the blood trail going from excellent to just a drop here and there. Then after I found the " last drop" I crawled around on my hands and knees for 2 hours and could not find another drop of blood. The deer had headed down hill for the majority of the route, but then all of a sudden headed up hill back to where he was shot at.

Can someone please inform me where I could have hit this deer that:
1 the arrow passed straight through without killing him?
2 the deer went for over a mile before I lost the trail?

I honestly don' t think the deer is dead, but I will search for him the remainder of the week.

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

If it was dark red (almost brownish tint) then it was probably the liver.

I assume your indication of pass through is that the arrow was covered with blood all the way around it from tip to nock. Is this correct? Did you see any hair? The color and courseness of the hair can help tell you where it was hit too.

I have heard it is common for dear to circle to where they were hit.

Did you try a grid search with friends? (make sure not to trample the trail with too many people!)

Did you use peroxide to see if any more blood was around? There is a product by tinks that I seen at Gandar Mountain that you spray on an area and it make blood glow in the dark... maybe that would be enough to get you back on him.

This link might help - www.whitetails.com/anatomy.html


Thats all I can think of right now...

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

The arrow was covered from tip to nock with dark red blood. There was some hair on the broadhead that was dark brown and coarse.
The trail was so good we didn' t think we would need any aids.
We lost the trail in a lady' s yard as the deer headed back up hill.
He didn' t turn back until we had tracked him over a mile. I don' t think a deer could travel over a mile with a liver hit.

It' s been three days and there are no buzzards/crows around the area yet.
After loosing the trail we walked a 200yd grid around the area and found nothing.
This one has really amazed me.

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

Thanks for the tip hunt3r. I checked it out and ordered some of the Starlight Bloodhound. I paid quite a bit more to have it here tomorrow.
I will let ya' ll know if this works on dried blood or not.

Loosing any deer will make you sick, but this monster...[X(]

RE: Recovery, What to do after the shot.
 

AWESOME THREAD !!!!!!

I just bought a bow 3 weeks ago and I' m not comfortable enough (read as I know I' m not good enough yet) to hunt with it this year.

One thing I' ve learned from years of gun hunting is to carry 3 flashlights. I have two of those clip-on. ultra-bright, micro-mini gizmos (I think they' re LED or Xenon or something) that are supposed to be visible for something like 1000 yards, and a mini-maglight.

I clip one at the bloodspot, then track with the mini-mag, clipping the second micro-mini at the next blood spot. Then go back and retrieve the first one, tracking until the next blood spot. Yes, it' s time consuming, but it serves two great purposes - 1) It makes you go alittle slower and helps prevent " pushing" , and 2) You can very easily find and return to, the last spot if you lose the trail.

As far as bloodspots .....

About 6 years ago, on the last day of blackpowder, I had returned to the truck about a half hour before sundown. I had opened the tailgate, taken my hunting suit off, and was about to discharge my smokepole into an unsuspecting tree stump when I saw a doe not 40 yards away in a small orchard. A freezer full of doe meat is better than any stump.

Through the smoke I could see her running, and when she got out of sight, I went to where she was when I shot. A little bit of lighter colored hair and a minor amount of blood, not much at all. I followed her tracks in the snow for about 10 yards and found a small amount of blood in her right front hoofprint. I thought for sure I hit her in the leg.

I sat down and cooked up an MRE as the snow started falling and darkness set in. This was going to be a long night. I played the shot over and over in my head - how could I have shot so low so close ?

An hour later, I started on her trail. On my hands and knees I carefully brushed the newly fallen snow out of her tracks. A little driblet of blood in the right fron print every time - but it wasn' t very dark and red, and it certainly wasn' t pink and foamy. No splatter around that I could see, and nothing on the nearby bushes. At about 50 yards she crossed tracks with another deer. Great, she' s following a familiar trail - wounded for sure.

A short time later the tracks parted - and neither of them had blood in them. The snow was falling heavier - big, fluffy flakes. I was pretty sure that I wouldn' t be able to pick up the trail in the morning, I had no choice but to continue. A long night for sure.

I figured I would pick a set and follow it, and if I didn' t find anything, I' d come pack and follow the second set. About 30 yards later, I found where she had jumped a creek and run into a tree. Now, I don' t know about anyone here, but I' ve never seen or heard of a healthy deer running headfirst into a tree - I was confident I was on the right tracks.

I couldn' t find any more tracks. I went back to where she had jumped from on the far side of the creek and checked her direction. She was veering off to the right, back across the creek to the tree and checked off to the right side. Nothing. Check around the left side. Nothing. 5 foot, 10 foot and 15 foot circles around the tree. Nothing. What the ......(I must' ve looked pretty funny shining my flashlight up into the trees looking for her - deer don' t climb trees - do they ?) It seemed as though she had simply disappeared

Back across the creek to where she jumped from. I could clearly see the tree. Back to the tree. Aha - only one hoofprint at the base - her left front. I guess she must' ve dragged her right front in the creek or something, must be why she hit the tree. But where in the dickens did she go ?

As I looked in the creek for signs, I found her laying in the creek about 50 feet from where she had jumped from, and at least 30 feet from the tree. I figured she must have broken her neck of something when she hit the tree.

When I dressed her, I saw that the bullet had severed her heart - it was hanging by an artery, pretty much completely shredded. In reality, she was as good as dead when the bullet hit, it just took ker a while to realize it. Her heart kept pumping while she ran - her chest cavity was filled with blood, and only a dribble came out the exit wound, dripping down her right front leg - blood in the track.

I guess the blood was darker than I had thought, but when it melted in with the snow and got diluted, it didn' t look that dark at all.

The moral of the story ? DON' T GIVE UP !

(the second moral ? deer don' t climb trees or simply disappear).

I hope this helps someone learn from another hunter' s experiences so they don' t have to learn the hard way - by trial and error.

Patrick