OUR POSITION on TRACKING:
Many hunters either have not learned how to track a deer properly or have not had the opportunity to learn from an experienced Tracker.
My position is that EVERYONE who hunts, owes it to themselves, the animal, non-hunters, and OUR sport to be knowledgeable enough to track and collect EVERY animal harvested! Yes the occasional animal will get away. BUT, if a hunter is proficient in tracking, than most every animal is collectable.
A very large majority of people in our country enjoys the outdoors and woods that do not hunt. They could care less if we hunt or not, they are not anti-hunters, they just enjoy looking at the forests, flowers, insects, and birds. However, nothing can turn these people against hunting faster than walking up on the carcass of an animal rotting in the woods! Except, walking up on a CRIPPLED animal still alive and dying of infection or starvation!
An ETHICAL SPORTSMAN will make every effort to recover a lost animal! Not spend just a few hours; spend days if needed to find it!
When the animal is found and it is not fit to be consumed, then remove from the woods or put it in a place that is inconspicuous!
A TRACKING PRIMER:
Many think that the track begins when you get down from your stand and start to look for blood sign. This is NOT when the track begins!
The track begins the instant you release the arrow or pull the trigger on your gun!
The first thing is to make sure you take your time and pick the perfect spot to place your shot!
After the arrow is released or the trigger pulled, concentrate on the point of impact! (This is known as the follow through) Even the best shot can be made to go wrong! The arrow or broadhead brushing a limb or leaf, the bowstring brushing your clothing, the animal taking a step, jumping the arrow, any of these slightest things can make THE BEST shot go bad.
Pay extreme attention to the arrow flight and point of impact! With the older and slower compound bows, you could actually watch the arrow all the way to the impact point. With the advent of the faster compounds, especially the solo cam type bows, arrow speed has greatly increased and watching your nock is much harder! Especially since most bows now shoot well in excess of 250 feet per second. It is a good idea to change all your nocks to a bright fluorescent color to make them more highly visible.
OK, you have watched the point of impact, NOW you need to pay close attention to the animal's reaction. Did it just hunch up its back (generally indicating a gut shot), did its feet kick, or did it jump into the air? When it ran off was it's tail up or tucked down? All these things are indications of where you hit it and how mortally wounded it is.
(I have made a broadside shot through the ribs and lungs and had the deer run a few yards, come back, snort at the arrow a couple of times, then go back to feeding on white-oak acorns.)
Now we are ready to look for our arrow and blood! WRONG!
The shot has been made and our adrenaline is really pumping! NOW is the time we must make ourselves FOCUS on the animal, which way it is running and what did it pass that can be used as landmarks!
Many times a deer will circle around and head the way it came from, it feels safe going in that direction because they just came from there and had no indications of danger! The other thing is that they will often circle into the wind so they can smell danger ahead of them during their flight from your area.
A bow shot deer will often run a short distance and stop; there is no loud rapport of a gun to scare them so they stop trying to figure out what spooked them. If you can, a well timed grunt or bleat after the shot will stop a deer for a few seconds and that can drastically reduce the tracking time needed to recover the animal.
If an animal is spooked before the shot, it can run VAST distances before expiring!
Quietly remain in the stand for a minimum of at least 30 minutes. Many times a bow shot deer will run a few yards, stop, look and listen, then ease off and bed down close by! If you spook it up, it will run till it drops and may not offer any additional bleeding.
One thing few people realize is that when a deer lays down, it's metabolism directs blood flow to the stomach area and food digestion sets in. This lessens blood flow to the wound area and thus can diminish or eliminate external blood flow.
Another reason to remain calm is that many people have been injured while trying to climb down a tree when in an excited state of mind! I know of one young man that actually leapt out of his climber to follow the deer he had just shot! Luckily he hit the ground from an 11-foot drop, rolled and got to his feet only bruised!
The next thing after the shot and follow through is made, is to watch which way the animal ran! I mean EXACTLY which way and where it went!
Pull out your compass immediately and get a bearing on the last tree or landmark you saw it run by. LISTEN closely for limbs breaking, leaves thrashing, or the animal piling up. Take a compass reading on that sound also! If you can not find a blood trail, then you can go to your stand, put your back to the tree and walk exactly on the compass heading while slowly looking for blood sign or the downed animal.
Now the deer is gone from sight. You have identified the landmarks needed to locate the last known sighting. NOW is the time to sit back, calm down, and mentally go over all your landmarks, compass readings on the landmarks, and compass reading of the last sound or pile up heard. Give the animal plenty of time to bleed down and collapse!
Views from elevated stands change drastically once you are on the ground! As you climb down the tree, whether from a ladder stand or climber, keep your eye on the landmarks, stopping every 4 feet or so. This will help you to easily identify them on the ground as the scenery changes!
This mental transition of your landmarks is crucial in identifying the correct trees and will drastically help your tracking.
Once on the ground, go to the area where the impact took place. You should be looking for hair, blood, and lastly, your arrow. Finding the arrow is very crucial as it will contain residue from passing through the animal's body and can give you the best indication of where the animal was hit!
When the arrow is found, pay very close attention to what is on the arrow. Bright red blood is a lung hit. Dark-red blood a liver hit, black blood and green semi-digested vegetation means a gut hit. If during the track you find "thin" red blood, that is generally an indication of a lower leg hit.
The arrow and broadhead usually pick up hair as they enter and exit the animal. Brown hair is good, white hair is bad. White hair usually indicates a lower gut shot, a rump shot, or brisket area. When you find white hair, mark all your sign and leave! We suggest a minimum of 8 hours before tracking a gut shot deer.
White hair and heavy fat on the arrow or broadhead usually means a "grazing" rump or brisket shot.
Animals, especially deer, do not start bleeding at the point of impact. The blood trail generally starts about 15 to 30 yards from where the point of impact is. I have seen deer that were "high" lung shot that never bled a drop outside the body! And a heavy blood trail takes a while due to the chest cavity having to fill up before the blood can exit the wound.
EVERY hunter should carry a roll of toilet paper in a ziplock bag, This is the best marker for tracking a deer! Being white, it shows up well in the daylight and in the dark, and after the track, if a piece is missed and left in the woods, it is 100% biodegradable!
The Blood Track:
Mark the point of impact with some toilet paper hung on a limb to offer maximum visibility from a distance. Now the real work starts!
Being the impatient creatures we are, we naturally want to rush ahead and collect our hard-earned trophy! In reality this is the very last thing we want to do!
We need to work very SSLLOOOOWLY! Look for small flecks of blood on leaves, hair, or heavily dug out foot tracks. I know this seems stupid BECAUSE there will just GALLONS of blood ahead!
Go slow! Finding and marking every speck of blood in the first part of the track will mentally condition us to be slow and methodical in the last part! Especially if the trail gets very tough!
Work the trail to your landmarks. Oh, you have forgotten about those landmarks, have you? Well they are still very important! If you lose blood sign early, you can work the area of your last sighting for minuscule sign!
OK. You have found very good and large quantities of blood sign! Now is the time to remain calm and methodical! Mark the spot well with some paper. Look behind you every time you mark fresh blood and review the back trail! This can often give you a good indication of the deer changing direction or circling.
Look for blood sign on leaves, bushes, trees, blades of grass, rocks, sand, or other natural matter. Many times a blood trail will be real heavy for awhile then start to diminish and then disappear. This is when being slow and methodical pays off! Get on your hands and knees and look for the smallest specks! Leaves will often have blight spots on them, so does grass. If you think a spot is blood but you cannot tell, lick the end of your finger and rub the spot. If it is blood, it will dissolve and spread on the leaf and your finger. Mark it.
If you come to a DEAD END of the blood trail, STOP! Work left to right of the last known spot of blood. Work in slow zigzag patterns to cover the area 90 degrees left and right. Be very careful to not disturb any of the leaves or grass.
If nothing is found, start a slow circle of the area about 15 feet in radius. If nothing is found, keep working slooowly in ever widening circles until you pick up the trail again! I promise, if the deer is mortally wounded, you will find it.
If more than one person is tracking, stay about 5 feet apart and progress forward together! Never allow anyone to pass the other. More trails are lost due to someone stomping all over the smallest blood spot or flipping over leaves as they stumble through the area.
A Gut Shot Deer Track:
This is a hard track. Gut shot deer rarely bleed externally! Yes there is an entrance and exit wound, but the intestines and stomach often close them up. Besides, the gut area offers very few arteries and blood vessels to bleed.
Once the paunch (stomach) is ruptured, semi digested food and stomach bacteria enter the body cavity. This makes the deer sick and it will eventually lay down where it will expire after a long time. Blood loss is minimal and slow and will almost always be internal. These reasons are why one should wait a minimum of 8 hours before attempting to track a gut shot deer.
Blood sign will be minimal, so also look for semi-digested food matter when tracking. If the trail is lost, circle the area slowly and try to pick it up. If it is not found, leave. Come back in a few hours and start working in ever widening circles. Now you are "nose" tracking the deer. A gut shot deer will emit the internal gases and the "gut" smell that can lead you to it.
If you wait until the next day, and can not find any sign, then look around the closest water supply available. A gut shot deer will more often than not get up and go to water to drink. Once there, they will drink a tremendous amount of water and founder or expire from internal hypothermia.
If you are hunting public land, or a guest on someone's property, when you find a lost animal that is unfit to consume, hold your nose, drag it out of the woods, and dispose of it in a place that is not conspicuous. DO NOT LEAVE IT WHERE SOMEONE ELSE CAN STUMBLE UP ON IT!
What To Do If You Are Not Proficient At Tracking:
If you are not a proficient at tracking, then find the point of impact and mark it. Mark your reference landmarks. Now leave the area and find someone who you KNOW is a proficient tracker!
An amateur trying to track will only ruin a good chance of having a successful track.
You Made The Shot, The Animal Is Down Within Your Sight!
Stay calm, follow all the same rules and information given in the beginning of this article! Know your point of impact, pick your landmarks, and take your compass readings. SIT QUIETLY in your stand, claming down, and continue to watch the animal! Wait a minimum of 30 minutes, longer is better. You do not want to get down and the animal although weak, gets up on you and takes off!
When you get down, check the animal to make sure it has expired. NOW, go back to the point of impact and track the animal as if you had no idea where it went. It will give you the best On The Job Training you can get for tracking!
In Conclusion:
I know there are probably some things that I have overlooked. I am not the best tracker in the world, but I learned from one and am considered to be very good.
My Father was part Caddo Indian and he would shoot an animal, find it, and then come get me and teach me how to track it. Before I could shoot a deer, he made me find one he had shot.
The greatest ally a tracker can have is patience! I am short on that one item but have learned to discipline myself to be patient.
Have I lost a deer? Yes I have, some times things just go wrong! But very rarely do I lose one that I do not find eventually. I get sick every time I shoot an animal and can not retrieve it. However, nothing in nature goes to waste. The coyotes, wild hogs, and buzzards are all a natural part of the ecology and food chain. Even small birds will feed on the maggots left by the fly's eggs that hatch.
Even after years of tracking experience, I take nothing in the track for granted. I approach every track as if it was the very first one I have ever attempted.
Being am experienced tracker will make you a much better person in the woods and a better hunter. It helps you to be more focused from the time you take aim, till you fire! Then it teaches you to ultra observant during the fleeting seconds after the shot, all the way to the recovery of your prize!
Few things offer a greater satisfaction than tracking and finding YOUR animal, with the exception of tracking and finding youngsters!
I hope this information will help you to learn the basics of tracking and enlighten you as to why wounded deer do some of the things they do!
If this information helps you to recover a wounded deer, then I am passing on my legacy to you and hopefully you will pass it on to others that follow.
Wilderness Wayne Kendrick
Southern Outdoor Products.com