Tracking deer after the shot

[MNRookie78]

How long do you track a deer before calling it quits and giving up, granted the trail is dificult to follow? The reason I ask...went flying the Monday after opener and saw 3 deer laying dead that were never recovered. All were within 5 miles of each other...one in a big patch of woods, one in an open CRP field and the 3rd in very sparse woods with low grass all around (cattle grazed area). Very sad to see an animal go to waste like that.

[BobT]

I will track it until either it's found or I lose the trail. My brother and another member of our party once tracked one from Kinney to Mt. Iron and back and eventually brought it home. That's about an 8 mile round trip run in a straight line.

[shortfatguy]

I dont give up for a long time. Have only had one get away that I can recall and I followed it for 3 days during season and looked a couple more days without a weapon after season ended. It was a big buck and I dont thik he died from the wound. Must have been a low brisket shot or a graze to the leg.

[shortfatguy]

Bob, Are you from Kinney?

[MNRookie78]

What frustrates me with seeing what I did from the air is there are stands all over the place where I hunt, so these were laying not too far from any given stand. The patches of woods aren't that big either, maybe 1/2-3/4 of a mile at the largest point. The majority of the land is CRP and farm fields with patches of woods here and there. In my opinion, there were some people that did a poor tracking job, or worse...they bagged one too many for the party and left/dumped it.

[uffdapete]

Sounds like a poor job of shooting also.

[Arctic]

Thankfully, I never had to track any of the 14 deer I've killed over the years. If for some reason I wounded a deer I would track it for as long as possible, and recruit friends to help find it.

A couple of years ago a buddy and I talked to a guy who was hunting not far from us. He said that he had shot at and missed two deer, but didn't bother to go look. My buddy and I found blood trails that led to a dead fawn and a small, dead doe.

That kind of lazy-[PoorWordUsage] attitude turns off a lot of people to hunting and hunters. What we do in the field matters to the future of our sport.

[TruthWalleyes]

I witnessed some of this Lazy.... unsportsman like... This weekend.

I got out of stand early afternoon saturday. My buddy had his unkle hunting on our land, i hadn't met him yet, but did when i got out of stand. He had apparently just shot a doe. So i offered to help him drag it out of the woods....Thinking i was walking up to a dead, gutted deer, i paid no real attention. He was pointing out blood spots from the point of shot, and i thought nothing of it. (BTW his shot was 15yds with his pistol)...Long story short, We get 40yds from his stand, and this deer jumps up. I saw blood and immediately asked if it was his deer (Since it was small, i wasn't going to shoot it) He says yes, i tried to get off a shot after stepping to the side of him, but the deer was deep into the woods by that point.....Needless to say, I chewed him out BAD!

1) After making a 15yd shot, the deer collapsed after running 40yds.

2) After sitting in his stand for 15 minutes or so, he doesn't go check out the deer, he goes to his truck...why, i don't know.

3) He approaches a deer that he does not know is dead, with his gun on his shoulder

4) Deer gets up and runs away, and he doesn't even make an attempt to shoulder his gun and make a shot.

5)...then the excuses come out....It wasn't shot in a lethal spot....I didn't want to ruin a quarter by shooting it again as it ran away...

I lit him up. A Deer shot at 15yds, runs 35yds and colapses...The deer lays there for over an hour and doesn't get up and run until we are right on top of it....It's going to die.

Told him to always approach a deer with gun on shoulder and ready to fire...

Afraid of ruining a quarter he says...You don't get any quarters if you let it run away.

He was set in his ways (Basically this deer was too small for his tag apparently) and said that the deer will live...

I hope he thinks more about his actions next time he shoots at a deer.

[wolfman-k]

Idjuts-they're here among us!!!

[archerystud]

TruthWalleyes,

That would make me furious as well.

Back to the thread.....

Every shot and situation is different. I think it's a little easier with the bow. For one if you find the arrow you can tell what type of hit if any. With the gun it can be a lot tougher to tell exactly where a hit was made.

With that being said I will NEVER give up as long as I'm finding blood. Also, I will usually look for a minimum of 4 hours after taking a shot just to make sure I don't have any blood. One should follow up for a minimum of 100 yards just to find blood.

I think anytime a hunter takes a shot they should plan on many hours of possibly tracking a deer.

With that being said there are instances where someone will not be allowed to go tracking a deer by the land owner. Rather than jumping to conclusions this could sometimes be the case.

[BobT]

Bob, Are you from Kinney?

Yes. Grew up there, graduated from Buhl in '77.

Brother Mike still lives up there plus 2 sisters (Virginia, Hibbing)

[shortfatguy]

My dad was class of 75. Mom was class of 76. I live just south of Buhl on Morse rd.

[Lure Lightning]

Our group has only lost one deer and it was opener of this year. Had dark blood likely liver (my guess) and absolutely no blood after about 20 yrds we waited a few hours then zig zagged everywhere and didnt find any sign of it very upsetting but we did do our best and looked again even the next day. on the other side there are some people that i wont call hunters and have found a deer that was perfect lung shot and could see it from the deer stand it was shot off of called the local CO and turns out the guy that uses that stand on state land is a state trooper and happened to have served with the CO the case was dropped as the CO had stated it could have been anybody as it was on state land.

[MNRookie78]

Lure Lightning...

If that is a fact than I'm truly bummed! I don't care if it's a fawn, doe, whatever...a true sportsman should should track as best as they can to the fullest extent and just because someone puts their time in for the law doesn't make them exempt of poor sportsmanship. Great replies guys, I know I'm not the only one thinking the same.

Archeystud,...

very good point, and I agree. There are some situations that require a different point of view! Although I'm not 100% confident of the situation in these cases, the lay of the land and knowing a lot of the neighboring landowers gets me worked up a bit. I'm very fortunate to know the landowners directly to the N S E and W, and the subjects in question were not on THEIR property. Had it been, there would have been a successful recovery even if it was too late to salvage any meat because I knew exactaly where to find them (I actually took the ATV and looked at one because it had gone onto public land and the hind quarters were gone to 'yotes). All in all it's a bummer to see animals go to predators which are already harsh on the herd.

[archerystud]

MNRookie78,

As much as I like to give benefit of the doubt, I agree that this probably does happen FAR more than it should.

[MNRookie78]

As much as I would like to give benefit of the doubt too...chnaces in this case are pretty darn slim All I can hope for are that you are correct!

[Wensel]

I shot the biggest buck of my life Nov 11 2009

I found him April 17th 2010

[chippy]

So what is concluded in this thread is some folks just shoot because they are trigger happy. They don't care for wildlife! urgh!

If you are confident with your shot, you should not even worry about tracking deer.

[BobT]

So what is concluded in this thread is some folks just shoot because they are trigger happy. They don't care for wildlife! urgh!

If you are confident with your shot, you should not even worry about tracking deer.

I think that's being a bit presumptuous. Everyone has the potential to find himself in a situation where the deer ran off and he has to track it down. Even the best placed shot can do this.

Do you consider a double lung shot to be a well placed shot? I do. Last year we ended up tracking two deer with both lungs gone. Granted, they didn't go far but they left no trail for us to follow. One, I found by working a grid until I finally spotted a little blood on a tree 50 yards from where it was shot and the deer was laying about 20 feet away from the blood spot. I got lucky that I even spotted the blood at all. No snow and the ground was covered in red maple, oak, and aspen leaves. Even with a blood trail it would have been a real challenge.

The other one was shot just shortly before dark and we ended up not finding it that night. The next morning I began a search just like the other one and happened to spot the deer laying on the ground. I looked around where he lay and the only evidence of his passing was found about 10 feet behind him where he stumbled and left the leaves stirred up. The blood was still inside his body cavity and came pouring out when I opened him up. He traveled nearly 100 yards before dropping.

How about a heart shot? I’ve heard plenty of stories where guys have to track deer and when they open them up they discover the heart was literally exploded into pieces.

Sometimes you are just forced to track them down. You just never know.

[chippy]

Hi BobT, I didn't mean that you don't have to track you do. They will always run a little bit unless it's spine shot etc. Though with a good clean shot it just gives you a mind of peace that the deer will go down. Just wait it out.