Try useing a lattern when your trailing that faint blood trail at night.The blood trail seems to aluminate with the lattern .And spraying peroxide on a faint blood trail.Will show where blood is by foaming.Alot of guys forget to check inside the deers tracks for signs of blood.Do you guys have ideas to share on how to recover that hard to find deer?
Mark your trail so you can look behind yourself and get an idea of the travel route. It is very easy to loose a faint blood trail so mark it with red tape.
1 and only 1 guy on the blood trail, preferably your best tracker. Keep the shooter nearby and ready in case the animal bolts from a bed, it may be your only chance to finish the job.
Animals dump their bowels when they get weak so look for scat. They also will start circling like a dog when they lay down to die.
Animals that aren't hit real bad will double back a lot to shake you off their trail. While tracking watch for the animal's double back trail so you don't miss it or wipe it out. Bears love to do this along with deer.
Learn how to grid search. When all seems lost, look in creek bottoms and ravines. I've found many animals that dropped into them and just couldn't get out and they died there.
Keep an eye out for buzzards and crows, many times they will give up a kill.
Use a dog if legal, they are way mroe efficient at tracking. Deer Search has tracking dogs available if you don't have access in many states.
Put some bright green food coloring in you hydrogen peroxide to make the bubbles show up better.
Starlight Bloodhound is spendy but shows up faint blood trail really well, even in water.
Learn how to track by reading tracking books and practicing, it's great fun for the kids too.
Learn how to tell where you hit the animal by the hair the broadhead od bullet cut when it was first hit. You can do this by keeping the hair and matching it up too a hide. The impact site can tell you a whole bunch, like if you should wait (gut shot), or if you have a fatally hit animal.
Find the spot that the animal was standing and search for your arrow. ###The blood and condition of the arrow/broadhead can tell you a lot. ###Sit down and take a break and have a snack or just relax. ###You need to calm down some and not push the animal by taking off after him immediatly. ###If someone is with you, have him do the tracking as he is probably calmer and less likely to be in a hurry as you are. ###Mark your trail in case you need to back track, but PLEASE go back and remove all of that fluorescent tape when you are done. ###One of our areas is starting to look like a crime scene investigation site due to all of the tape. ###I usually use tiny pieces of TP as they show up well in the areas that I chase Elk and do disappear once the weather changes. ###If it is raining or snowing, forget the last step and use tape. ###Also use the info the other guys offered and you are on your way.....hronk
The main thing I try to do is watch where the arrow hit exactly and determine from there when to start tracking the animal. If I am not sure of where it hit, I will wait well over an hour before tracking. My arrows usually pass through and like the guy above said, they can tell you a lot when it comes to blood and bubbles on the shaft. Bubbles always make me smile. Nothing like a nice day of "Double-Lung-Boogey".
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