Techniques For Finding Wounded Deer?
 

So far we here have experienced, either through our own hunts or through others, the frustrations of looking for a wounded deer. It's the nature of the beast and something we all risk when taking shots at deer. Unfortunately through a myriad of different reasons, shots go astray.

What's your favorite technique for finding a wounded deer?

Do you like to stick to the trails first? How about just being a pure blood hound and looking only for blood? Do you like to do a grid search? If so, what kind of pattern? Square? Circular?

How about those valuable tips, the ones that ultimately help us find our game? What are some good tips you use or have to share to aid in finding lost deer? Is there a special tool you like to use? How about lights?

I have several tips, but one I have is trust your instincts. Your instincts, your guts, whatever, tell you or lead you to do something to help find your game. Whatever that feeling, that internal voice may be, you should sometimes listen to it because for some odd reason, it often pans out that way. Trust your instincts.

iSnipe

This is from the bowhunting section, but lots of great general info as well.

http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/bowh...fter-shot.html

After exhausting all other options (blood, grid, etc) I have found a few by looking in small (even tiny) patches of cover surrounded by open fields. Also, a wounded deer may cross an open field and bed on the opposite side to watch its back trail. They'll often be found dead within 20 yards of the edge of the field.

I've been lucky in that I haven't had to trail many. The big buck I shot a few years ago and is looking at me from the wall as I type ran about 150 yds and I looked a little bit but I knew my cousin had his trailing dogs in camp so I wanted to see what they could do...and they ran right to it, although he was lying in some tall grass right off from mys stand.

I'm a bloodhound, myself. From there, I'll sweep side to side. I mark blood spots and draw a line out as I go so I make a sort of 'Y' pattern. If I lose blood, I'll widen my search. I've only lost two deer in my life. One, a spike I shot when I was 16 years old I actually found but was lost in the wood when I shot him and by the time I found my truck, I couldn't find him in the dark. We went back the next day and looked all over, never found him.

Another, I'm hoping survived. A nice 8 pt . I found a little blood at the 'scene' and a bonce fragment. I got a friend and even got my dog(who's a lab...never trailed before but I figured he was better than nothing) Nothing. We looked all over and never found him.

I honestly kinda hope I get something this season that runs so I can teach my daughter how to trail.

I've only had to trail one so far, and I failed ONLY because I didn't wait. So, my #1 rule now, should it happen again, is to WAIT for at least 30 minutes before trying to track a wounded deer, hopefully giving it enough time to die.

I found the blood trail by (obviously) to the spot where I last saw the deer and then walking in the direction she was headed. I used a zig-zag pattern to find each new drop of blood. There were several massive pools of blood along the way. When I couldn't find the next drop, I'd go back to the last drop and walk in small circles completely around it, gradually increasing the size of circle's circumference until I found the next drop. From there, I'd zig-zag again in the direction the last two drops formed, etc, etc.

Finally, I came to one last huge pool of blood, and that was it. I looked within a 100-yard radius of the last pool and found nothing. My theory is that the deer was laying down to die there but when she heard me coming, she bolted one last time running on empty, using one last surge of adrenaline to escape.

I felt horrible.

biggest tip is knowing exactly, and I mean exactly where he was standing at the time of the shot.

Using toilet paper to mark blood.
At just about every spot i find blood i place a piece of TP. It will clearly show the movement of the deer and will tell you what blood you have already been over. This helps if you were to lose the trail and wanted to start over again. Since all blood that you have found has been marked it will be easier to find new blood just off the trail indicating a possible back track by the deer.

I generally just follow the blood trail from the initial hit and try to stay on it. If I am unsure of my hit I will definitely back out and give the animal a few hours or over night to expire. If you put a lethal hit on the animal, they generally will bed up within 200 yards from where you shot it the first time if you didn't bump or spook the deer. If I lose blood I will then get my trusty beagle, and if that fails I will usually get a group of friends together and just walk around for a few hours to maybe stumble on the dead animal. However, I usually never need to leave my blood trail, they are usually at the end of it within 100 yards of the hit. ;)

I always go to where I shot the deer at, and look back at my stand to make sure I am on the right line of sight. I look for blood, push off marks first, and look at the direction the deer took as it left that site and work my way to the last spot I saw the deer after the shot.

Shot a buck earlier in the season with black powder and he managed to get almost 20 yards before he left any blood. He was able to run 30 yards total before his body crashed from his heart no longer working. Clean pass through right in the boiler room and out the other side. Shot a doe a few weeks later and identical shot in the boiler room and a complete pass through. Still ran just over 30 yards but this time the ground, trees, weeds everything to her was covered in blood.

The bush where I hunt in Alberta is very dense. Trees aren't so big but the underbrush is solid willows and thorn rose-bushes. I pretty much have to crawl if I wounded a deer. The only way I do it is to call a second hunting partner to help. We leap-frog each other by one person standing at the last CONFIRMED blood spot and the other tries to follow anticipate where deer may have gone (or follow tracks if you can see them) until they find the next blood spot and hold their ground where it runs out until the first person leap-frogs them and looks for the next blood spot. As many of you know if the blood is intermittent and you may follow an incorrect set of tracks and forget where you last saw blood so this helps.

I find tracking techniques vary from area to area as well. My cousin told me that all you need to do is follow their tracks and bend down to look at certain angles to see tracks better and anticpate their movements. This worked well for his hunting area that was very open in the bush, but when he came hunting in my area he could not believe that it was nearly impossible to see your hand infront of your face in the bush.

Anyone try those gerber blood track led lights for tracking at dusk? Wondering if those would help if all else was lost.