Tracking Question.....
 

I shot at an 8pt at about 15 yards in my stand this past evening. It very much appeared to me like the shot was dead on the money. After the shot, the deer ran about 30 yds, stopped, and started walking. As I sat there watching him walking away it appeared he was struggling to breath. Since I'm in MI and we had frost lately, I thought it was imperative that I tracked at night. I waited about 2 hrs and started to track with my buddies. I found the arrow from the pass through shot covering in blood, with a little tallo on the arrow. After looking for blood, we found a decent amount for the first 10 yards, then it looked like a crime scene....blood everywhere.....for about 50-100 yds. In the first 100 yds the deer bedded down 4 times, with a fair amount of blood in the beds. We continued tracking, finding less and less blood and a few beds along the way with little or no blood in them. We went the better part of a mile and only found one or two drops of blood every 10-30 yards apart. In many cases there was spots of blood on both sides of the trail, indicating it was obviously bleeding out of both sides on occasion, anyway. We gave up and decided to resume tracking in the morning, before the frost melts the blood off the leaves. I'm just curious how this deer went so far and where you feel I hit him. Again, I thought I made a good shot and given all the bloods and beds I can't believe we didnt find him. Thanks for any help/advice.

RE: Tracking Question.....
 

Well first off how was the deer facing when you shot him? Did you see where the arrow hit? How far away was the shot? It does sound like a leathel hit With the deer bedding down 4 diffrent times and a losing a good amount of blood. (IMO) I think if you go back to where you left off this morning and resume trailing him very slow! You will be able to find your deer not far from where you left off last night. It Being a pass through will no doubt be losing more blood. There has been a couple of other hunters that has had very similar shots and was able to find there deer with persistence! If you cannot pick up the trail? Try taking some friends with you help look! This deer is moe than likely down! Try looking around any water sources and very thick places. If you can give more info on the shot and angle of the deer. This might help? There has been some very good info comming from other hunters on this forum. On locating deer. IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE LOOKED FAR ENUFF! GO A LITTLE FURTHER! Good luck.