wounded deer tracking
11-09-2015, 07:30 AM
#1
Boone & Crockett
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: south eastern PA
Posts: 15,436
wounded deer tracking
Just got back from tracking a deer for a good friend. I got a phone call around 7:30 this morning from a friend who is 77 yo, he asked me to help him find a buck he hit this morning at 6:30 with his cross bow. He said he knew he his it back too far and he had not started to track it yet. I met him at his house and we went to his stand where he showed me where the deer was when he shot it. He said the arrow was not a pass through and it was sticking out about 8 inches. I went to where he said the deer was when he shot, I dd not pick up blood for about 15 yards and then it was a few drops. We tracked it through the woods and across an overgrown field which is part of a park owned by the conservancy where no hunting is allowed, still not seeing much blood, some places a few drops, some places more but not a lot anywhere. After crossing the over grown field we found the arrow heavily covered with blood and there was crap on the fletching. I found blood on a deer trail going back into the woods not a lot but the blood sign was closer together than in the past. We came down an incline in the woods onto a walking trail and there he layed dead. A real big bodied 6 point, the rack wasn't real big but the deer was probably 160 lbs or so. I opened him up and my friend rolled out the guts. We had called the WCO since the deer went on the conservancy property and a lot of people had seen us since a lot of people run there. I am thankful he came out because it was a long drag back to my friends truck and much of it up hill and my friend is still recovering from a stoke and had no business dragging a big deer. The WCO showed up and he and I dragged the deer to his truck and put it on his deer rack and he took us back to my friends truck and helped me load it into the bed. We were very lucky to get the deer, a tough tracking job due to not much blood because he kit the deer it the forward edge of the hind quarter, the arrow went into the body cavity and must have cut a big vein or perhaps cut the femoral artery. The body cavity was full of blood and the colon was cut. He was using one of those mechanical broad heads, don't know which brand but the wound was almost big enough to stick your fist in. He was a happy camper and I was happy I could help him. Just goes to show, it aint over til it is over, don't quit looking.
