One form of tracking every hunter should be familiar with is blood tracking or blood trailing. The following of the blood, after the shot, to locate and recover your game.
So lets go back to the shot. Every time you pull the trigger you should try to remember where the crosshairs where when the shot breaks, not where you wanted them be but where they actually were. Giving you your first clues on what should happen next, whether good or bad. The inspiration for this post was actually a deer, where the shot went to the liver, a little further back than I prefer, but I was avoiding a tree branch. I wanted the rear of the lungs, when the shot broke I called it a little farther back, which it was unfortunately resulting in a liver shot.
After the shot watch the animal as long as possible, delivering another shot if needed or if you can. Once the animal is out of view you need to remember the last place you saw it, and mark it in some way. An obvious landmark or a simple compass heading and distance work well. Also mark the location where it was standing when you shot. Again a landmark and/or a compass heading and distance. Lastly mark your location so you can find it back and reference it if you are using a compass. Flagging works well, if it is not obvious like a stand or tree.
The reason to mark the location you are in, is so you can shoot a back azimuth on your compass to confirm your location if you are where you expected the animal to be and you are not finding any blood or other sign.
I’ll give it 15 minutes after the shot before I go to the spot the animal was standing when it was hit. There I want to match the what I am expecting from the called shot to the blood on the ground. This can give you an idea of how long to wait before you follow up any further.
Some of the things you could see on the ground:
- Lots of bright red blood – heart or possibly lungs or artery, a good sign.
- Spurting blood – artery hit.
- Bright red frothy blood – lungs, also a good sign.
- Dark red blood – liver or muscle, not as great. The more free bleeding the better.
- Drops of blood – vein, muscle, or liver.
- Brown or greenish blood or fluids – gut shot, really not great.
If you have spurting blood or signs of heart or lungs give it at least 20-30 minutes from the shot to start tracking. The liver an hour or more if you can. A gut shot several hours would be best. This is to give the animal the best chance to set up and expire. Pushing an animal too fast it can causes to keep moving and possibly preventing recovery, instead of giving it a chance to find some thick brush and expiring there.
Some people recommend waiting even longer, that usually can’t hurt either as long as its not too warm. If it is hot you are racing the clock to get the meat cooled down.
The big things to remember in the game recovery phase is patience. Patience to start following. Patience to find the next sign before crashing off in the wrong direction. Keep your rifle ready, they might need another shot.
Sometimes you may not notice blood at the site it was standing when hit, but 10, 20, or more yards away. I would look slowly and carefully until the next piece of sign is observed. Once you get on the trail don’t walk on the sign and don’t travel past the last visible sign.
An injured animal travels will typically take the path of least resistance. Which could be a trail or a route downhill. I have noticed that a deer may not try to jump a fence if it is injured, rather following the fence line. Anytime they stop and especially if they lay down should have more blood pooling.
If you get a spot where you are stuck take a moment to stop and breath, then visually search the area once more. Sometimes there will be a lot of blood, sometimes it will only be a drop. When there isn’t much sign you have to slow down.
As I’m going I like to search ahead with my binoculars to see if I can find a deer (or whatever we are looking for) shaped rock or bush ahead of me. This also helps slow me down and helps to break tunnel vision. If I do locate the animal I will study it for awhile with the binoculars, if it appears to be alive and ready to move than it needs to be addressed quickly, but if it appears to be dead than I will track it to its location as its a chance to practice.
What if there is no blood, or it is infrequent? This is why paying attention to the initial direction of travel and listening for crashes or other sounds are important to set you up in the right direction. You will then either need to use old fashioned tracking skills of looking for disturbances of the soil and vegetation. Typically a wounded animal continues in the direction of travel, changing mostly for a path of least resistance, down hill, or the thickest hiding place. Prey has an instinct of creating distance or looking for cover. More depth in regular tracking will be in upcoming articles and videos. If tracking is out of your scope, and it is legal use tracking dogs and thermal drones seem to offer some potential. If not it’s time to call on help from family and friends.
What would cause a lack of a blood trail? In the simplest terms, there isn’t a path for the blood to get out of the body. If there is an entry wound but no exit than you now have half of the holes otherwise possible. This is often caused by the bullet running out of steam on the far side and being captured by the elastic nature of the skin. Alternatively the bullet was designed for very rapid expansion and fragmentation “dumping” all of it’s energy in the body. Lastly you just might not have a cartridge and bullet up to the task. Regardless if a bullet doesn’t leave two holes than you have half the opportunity for a blood trail. If the animal expires on the spot, or shots are in open country where you can watch, than it is less of an issue. If it is dense timber through terrain that is more difficult to track through, than perhaps you want a pass through to increase blood trails for tracking.
Another reason an entry or exit may not leave much blood has to do with the way the skin moves over the muscles when the body moves. Those two body parts don’t always stay in the same place but rather move or slide in relation to each other. If the hole through the skin no longer matches up with the hole through muscles and organs than it can seal the blood inside. This occurrence is more common on entry holes than exit holes, as entry holes are typically smaller and cleaner. It is also one of the reasons why I personally want the bullet to exit, as exit holes seem to let more blood out.
When the animal doesn’t leave a blood trail it will still bleed out, but not drain out. This is partially why the chest cavity will be full of blood when you process an animal hit in the heart/lungs. This is exacerbated by having a smaller diameter hole, which can be as much of a function of bullet design as caliber.
Given my choice I would prefer the animal expire on the spot I shot it, but I personally enjoy tracking so when I get to do it, I like that portion of the hunt the most. So hopefully you can too the next time you need to use this skill.
Happy hunting.
-Joe
Outpost 95 