Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Bought a blood tracking light and it does not work

Bought a blood tracking light, and it flat out does not work. Tried it on a whitetail blood trail and any white flashlight did a better job of showing the blood on snow or on duff and leaves. This "blood tracking" light has a blue and a green option. Both colors made blood look black like a million other pieces of debris. The blood did not stand out and in the blue or green light when we could pick out a spot to try the light on, it looked like a pinch of dirt kicked up rather than blood. It is a heavy metal tactical looking flashlight named Police Security, a door buster special I should have left closed.

Do any of the blood tracker things work? We could have used one the other evening on the buck shot just before dark. It took a 95 grain Nosler Partition through both lungs a bit high and did not leave a drop of blood that we detected for the first 70 yards. It was piled up about 80-85 yards from where it was hit.

Some guys spray hydrogen peroxide on blood trails to make blood show up.

H2O2 works but it requires a lot of spray to find a few drops here and there. It doesn't locate a drop. It just verifies that it's actually blood.

We have tried blood lights and thermal trackers. Nothing worked as advertised. The thermal tracker failed to register the deer under it. (Tried it even though the deer was in sight).
Another possibility is the radio beacons arrow inserts. They use slide switches and activate on impact. Radio reciever is held to your belly to shield the radio reciever from the beacon. When the signal fades, the arrow is behind you. Seen it used in video, but don't know anyone with one to test it myself.

Those are illegal here. Besides, the OP was rifle hunting.

A good Dog is the best if legal in your area.

I have had good luck with the Primos blood light. Also the Flir. With the Flir you can see the blood for awhile.

Interesting, why illegal?

The ones I tried did not do much of anything although these were cheap models. A regular black light bulb did better but only at night. The one thing they were useful for was finding arrows with florescent knocks, they worked great for this. Sometimes a red filter would make the blood appear white and stand out in the dark but it doesn't always work. Peoples eyes and especially color perception varies so it may work for other people.

Waste of good time, good dog is best. I shoulder shoot mine, no looking, dead right there!

Idaho doesn't allow any electronic device to be attached to bows or arrows.

That is a major point...

Again, interesting. Ohio does not allow anything that projects a beam of light to be attached to the weapon. Optical red dot is fine, laser is a poacher's weapon.

Idaho makes a feeble attempt at keeping archery and ML seasons at least somewhat primitive. We can use compound bows but no crossbows or expanding broadheads. No electronic devices attached to bows or arrows.
For ML seasons, no inlines or scopes. Caps or flints only. No powder pellets. No sabots or jacketed bullets.

But back to the subject...just a few years ago, Idaho started allowing the use of a blood trailing dog. It must be kept on a leash and must be used only during legal hunting hours. No night time tracking.

Thanks for the feedback. I had high hopes of a miracle device that would make any tiny speck of blood glow or light up for me, but alas, still gotta do it the hard way and find that speck of blood and the next one. I was thinking of the thermal device so it is good to hear how limited they are, with the technology so far anyway. As to FLIR, any warmth in a drop of blood would not last more than a second or less in the snows of the Canadian Rockies during late whitetail season.

Rock chuck, Ohio has the same dog laws, with one caveat: a dog here is legally leashed, as long as he either responds promptly to voice commands, or radio collars. He does not HAVE to be in hand.

I’m color blind as hell. With that said, I haven’t lost an animal using this in the dark:

https://www.bluestar-forensic.com/gb/bluestar-kit.php

Interesting stuff!

Tried to find a price, but could not...

I bet it is hydrogen peroxide. I am tempted to try florescene dyes in combo with the peroxide but just haven't gotten around to it as most of the game I shoot drops within sight.

I bought a tablet pack locally last year for $19.99 I believe.

Drop tablets in a spray bottle with water, mist in the direction the deer/bear went, and watch the blood glow. Neat stuff.


https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Blood-Finding-Revealing-Agent/dp/B005VR4JJ0

I hear an old Colman gas light works great.

A friend has a blood tracking wiener dog. She never misses.

Store it away with the cough silencer and the butt out tool and dispose of them at the next yard sale.

^^This!^^

$79.99 at this place. Kinda pricey to find one animal though I don't know how far or how many blood trails it would last.

https://www.arrowheadforensics.com/a-2534-bluestar-forensic-kit.html

Luminal. Heard of folks using it, but never met someone actually using it. How expensive, and it's single use, so how long does it stay active?

I had a gerber light that was supposed to show blood--it was a gift. I tried it once and it did nothing for me; flashlight was better. Good buddy is has a K9 for local pd but he's not supposed to use it to find my lost game...

Assuming there are enough blood drops for it to work on. Many deer will only leave a drop here and there. It would take gallons of the stuff sprayed all over the ground to find them. Any kind of spray is most useful for identifying SUSPECTED drops of blood, not for finding them.
I shot an elk last week with a lung shot a bit high. It didn't go anywhere but it didn't bleed out of either hole a bit. It walked about 5 yards in snow and went down leaving not a drop in the snow. If it had run a ways, there would be no blood trail to follow.

I had an uncle by marriage in the family that was half Indian, he taught me how to shoot a rifle , how to walk silent in the woods, and how to track game without any blood. I have found many deer that left no blood trail that I and others have shot. If you know what to look for it is easy and never fails. I tried teaching my older son but he never had the patience to learn.. I am now too old to do it anymore, teach that is. LOL

Agreed. Read my signature line.

Well, near as I can tell, you should have bought Rudolph, the keen nose Weasel dog (dachshund).... who would also dive under your covers in the morning when he wants you to get up , and chew on your toes. They work.


Trust me.... at least to the getting up part.

It glows for a good 4-6 hours.

Correct, suspected blood. It’s good to use after traditional tracking techniques have turned bleak, especially if tracking dogs are 2+ hours out from being available and you want to get to your deer before predators do.

Best blood trailing tool.... ( write this down)
Big hole in...Big hole out.

A Leupold Thermal Tracker works if the trail hasn't gone cold.
It will set you back a few bucks.

I was only asking for a friend, of course.

I shoot all of my animals only on the left side, with a big exit, that puts all of them down on the spot always in perfect dust-on-top-of-snow tracking conditions except when it is clean tracking mud on level ground, though of course I never need to track an animal.

Up in the Royal Group of peaks above the Palliser the other evening, the doggone masseuse in my heated deer blind would not quit massaging my hunting partner's neck and open the shooting window fast enough for the newbie hunter to shoot that whitetail on the left side like I told him to. A tracking device might come in handy for an amateur wannabe who does not know how to pose an animal correctly to shoot it where he wants.