Dead ain't dead unless you find it dead IMHO.
What folks call pools of blood and such, well lets just say I"ve seen some amazing survivals of game....
So then how many do you hit before you say enough?
From over a 100 bowkills and years of experience I can pretty much tell from the way the blood looks and the blood trail starts... and ends...
I"m not going where you think I am or you are insinuating, I'm just saying that a good hunter and tracker can't find an animal, its often not dead. I"ve seen more survive shots they are not supposed to than folks would believe.
OTOH not being able to follow into private land and the animal may well have been just over there dead...
But I won't punch my own tag from a lost animal unless I know in my mind it is dead or going to die. The few in my days that I knew we screwed up and the animal was going to die IMHO, that was a tagged animal for me.
Pretty simple.
Its why I despise the part on a guided hunt that says draw blood and you pay and are done....not that I've done guided hunts. But I totally see why its put into play having guided enough...
