How to Blood Trailing 101

 

Losing a wounded game animal is the most heart wrenching part of this sport we love. It can bring the most seasoned hunter to a weeks’ worth of restless nights.

 

 One way to keep these tragedies from accruing is to become the best blood tracker in the woods. After losing my first potential bow kills and after two days of frantic searching, the trail ran cold. As ashamed as I am to admit it, that experience pushed me to spend time lost in the woods and buried in books. Books such as the Beniote’s Family Hunting, these books are tailored to deer trailing not necessary blood trailing, tracking in general.

 

 Now to the meat of this post: learning to recognize the signs left by game animals especially white tails.

 

The first thing you should know is that the blood you see can tell you a lot about your shot placement. If you see dark pure blood the odds are good your shot hit the heart and the deer will go down soon. If the blood has partials in it than it was probably a gut shot.  This is bad news; give the deer a day if the weather permits then take up the trail.

 

 If the blood is dark and oily then you struck the liver, again a day’s wait is the best approach to finding the deer. If blood is bright red and has bubbles in it then it’s a good shot that means you got the lungs. So, give it a couple of hours depending on the trail then go find your deer.

 

Start by:  mentally marking the last place you saw the deer, odds are that mark will be the first place you see blood. Something important to remember is to not just keep your focus on the ground, keep looking around and look for the path of least resistance, Also the hunter staring at his boots the whole time will never see his wounded deer hop up and walk away.  Blood signs are also left in other places rather than the ground such as trees, low shrubs and other things that the deer might have brushed up against in his escape.

 

Not much blood no worries. Use the tracks, look for slides this means the deer was on a full sprint, and may have run for a while.   Your arrow can also tell you a lot about where you hit the dear.  Hydrogen peroxide? Yes hydrogen peroxide can be used to help blood trail your game. By using an old Windex bottle full of the product you can spray it on the blood.  It will begin to bubble and you’ll be able to determine what is blood and what is just the red fall leaves. Well I hope this helps eliminate the heartache caused by losing your prize game,

 As always

Good Hunting and God Bless,

Ryan