bscofield

I hope the moderators will let this post stand even tho I shot the deer with a rifle. I don' t really post to the other boards and this message is about tracking anyway. So we' ll see...

So here' s the story, I shot my first buck (with a rifle). Got a quartering towards from the ground. According to my aim the bullet should have gone in the chest and out behind the should somewhere without going through all the inards. The deer took off and I let it go and waited. When I went to track I saw LOTS of blood. It looked like where' d he go to make another hop there' d be lots, and then when he' d be in the air there' d be drops... In one place he was spraying blood so good that it sprayed up on a tree about 2 1/2 feet up. Then the blood wasn' t so good, just drops for a little while. Then it was good again, then drops. I SAW NO FOOD OR STOMACH MESS ANYWHERE. So I' m tracking him, through the corner of an open field, and then back into the woods. In the woods I see one place where he bedded down (pool of smeared blood), then 10 yds and another, then 10-15 yds and another. So I found like 4 places where he layed down and then got up and went a short distance and layed down again. I thought this was good. Then I got to the last pool with the smeared blood and NOTHING. NO TRAIL leading away ANYWHERE! I circled it over and over and over again! Didn' t see a thing. I shot it at 1:00PM and looked until 5:30PM (after giving it about 1.25 hours).

What happened?

I' m sick to not have found the first buck that I shot... specialy after so much blood!!![:' (]

Reacher

Wow, that is tough. Could he have just dropped in a thick area and you didn' t see him? It just doesn' t sound like he could have gone that much farther.

bscofield

Anything' s possible... When I got to the last place he bedded down I walked in a spiral starting close and ending up about 100 yards away... couldn' t see a trace of anything. I' m SO CONFUSED. This is unlikely, but the only other thing I can think is that the owner of the land where I' m hunting has other people hunting on it as well. And they' ve been there for a lot longer. They were not pleased that the owner is letting us on the land (get over it, it' s 1,000 acres there' s plenty of room). I wonder if one of them didn' t stumble onto it dead and walk off with it while I was waiting for it to expire. I knew they were " in the area" but not exactly where...

Kyle3

From my experience with a rifle, when the blood ends your deer is very close by or very far away. I hope the shot was as you have stated and you will have a dead deer I would say within a 200 yard circle of your last blood. Thick stuff, towards water, and downhill a lot of deer when hit hard will go those ways. But as far as another hunter dragging your deer off, no gut pile, no drag marks equals they didn' t get him I would have to doubt. I say you need to get back out there with some other guys and keep looking. Last blood usually means they aren' t far or you didn' t hit him hard enough to kill him. Either way goodluck, and all deer are different, I am just writing on my personal experience, but usually my .35 whelen knocks them right off their feet.

A.K.A eastwood

that is what im thinking!

but i do hope you find him!

btpatriot02

bscofield, It has happened to me and what I did was I went to the last blood spot and i then got on my hands and knees and crawled and went to my right and then to my left and I finally found a blood spot and started to follow it and it had circled back around and crawled in a dead fall. I did not do a circle around I would go in a straight line for about 100 yds then come back to the last spot then go to the left or the right then offset. like I said he cicled back around and started to backtrack. But I found him about 50 yds away from the last spot. hope this made sense and hope you find it.

(KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE)[8D]

Jimimac

I' m sorry you lost the deer. Take some buddies out and try to find the deer again if you can. The deer is most likely very dead and should be in the area somewhere.

I question the hit. I' m not flaming you so please don' t take it that way. I have killed many deer with a rifle and if you hit the deer as described that buck should have died in very short order and been real easy to find. On a quartering towards with a gun you can just go ahead and take out the shoulder and drive the bullet on through. You dont have to mess around with shooting behind the shoulder like with your bow. I suspect you hit further back than what you think and maybe took out one lung then got guts. I know you didn' t find and matter that would indicate a gut hit but sometimes it just doesn' t show up too good on the ground.

As far as the other guys finding the deer and taking him. It' s possible I suppose, but there should have been drag marks, boot prints and lots of disturbed ground.

Try to round up some friends if you can.

Sitter

go back down the trail again and look for another blood trail branching off the original. When he got up the last time, he may have backtracked down the same trail a while.

hunt3r

Don' t forget to take a bottle of peroxide with you and spray it on ANYTHING that remotely looks like it might be blood. It will make it bubble up.

Also it is hard to do if the ground is hard or thick grass, but can you feel his steps? I mean literally feel at least where his last step was to give you an indication of which way he went.

Tomster

I had that happen once. I was in my stand and sporting my Mossberg 500 when a buck walks up on me. I aim, shoot, and the buck takes off. I' ve got blood trail, bone, hair, etc. so we track and eventually loose him. This was early rilfe in early December. In mid January, the last day of muzzleloader, a buck limps up towards me and I decide to take him out so bam, I shoot him and he falls. I look at he bad leg and he' s go a hole in it the size of a quarter and it' s healing up. This was the same deer I shot in December. The bullet went right through the leg and missed his body. The meat was good except for that front leg, and the only other problem was his liver was black.

Hopefully you will find him....

Tomster