Shot and Tracking

[35-acre]

I shot a doe last weekend. She was broadside and not on alert at all. My initial thought was it was a great shot but then the doubts crept in and I started thinking that I might have hit her a little high. Those doubts grew as I was climbing down my tree that I wasn't going to get her. Once on the ground, I started looking at the spot where I thought she was standing and couldn't find my arrow or any blood - more doubts. As I walked a little further away from my stand tree toward where she could have been standing, I noticed the tree in the second pic here. I back-tracked a bit, found the arrow and more initial sign. Things were looking up in a BIG way.

The blood trail was what most people would describe as a walking blood trail. I couldn't even capture pictures that were good enough to represent just HOW MUCH BLOOD there was! The whole trail was 3-4 feet wide of spray. I'm not sure if you can zoom in on the blood pic (3rd) and see it all. It was a crazy amount of blood!

The doe went about 50 yards. She ran in a small arc. She was dead in seconds (If I had to guess it was bout 5 seconds). I didn't take a pic of the lungs. I did check the heart all over and didn't nic it at all. The entry and exit wounds are parallel on the body. She was slightly above me at 20 yards. I marked a yellow block where the lungs were impacted on the drawing that I embedded in the "body pic". I will say and you can see this on the body pic, the 2 blade opened vertically. After field dressing I noticed that the blades never contacted ribs/bone while passing entirely through the body and wedging into a rotted log.

I wanted to put this up so people see some positives and gain some experience from mine.

I was trying to film this shot (and failed) because of that, I didn't mark a spot where she was standing when I shot her.
I didn't hear her crash. She came to rest in the crotch of a tree and on a log so there was no sound to be heard.
After seeing the amount of blood, based on experience, I took the trail up within 15-20 minutes.
Once I started following her path, I looked up and saw the body about 40 yards away.
In total she ran about 50 yards and like I noted above was probably dead in 5 or so seconds.
This was all about blood-loss/hemorrhage. I have heard a deer need to lose about the same amount of blood that would be found in 4 water bottles. So when tracking, you need to determine/understand how much you'r seeing and pace yourself from that.


I hope there is something people can learn through all of our experiences.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

The amount of blood can be greatly deceiving. Try taking just one cup of water and sprinkle it in a meandering trail in a parking lot sometime and see how far you can go before your 8 oz of water is all gone. Then try it with 4 water bottles. What if you are doing this while running as fast as you can (not nearly as fast as a deer can) how far could you make it in the time it takes to dump out 4 water bottles? It would be a good distance. We sometimes think the deer is losing a bunch of blood when in many cases it really isn't all that much.

Congrats on the kill and thanks for the write up. These boots on the ground pictured and documented harvests can be in valuable when it comes to tracking.

 

[35-acre]

Thanks ST. That was my point. Many shots have the cavity filling up instead of showing up on the blood trail. It's great when it happens but it doesn't happen that often (for me at least).

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[yoderjac]

One thing you should add to your description is your shooting elevation and exit wound. When a good shot is made from a treestand (15' -25') high, at a reasonable distance (20-30 yards) you typically get a nice low exit would with a fairly good blood trail. When shot from ground level or only a slight elevation, most of the blood from even a good quick-kill shot will often pool in the chest. The blood trail can be very faint. 50-100 yard run is common with a good double lung shot. In thick cover, recovery can be difficult without a blood trail.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

By the time I generally get around to shooting a deer with my bow it is late fall. The deer have put on a tremendous amount of fat and many times that fat is able to plug up a hole so the blood stays internal. The advantage we have many years in November is snow. Snow is a blood trailing game changer.