Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Exit wounds and more blood trail

saddlesore;
Thanks for the reply and further info sir, I appreciate both.

For sure in my buck as well there was a whole lot of blood to pour out of it before I loaded it onto the dead sled and lashed it down.

Then when I got it back to the pickup - someday I've got to start shooting them closer to that thing saddlesore - anyways more blood came out of it as I dragged the sled up the ramp loading it into the truck box.

I think maybe that lack of hitting any bones might be a mitigating factor? That's a guess for sure, but the last couple of mulie bucks I hit with a similar load though they were 120gr TTSX, the bucks dropped via high shoulder shots.

This youngster was really stinky too by the way, which is a bit early for here, but he was fragrant and not in a nice way.

Luckily we've sampled him and he's proven to be a wonderful dinner guest, so all is well that ends I suppose.

Thanks again and all the best once more.

Dwayne

one of the things I have learned over the years is that even with a "blood trail" most folks have no clue what they are doing when trailing a deer. if they stop seeing blood they give up. they dont look for slight drag marks in leaves, they only look for blood on the ground, not body high on weeds etc.

a friend of mine hit a deer a few years back. big puddles of blood ritgh off the bat, then petered out to nothing. his response was "that deer ain't hit hard enough to die"

i went back to the last spot of blood, it was rought spattered over 6-8 inches, I started looking around and 10 feet or so from that spot I found blood on sapling branches, then I started noticing a pattern in the deers tracks and finally told my friend that he had broken the deers front right leg above the knee and it was only making big spots of blood on the ground when it stood still. a half mile later after trailing the deer by his tracks and blood high in the grass and brush, flanking the down hill side of a ridge we caught the deer in his bed, my buddy shot the buck and sure enough his right front leg was broken above the knee.. i think he bedded down on that ridge because he was having trouble walking down the steep hill. by only looking for blood my buddy almost lost that deer

A buddy and I have used accubonds a decent amount in the past for deer and most of the time we have also had next to no blood trails. We both started using ballistic tips more the past few years and it seems that they always still get an exit, and the blood trails are typically pretty massive.

I kind of enjoy tracking a deer, not that I'm ever disappointed with a DRT. I do think that a lot of guys give up too early on a wounded deer. In my experience if a deer quits bleeding that has been, it is probably down within a short distance. Blood is what we look for, but I've found them using scuffed up leaves, even hair my bullet had cut on one that I'd been tracking. I'd hit one too far back and that unmistakable broken gut smell hung in the air where he had run. If they are bleeding even a little, you can run them out of blood with good tracking snow even with a marginal hit, but it takes a while. I've switched to "softer" non-premium bullets for deer hunting. Premium bullets were not opening fast enough in my experience and resulted in longer tracking jobs and harder to find deer.

I have always wondered why the mantra is always " wait and let em stiffen up" what do hospitals do to recoup people? they let them rest. ive alwasy been a fan of keep them pumping blood. eventually they are going to run out of blood

In my experience, the “let them lay awhile” means they conk out after they make their first lengthy stop, post-run. If you press them and jump them again, they may die 800 yards away instead of 80. Same timeframe, differing distances.

sound theory on a good hit, but what about a marginal hit. an anuimal pumping blood under the rush of adrenaline and exertion will bleed out much faster, or lose enough blood pressure that he shuts down uch sooner than one that holes up and lets that blood congeal andclot the wound

I shot a healthy young whitetail Saturday afternoon. 130gr Berger with an impact velocity of 2235 fps. The deer flipped over and laid quietly at the shot, never kicked or moved. as I walked up to it there was not a trace of blood and only some ruffed hair where the bullet hit. While field dressing i noted the lungs heavily damaged and both shoulders broke with a lot of clotted blood inside. Found a 35 gr fragment of bullet on the offside shoulder just under the skin. Not at all what the " need two hole crowd" would like to see but the deer never budged after the shot.......

Deer where I go in the big woods are just not that abundant and I never want to waste one. Years back second week of our season I was walking around an evergreen swamp and found a deer bed with blood in it and a decent size track leaving it. Early in the day and good snow, so I took the track. A long ways along the trail I found a rounded bone fragment that said to me leg wound and a front one I figured for as good as he was moving. About four that afternoon I got a glimpse of that buck and took a quick shot. He crossed another logging road and I left the track until the next morning. A buddy and I jumped him up that morning and one of us just grazed him over the back. He tried to mess us up by running over other deer tracks, but he was dropping that dark back hair, but no more blood. I caught up with him in more evergreens and finished things. He was almost out of blood and very clean inside. You can get a leg hit deer if you stay on them. I got another one once with my worst bow shot ever that I'd hit above the back hoof. We had good snow and every time it put it's foot down was a spot of blood and I said to myself that I'm going to run that one out of blood, but it sure took a while and another arrow.

I can not see any disadvantage in waiting a while unless rain has started or is predicted to fall soon. If that is the case, I'm on it pretty quickly.

I have never had a 129g Hornady Sp let me down on deer and hogs...heck of a bullet. I expect for lung shots to deer run, and I shoot them a tad further back than most people, taking out the diaphragm, heart, and lungs, arteries.

Exactly!

I'm just thinking that these posts relating the lack of blood are probably what would be called in medical terms, a sucking chest wound or pneumothorax. Your animal dies because it can no longer pull a vacuum to expand it's lungs with it's diaphram. Any wound is going to bleed somewhere, but aside from the blood being blown out by the initial bullet strike, with a hole in the chest cavity it is probably creating a negative sucking pressure not positive pressure that would spray more blood on the ground. I've moved my poi from 1/2 up to 1/3 up to get more of a leaking blood trail sooner if they run.

Good point.

Over the decades I have seen too many exceptions to every "rule" about blood trails to believe in any of them firmly.

I don't know how many deer I've shot w/my 7x57Ackley Improved but it's over 40 w/the 140gr Ballistic Tip running 3050fps. Same result as Saddlesore and none of the deer ever ran out of sight. Just like JG said... textbook. powdr

^ ^ ^ THIS ^ ^ ^

The people I've helped to find deer didn't try hard
enough to find a blood trail or any other clues,
and they dang sure won't get down on their hands
and knees to look for sign. Most feel that if it
didn't fly over backwards or " mulekick" then they
must have missed and 9 out of 10 it'll be laying
just yards away under a clump of bushes or cactus
or something. I guess I've been lucky and found
all mine that didn't fall on the spot. Bowhunting
taught me A LOT about finding deer

This cow as shot with a ML. Good blood trail for may be 30yards and then nothing and I looked for an hour. I sat down and ate lunch and gave it another try.Turns out, she feel to the right, over a log, and buried herself in the brush from fallen pine tree limbs.This photo was after I cleared some brush.



This was after my buddy and I spent an hour clearing the brush and dragged her 10 feet.She had been dead about 3 hours by then



Here was a tough one.This cow went thru some 4-5 ft tall weeds. Blood was only on the weeds about 3 ft up.Then she went across the dam of a beaver pond and fell in.Only her head and a short piece of neck was viable.I had to go get the mules,used two lead ropes fastened to a saw buck to pull her out.I had to take my boots and pants off and waded in to put the rope around her neck and he mule had a tough time pulling her up and over the damn.She probably had 100 pounds of mud on her that I scraped off before taking this photo.

I'm sure it's been said, a lot of it has to do with where on the body the hole are, if high in & out you won't usually get much of a blood trail.
Because the body cavity fills up. If you have an exit low on a deer blood will usually be found in good supply.
From a Broadhead shooting from a treestand you usually get a good blood trail a blind child of 4 could follow because of the angle/
The more years I hunt the more I like a softer lighter bullet and I try for ribcage shot, they go down so fast it's like lighting struck em. But you don't want to hit shoulder bone if yer bullet is varmint soft. But I don't want him crossing the road or going into the swamp either.

I had a cow drop and flop around til it made its way into a creek. It is a pain when you got go for a swim to retrieve game........ mud is even worse.

Haven 't shot as many animals as some here with 6.5 cartridges but have found the 140 npt in the 264 to be good and the 129 grain Hornady SP to be excellent in the swede. Sometimes you don't get much blood trail as others have mentioned but that's exactly why shot placement trumps all other factors
Just my 2 cts worth
Mb