Headed out trailing!

[David Frank]

I hunted tonight and had one small buck come by, but passed on him. Just before dark, a nice doe came in and I made what seemed to be a good shot on her. I trailed her for about 15-20 yards and backed out. Had good blood, but opted to pick up a brighter light and a couple buddies for help tracking.

Wish me luck!

[eagle_3464]

Good luck in finding your doe. Did you make a good hit? I saw 5 tonight but just a little guy close enough. The others were on a different trail and one of them acted like a buck but I didn't get a good enough look to tell. Kind of my luck this year, been seeing deer but either in the wrong place or no high percentage shot. Oh well, the season is long from over yet. Good luck again Dave and give us an update.

[David Frank]

Just got back from trailing. Had GREAT blood for about 20 yards then it just seemed to dry up! Did manage to find a drop here and a drop there through a standing corn field. All blood rubbing off on stalks was low. The shot looked to be perfect, but after seeing the blood trail, I think that at the angle of entry, I was too low. I was only 10 yards from her when I shot her... should have known better than to aim low. We found our last blood about 350 - 375 yards from my stand, where she exited the corn field and into a wide open plowed dirt field. I will be back at that location at first light. Hopefully things go a little better in the morning. I'm sure it will be a sleepless night.

[David Frank]

Was back at the spot at sunrise today. Found a few drops of blood in the dirt, but after that, nothing! I don't know what to think. I glassed the entire plowed field very well then began circling to try finding more blood. Came up empty handed after that search. There are way too many tracks in the dirt to pinpoint which are hers. I also worked the edge of the corn to see if I could find a re-entry point where she may have doubled back to cover. After that, my only other option was to check a small 20 x 50 yard slough that was about 500 yards away. Nothing there either. I'm kicking myself for bad shot placement. No other excuses on this one. Only thing I can do now is learn from this one.

[Tyler Holm]

Sounds like you did everything you could to find her. I guess it wasn't meant to bee....

[David Frank]

Yea I sure did. Still a sickening feeling when you loose one. Hopefully she will make it though. The small amount of blood other than at the very beginning makes me think that I was low, underneath all vitals and that she may make it. I know I didn't break any bones with the shot. It was very calm and I would have heard bones snapping from only 10 yards.

[harvey lee]

I once used a pendulem sight which compensates for close high angle shots and when I used it I never had such good hits.I told my son we need to go back to those as it really helps at close range.One can help eliminate human error.

[fishermn]

Sorry to hear that ya didnt find her David. I know from experience how hard that is. Like ya said, just think through what happened and how you can avoid it next time. One thing I did is spend a bit more time studying those deer anatomy pics that show the location of the bone structure and the organs. The other thing I did was a lot of reading about shot placement. I know its been said on here before too, but especially on higher angled shots visualize not only your entrance point, but also think about where you want the arrow to exit so that it will definitely hit as many vitals as possible. Perosnally I wont take those high angle shots anymore, but thats just me. Good luck in the future and may all your blood trails be short!

[Deitz Dittrich]

Great advice above!...

[ikeslayer]

a tid bit of advice i have for you is don't rush it. If it is dead it will be dead. First thing i do is find that arrow and smell it yes smell it. you will acquire a smell for different organs and when you have really chunked bone you can smell that too. Second thing i do is look at the hair. Different color hair and different kind of hair are in different places. You can learn alot from these two things next thing i do is learn his/hers foot print. Sometimes they make it easy on you and they have a dragging foot or a chip out of their hoof and you can recognize it no problem. i once tracked a deer for 2 days cause of a foul hit an i got so intimate with the deer i could pick her track out of 100 others because i learned her so well. Get intimate on you hands and knees. i hope that you never need any of these little tricks and then when you stick them they all die 50 yards way but chances are you will be pulling another late nite with the lantern sometime in your life. ike

[mnwild14]

Do you know of any sights online that show good pictures of the anatomy?

[Deitz Dittrich]

If you do a Google Search for "Whitetail Deer anatomy" you will get plenty of information.

[David Frank]

Thanks for all of the replies!! Believe me, I did my fair share of trailing this one on my hands and knees with my head lamp and mag lite leading the way.

I trailed a deer for a hunting partner last year in ND that had an unusually pointy hoof. This was in the snow with good blood so it didn't come into play, but I took the time to follow up the blood trail anyways hoping to learn something along the way. A couple of the guys in the hunting party headed straight up to where they saw the deer stumbling as it entered the trees and recovered the buck. Dad and I hung back and trailed it out since we had extra daylight to burn. Even if I watch a deer fall, I like to trail it out anyways to improve my tracking skills for the times like the other night when I actually need them!

[fishermn]

Some of the best deer anatomy pics were found in the forums on the Mathews web site. Look under the forums section, and you will find them, or like Deitz said google "deer anatomy"

[BLACKJACK]

One thing I noticed when I looked at some deer anatomy pictures and drawings is that the shoulder bone is actually farther forward and farther up than I thought. In other words, instead of shooting for the crease where the front leg is, shoot a little further forward for a better chance of shooting the heart and lungs rather than back into the guts.