It has allways been my opinion that what you do after the shot is the most important part of the hunt.

Marking where the animal was when shot
Recognising the reaction to the shot
Noting the direction it ran
Remembering how many ran that direction
How many came out the other side of the cover
What noise did the bullet make
How long to wait, come back in the morning?
What direction to approach from

It would be interesting to hear your tips or experiences. My own moral is you can't wait long enough if something goes wrong. I've also given up mistrusting my dog. I may have seen it run that way but if she goes this way there's a reason for it

1894,



I think one basic mistake many people make is not to reload asap and get the rifle back on the beast...too many people drop their rifle from their should/lift there head to look whats happening..if anything has gone wrong, they usually miss the chance of a quick follow on shot..



You mention waiting after the shot; I always find that the hardest thing in the world to do even though I know that it the correct thing to do...



The other thing I find hard is if someone else has the dog or its been left back at the 4x4, is to quit looking early when you realise the beast is not where it should be. There is always the temptation to just look a bit further when all you are doing is making life harder for the dog...



Sounds like your Lab is shaping up well?

Do you ever here how your old GWP is doing these days?



Regards,



Pete

I always back track any blood trail that I can't front track! Marking position of deer can be b****y awkward when 7 or 8 take off inside timber, I can either try and watch the deer "or" watch the place it was stood! Take your eye off where it stood which you do and leave yourself plenty of "boy scout" direction clues and markers- where you were and where it was.
The dog is indispensable; sods' law kicks in when you try to take any post shot shortcut! Stay cool, don't panic!!

I agree it is very important to mark the spot where the animal stood when shot at, and/or the place it dissapeard. One can bring a bit of plastic band to mark it, or just use a piece of loo paper. This is in particular important when you have to wait a while for the dog and then must be able to show where the track begins. Further, if you have to bring someone else with a dog, I is important not to walk around on the spot where the animal was hit - the tracker should be able to "read" the signs of hair, blood, tissue etc and it should not be disturbed more then absolutely nessecary. In the cases where I have tracked other's animals, it is also important to know where the hunter stood when he shot. In particular I remember a moose shot at by a friend. We could not find any blood or hair, but could not understand how he could have shot when the moose was where he said it was, if he himself had stood where he said. Then we found the empty brass 30 meters away from the place he said, and then we could take out a line and se how the bullet had hit a fir and could not have hit the moose.
There is a lot of very serious work done here in Sweden with tracking dogs, based in particular on the German and Danish ways. The law demands us to have a specially trained tracker dog available within two hours if we hunt moose, deer or boar.

I do quite a lot of surches for damaged wildlife every year and you always get surprised by the bad marking of the place f�r the "incident". If it is an animal hit by traffic it is perhaps understandable that the marking of the place might be a hundred meters wrong, but i cant stop wondering about how some people can get it so wrong when shooting on undisturbed animals under controlled conditions...

If you are called out on a search in areas where there are heavy densities of wildlife it is often very important that you get the right track from the begining. Loo paper is the ultimate marking meterial and has multiple uses. I once was on a search for a lost man in Alaska and if he didn�t carry around such enormous amounts of loo paper we would never have found him. The little valley where he was found was completely drapered with lo paper and we could easily find him from the chopper...

Linkis, very welcome to AR, nice to se you around (as I presume you are the Linkis I think you are)!

Of course I am the linkis you think, "the one and only..."

It would certainly be interesting to hear from the brittish hunters how the tradition and legislation concerning searches for wounded animals is formed on the islands. We have learned most of our swedish tradition from germany and generally germans are considered being experts on this kind of "hunting". I have never heared or read anything about this from England though...

Hey 1894 ...and the other members too...
i think you all have mentioned the most necessary or important things to look after , when the game on which u placed a shot "left" the arena.
But I think it�s also necessary to split the "things that need to be done" by game species and where you think you hit the animal.

e.g. it could be dangerous for your life to go in the night time after a shoten wildboar (which still is alive) that took cover in dense bush/forest,.... but you can go after a roe /fallow/ Red ...in completely dark.

The time of how long you have to wait till you go to the "Anschu�" : normaly i wait for a min of 45min (summer or winter, beginning or brake of dawn=> you have to varie the period shorter or longer) the longer the better because the animal "have the time to get ill" and so is to powerless to ran away from you and so u have the chance to get it fast without a long "nachsuche".
But if u hit a leg ...every second! counts...you have to take a dog how will chase and "stop" the animal.

I think it�s possible to mention a lot of other things...but to list them all....would need much time.
The only thing that�s clear is that a dog must be "in your area" who can help u on your follow up.
One thing you have to remember: A huntingdogs sense is so prior over our human senses that a dog (who is "in the business") knows what he does (instead of us ).
If the dog "says" the game has gone left...but you are sure that the game went right...=> TRUST THE DOG!


P.S.:
another thing to put on the list:
a)
especially Wildboarhunting => if the boar went away after it got the shot and flee to /in the forest => listen <=!!!
Because the boar will ran "blind" in the forest and so bump (you will know what i mean when you hear it) to trees!

b)
is one animal seperate from the group?
=> in most cases it�s the game that has the shot!

cheers

Konstantin