I am finding the discussions on blood trails to be interesting in how I feel many peoples perceptions of exit wounds and blood trails are skewed.
There are many, many times when there simply is no trail even with an exit wound, but to someone who can track the difference of having a little more blood on the trail might make all the difference.
It might be the speck no larger than the size of a pin head that sets you in the right direction when most others would have lost the trail or given up.

Tracking is an art in and of itself, and something that needs to be taught, practiced and appreciated.

Marking tape, a step stick, patience, a good knowledge of what animals are likely to do when hit where depending on the terrain, a bulldog tenacity to not give up looking for the next clue and to resist the urge to forge ahead and screw up sign..

These are all part of it and those extra little specks have found me many a game animal.

An exit wound does not assure anybody anything,, except that it doubles your chances of finding blood on the trail.
And for some that is all they ask for, and all that they need.
"I edited this as it made me sound even more arrogant than I actually am, and here is my edit"

I did not mean to come off as being better than anyone at tracking, I am simply stating that the difference between finding and not finding is so often measured in " clues" and clues are measured in clarity or consistency.
A clear clue would be your buck lying in site after only 20 yards..
But lacking that clarity of clue the next best thing is to just keep finding the right track, hair or blood consistently enough that you finally find your animal."
That is what I was trying to say.

I have always found that competent shot placement is much more valuable than tracking skill. Drop the animal within 20 yards and it is all over with.

quote:

Originally posted by bucko:
Tracking is an art in and of itself, and something that needs to be taught, practiced and appreciated.

Marking tape, a step stick, patience, a good knowledge of what animals are likely to do when hit where depending on the terrain, a bulldog tenacity to not give up looking for the next clue and to resist the urge to forge ahead and screw up sign..

These are all part of it and those extra little specks have found me many a game animal.

....and none of these skills are necessary unless you bowhunt. Put the bullet in the shoulder and drop the game where it stands and no tracking is necessary.

i killed a nice 120" buck last season that was feet from a pine growth of 8-12 feet high. i shot him around 35-40 yards w/ a 16.5" bbled 308 and a 168 AMAX. there was a violent explosion and a shrapnal type exit wound that bled very little for the short distance he traveled.
thick young pine in misty rain is no pleasure to track through when you dont have a great blood trail, i promise.
but as another poster stated about tracking skills i would say dont ALWAYS depend on blood. the ability to track something thats not even bleeding yet will prove very useful if you learn it well.

quote:

Originally posted by KSTEPHENS:
i killed a nice 120" buck last season

Wow ! And I thought my 33 inch buck was big. Nice deer. roger

quote:

Wow ! And I thought my 33 inch buck was big. Nice deer.

Roger.....are you measuring on the Budweiser scale?

bucko

I guess what you are saying is there is no substitue for tracking skills? Which i agree is a correct assumption, but one thing is for sure, you will have a much better chance at succesful tracking with two holes and thats what i want any cart i use to do.

I have had bullets stay in the animal and "dump" all their energy inside and i wasnt impressed. Said animals still ran off pretty far and left very little to no blood trail.

I am a bowhunter so i consider trailing a necessary function of hunting and unlike others i wouldnt intentionally shoot any animal i want to eat in the shoulder. The only exception would be a very big buck that i didnt want to travel.

The way i look at it is i like to err on the side of caution and can use and need every advantage possible, thats why i like bullets and cartridges that usually fully penetrate an animal.

The arrogance of some who say no need for tracking skills is beyond me. It shows how little they have hunted as opposed to their claims of great shooting and daring do...

Bullet failure can cause tracking jobs, sometimes one hits a twig, even a leaf and then the bullet is deflected enough to create a tracking job..sometimes you are required to track someone elses game.

If one is a hunter, it is his responsibility to learn those skills that go with the sport and tracking is one of them, and to deny this is pure

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
The arrogance of some who say no need for tracking skills is beyond me. It shows how little they have hunted as opposed to their claims of great shooting and daring do...

Bullet failure can cause tracking jobs, sometimes one hits a twig, even a leaf and then the bullet is deflected enough to create a tracking job..sometimes you are required to track someone elses game.

If one is a hunter, it is his responsibility to learn those skills that go with the sport and tracking is one of them, and to deny this is pure

Ray

I agree 100% with your comment. When I started bow hunting I was amazed at what I didn't know about tracking a hit animal. Luckily the fellow that introduced me to bowhunting was a National Field Archery champ and an excellent bowhunter and he definitely taught me a great deal about shooting a bow and tracking hit animals.

I've been lucky enough to take around 30 different critters including mule deer, elk and bear with a bow and remember some long hours tracking the blood trail on those critters. Never failed to get a critter that I stuck an arrow into and was often times amazed at how deadly an arrow can be.

I may be wrong, but I believe if you hunt long enough, even the best of shots is going to have to track a wounded animal sooner or later. I have read every article on tracking that I find. I bow hunt and the skills are essential, but they are sometimes essential for gun hunting as well. I couldn't agree more strongly with Atkinson--he's right on the mark.

I think that tracking skills are essential. You might not need them today or tomorrow, but if you don't have them when you DO need them, you're screwed!

One of the ways I used to help my kids was to make them backtrack from an animal we did find, to where it was shot. They were the first to notice that the blood was sometines non-existent and sometimes very sparse. It has helped the greatly when we hunt thick cover. They begin to notice the little things.

quote:

Originally posted by ireload2:
I have always found that competent shot placement is much more valuable than tracking skill. Drop the animal within 20 yards and it is all over with.

If you shoot enough animals, you will find one that will run.

I agree that a shot through both shoulders is probably the fastest way next to a central nervous system shot to put an animal down right there.
However there is a cost, generally like ruining both front shoulders.
I get tired of throwing a third of my animal to the dogs.
Anymore I try and pick my shots depending on a few factors.
One obviously is what kind of shot I have, if he is standing broadside then that shot is an option unless I want to wait.
That is if I can wait or is he going to be gone in the time it takes to make up my mind.
Second is the country I am in, if it is brushy , hard ground and tough to track in conditions then I am goingto probably go for the anchoring shot if possible.
Or where the animal is in relation to the terrain.
I shot a bull elk to ribbons trying to put him down before he tipped off into a deeep rough canyon one year.
Six shots, and all of them vital hits with a 7 mag. the first was the screw up, instead of in behind his ribs into his chest I shot him in the hip and yet it still penetrated to his off shoulder, then two in the ribs and two more in the shoulder and the big sucker still did not want to stop trying to get tipped off the rim until finally I got one into his neck.

But for the most part unless it is as I said tough conditions or raining , or fixing to rain I will stick them through the heart lungs area to avoid the meat loss.
I hate skinning jellied shoulders.

But it is truem, shoot at enough animals and some are going to run at least for ways, and it may be the single extra drop or even speck of blood that you find that makes the difference.

My experience is that when you shoot them broadside with a big and not necessarily fast bullet into the boiler room, they drop many times, you get an exit hole and in 99% of the cases a blood trail which is easy to follow.

If you want to shoot at big critters with smaller calibers or from not so ideal positions, it is good to have a trained dog close by.

quote:

Originally posted by bucko:
I agree that a shot through both shoulders is probably the fastest way next to a central nervous system shot to put an animal down right there.
However there is a cost, generally like ruining both front shoulders.
I get tired of throwing a third of my animal to the dogs.

You might like hunting with a 45-70.
I have eaten right up to the hole on the deer I shot with a 45-70 AND the deer dropped like it was hit by lightening.

Proper shot placement and large exit holes does not always guarantee that the animal will drop on the spot. I've shot wildebeest and oryxes with the .375 H&H that destroyed their heart, with plenty of blood on the ground where they were hit, and still ended up with hours of tracking.

Knowing how to read tracks, knowing the biology of the animal, knowing how the animal thinks, knowing the animal's habits and "daily schedule", knowing how other animals and birds react to wounded animals, and knowing the terrain are all part of tracking, and tracking is an integral part of hunting.

If I were using a small bore or rimfire for hunting medium size animals, which I usually don't, I would go for short range brain shots.

Namibiahunter

Ray, I consider myself to be an excellent tracker since I have bowhunted since 1988 and have been fortunate enough to kill a huge pile of deer in the south for many years and that is mostly in Alabama. I've killed deer with a bow in AZ, TN, MO, KS, SC, IA, and OH. Most don't make it beyond 50 yards.

I don't know how much experience you have with archery, if any, but what I would argue until I'm blue in the face is that I've never had a problem finding a deer that has fallen to my archery equipment as blood is copious and looks like a red river right up to the animal.

On the other hand, I've watched deer go as far as the eye could see after having a good 6mm bullet punch through the vitals, with little or no blood whatsoever. In those cases, then I agree, tracking skills are prudent.

I respectfully disagree with your opinion regarding arrogance and BS.

quote:

It shows how little they have hunted as opposed to their claims of great shooting and daring do

On the contrary, it shows that some have such a great deal of experience that they've learned how to drop the game where it stands, and I admit it took me a few years to get away from lung shooting deer with a bullet and placing it in the bone. But the outcomes speak for themseslves, and I will attest that if and when I put another bullet anywhere other than the bone, it's b/c my only shot is quartering away, which I will take, but it is not preferred, unless I'm bowhunting.

Quite frankly anything is possible in this hobby/past-time/or addiction, whatever you want to call it---HUNTING. But, we all draw our conclusions based on OUR accounts. And mine have taught me that tracking is completely unnecessary when you put a bullet where I consider the best place, and that is in the shoulder/spine region. I guess I am arrogant. But I stand by my arrogant words in my previous post.

As to helping others track, well, I've been there done that. A fat 200+ pound MO buck with a thick winter hide doesn't show much if any evidence of blood when they've been hit with a 6mm bullet (in our case). Seems like we've tracked some lung shot bucks all over Schuyler Co. Missouri, even those hit with .308 factory bullets. It got old. So we all started popping them in the shoulders whenever possible. No more tracking.

Bucko, as far as this goes:

quote:

However there is a cost, generally like ruining both front shoulders.
I get tired of throwing a third of my animal to the dogs.

That is true. If you are into the meat, don't shoot the shoulder. I personally could care less about throwing away a half a pound of meat, or better yet, I gladly feed it to our dog. She likes venison too, and she gets it raw.

quote:

I've shot wildebeest and oryxes with the .375 H&H that destroyed their heart, with plenty of blood on the ground where they were hit, and still ended up with hours of tracking.

Hours of tracking maybe but I guarantee the animal did not run more than 15 seconds with it's heart blown away. Does not happen. Your hours of tracking happened because you shot the animal in a lot of vegetation. The animal did not run that far. Your choice you track.

quote:

Originally posted by ddunn:

quote:

Originally posted by ireload2:
I have always found that competent shot placement is much more valuable than tracking skill. Drop the animal within 20 yards and it is all over with.

If you shoot enough animals, you will find one that will run.

Most do run ....about 10 to 20 yards.... however some ...don't they drop on the spot. The real key is shot placement. If the animal dies within eye sight no problem. If not it is your problem.
It is not the fault of the cartridge, the rifle or the animal. All the decisions are made by the hunter.

quote:

Originally posted by ireload2:

quote:

I've shot wildebeest and oryxes with the .375 H&H that destroyed their heart, with plenty of blood on the ground where they were hit, and still ended up with hours of tracking.

Hours of tracking maybe but I guarantee the animal did not run more than 15 seconds with it's heart blown away. Does not happen. Your hours of tracking happened because you shot the animal in a lot of vegetation. The animal did not run that far. Your choice you track.

Nambiahunter

Did you take Ireloadmypants with you on your safari?

Sounds like he was just behind you on your right shoulder when you shot and was able to call the shot.

I would be more selective in my hunting partners in the future if I where you.

quote:

Originally posted by namibiahunter:
Proper shot placement and large exit holes does not always guarantee that the animal will drop on the spot. I've shot wildebeest and oryxes with the .375 H&H that destroyed their heart, with plenty of blood on the ground where they were hit, and still ended up with hours of tracking.

Knowing how to read tracks, knowing the biology of the animal, knowing how the animal thinks, knowing the animal's habits and "daily schedule", knowing how other animals and birds react to wounded animals, and knowing the terrain are all part of tracking, and tracking is an integral part of hunting.

If I were using a small bore or rimfire for hunting medium size animals, which I usually don't, I would go for short range brain shots.

Namibiahunter

Namibiahunter

There you go recommending head shots. Aren't you aware that on this board lurks outspoken critics of such endeavors?? Surely you must realize that their opinions, from their arm chairs, is more weighty than your in the field experience!! Be prepared as their opinions usually follow any reference to headshooting.

Doc one of the main reasons that I started using barnes bullets is because sometimes I also want to shoulder shoot because it is such a good anchoring shot.
But my experiance with shoudlers with conventional bullets was atrocious to say t he least.
Not a half pound of meat, but more like both front shoulders completely ruins and if not lucky the front part of the loins as well.

I happened to shoot a mule deer running away from me with a long throated very hot loaded 7 mag, with a new bullet for me at least, a 140 barnes xlc going very close to 3400fps.
I had loaded and sighted in for this area in anticipation of perhaps up to a 500 yard shot, instead he jumped out at around 50, and I whacked him in the short ribs as he quartered away.
He ran about 50 more yards and piled up and when I saw the exit out through his left front shoulder I thought damn,that close, and that fast,, that quarter is gone for sure.
I was very surprised when I skinned him and even though it was apparent the bullet had
expanded I had to cut away no more than two inches around the exit.
Since then I still try to stay away from the shoulder if possible, and the terrain and the shot allows me to, but I am not near so hesitant to take that shot if needed since I have went totally to mono bullets.

namibiahunter wrote:

quote:

I've shot wildebeest and oryxes with the .375 H&H that destroyed their heart, with plenty of blood on the ground where they were hit, and still ended up with hours of tracking.

I'm sorry, but there is no animal with its heart "destroyed" that can run for hours. Simple science completely refutes that claim.

You may have taken that long to find it, but if its heart was destroyed, as you say, the animal did not run more than 10 seconds or so -- and probably much less.

I would have to agree, shot through the heart it might have taken a person hours to find him, but unless he ran into the thicket from hell he did not make it very far.

Here is however a damn true story about a cow elk that I shot one time.
I figured her for 450 yards, shot her through both front shoulder joints and down she went.
She tried to jump and run and would fall.
I laid there and watched her through the scope for a bit to make certain that I did not need to make another shot at her, I would have anyway as I like to shoot until they lay, but she was only uo for a moment at a time and then she would fall back into the graa where there was no shot.
Finally she laid, and I got up and walked to her across the flat topped mesa, it was 480 strides that I counted so 450 was dang close.
I am not sure how long it was between my first shot and me arriving at her after watching her and then walking that far but it had to be several minutes at least, and she was still alive but breathing her last when I arrived.
In fact I thought about shooting her again with my pistol but could see that she was just seconds away so I just let her expire.
I was very surprised when I gutted her out and found a 50 cent sized hole straight through her heart from the 180 grain nosler partition.

So while I have shot a lot of animals through the heart, and they almost always break and run like a scalded cat for a little ways before they crash, I hate to think how far this dang cow elk would have gone if I had not broken both shoulders.
Far enough I am sure to have gotten off the mesa into one of those deep nasty canyons which very well could have entailed a longer than anticipated tracking session.

quote:

There you go recommending head shots. Aren't you aware that on this board lurks outspoken critics of such endeavors??

TEANCUM, to each his own. I gave a fallen red deer a finishing shot to the 'brain' from real close with a hornet - I put the shot somewhere below the ear and behind the eye. I missed the brain! No way would I try a head shot with a small caliber (or any caliber). The hornet did make that deer flinch but that was all (and it nearly got my mate with one or more of it's 13 points! Well....! He shouldn't have just walked up to it's head ). That's just my 'field experience'.

quote:

quote:
I've shot wildebeest and oryxes with the .375 H&H that destroyed their heart, with plenty of blood on the ground where they were hit, and still ended up with hours of tracking.


I'm sorry, but there is no animal with its heart "destroyed" that can run for hours. Simple science completely refutes that claim.

namibiahunter did say "oryxes". That is probably the toughest beast on earth! It even has a blood cooling system to its brain to keep the brain cooler than the rest of the body. It will easily run far enough in the desert or scrubland to make tracking difficult. I would give it a few minutes to go down with a hole in the heart.

Some quick points ..

Tracking has 2 purposes
1. Finding the game animal BEFORE you shot it
and
2. Finding it AFTER you have shot it.

Bullet placement may limit the scope of tracking.
Blood is handy but not always there.

And when shooting in herd game animal spoor (including blood) is often trampled.

Learning to see a dragging foot - blood on bushes etc may make for a quick find instead of an extended and tiring search!

And the ability to track or even back track has value in finding camp / lost shooter etc.

Keep Safe and Shoot True

quote:

Originally posted by Bobby Tomek:
namibiahunter wrote:

quote:

I've shot wildebeest and oryxes with the .375 H&H that destroyed their heart, with plenty of blood on the ground where they were hit, and still ended up with hours of tracking.

I'm sorry, but there is no animal with its heart "destroyed" that can run for hours. Simple science completely refutes that claim.

You may have taken that long to find it, but if its heart was destroyed, as you say, the animal did not run more than 10 seconds or so -- and probably much less.

Yes....it very well may have taken hours to find and the poster did not say anything about the animal running for hours.

The animal might run for a couple minutes at the most.....probably a few seconds.....but in that time it could be several hundred yards away.

I'll never be as skilled as some of the trackers of Africa.....they are extremely good at their trade!...been there and seen that!!!

For the tracking I must do.....I still want two holes. It's nothing but playing the odds......and yes...it's no guarantee of anything. That said...I'm going to play the game with the odds stacked in my favor!

quote:

Originally posted by Ireload2

Hours of tracking maybe but I guarantee the animal did not run more than 15 seconds with it's heart blown away. Does not happen. Your hours of tracking happened because you shot the animal in a lot of vegetation. The animal did not run that far. Your choice you track.

I didn't have a stop watch to time it would take for the animals to drop but I do have some photos of one of the wildebeest that took a heart shot from my .375 H&H (the bullet did not exit), staggered, took another body shot, then a head shot, then ran off. I don't know how far it was that he ran in that 15 seconds you say is the maximum they will live but it did take the trackers, the PH, and me at least 3 hours to find. The skinners retrieved 2 bullets, one from the blown heart that did not exit, and one from the head that likewise did not exit. One body shot did exit and, of course, no retrieved bullet.



The tracker and PH finding a speck of blood. Those of you who have experience in the field know that an animal running and with adrenalin pumping can cause wounds to close so that you may find large pools of blood at one location and then the blood spoor will diminish to a trickle or completely disappear. Compound that with tracks of other animals running with the wounded one and then splitting up and then joining again or criss-crossing. Maybe it was just bad luck on my part, or the animal was not aware of the 15 second rule.



The wildebeest showing the exit wound mid-body. Sorry, it does not show the entrance wound that destroyed the heart.



All's well that ends well. Me and the wildebeest that ran quite a bit further than 10 to 20 yards.

The only animal that I shot in Africa that went down immediately was a kudu. It was a good thing that it dropped on the spot because the .338 WinMag bullet did not exit and there was absolutely no blood on the ground.

Namibiahunter

Based on what I have seen, a white tailed deer can run for about a minute down hill and cross a couple fences without a heart.

Lucky for my hunting partener, it ended up in an open field where I could see it.

From the first photo you can see why it took so long to find! From the head shot with a 375 you can see why I won't try a head shot.

Great photo's.

If a white tail deer can run about a minute then an adrenalin charged wildebeest might well do two minutes. He'll cover a lot of territory in that time.

I have zero tracking skills. Pity. Now you folks have woken me up to the fact I need to develop those skills. I agree with Tinkering_Shooter. It can only add to the fun and challenge of hunting. Now where to start?

Well for starters just take your scope and move your sights about six inches one way or the other,, you will start getting lots of opportunities to learn how.

I have tracked hunreds of animals bow hunting gun hunting over the last 40 some years of hunting. Most people give up way to early. But what I have found is if it is a good lung heart shot you well find them with in a 100 yards.
I don't belive people any more when they tell me hit it right behind the shoulders then end up following it well over a hundred yards. If you do find them after a 100 yards 99 percent of the time they were not hit right behind the shoulders.

I prefer shooting them some place that well drop them on the spot when there is no snow on the ground. I rather lose a shoulder of two then lose the whole animal.

Bears and hogs can be very difficult to track with thick hides or long hair and lots of fat blood trials can be very hard to find. I have spend a lot of time going around and around picking up a bit of sign, drop of blood here and there before finding them.

Marking the last spot you have had sign is a great help also having the shooter directing you to the spot goes a long way in helping finding the game. It is amazing how all the brush looks the same when you get down to where you think you shot it.. If by yourself measuring the distance to the shot allows you to measure back to the shooting spot getting you a lot closer.

It can take lots of time on dry ground and heavey brush to find even a very good hit critter.

quote:

Tracking has 2 purposes
1. Finding the game animal BEFORE you shoot it .......

Sounds like a good place to start. I'm heading into some bushy hills in the rain this week-end. This could be challenging ..... !

I sure know that blood trails were handy when I hunted in No Minnesota and Wisconsin, when we had snow on the ground....

here in Oregon, they are pretty darn useless...

I have found more of my animals that I have hit, that have gone down in brush instantly, by sense of smell.. and listneing for flies and bees buzzing over the blood from the entrance wound, than anything else...

Blood trails are pretty useless when you are trying to track a wounded or dead animal in thick brush on a hillside that is at a 30 to 45 degree angle...and no snow on the ground...

quote:

Originally posted by seafire2:
Blood trails are pretty useless when you are trying to track a wounded or dead animal in thick brush on a hillside that is at a 30 to 45 degree angle...and no snow on the ground...

John, I allow to disagree. It is still better to search on this kind of terrain with blood than without. Besides, if one punches 2 holes into the boiler room with a bigger bullet (I am aware that this is the small caliber forum), there should always be enough blood for tracking under most circumstances.

As already mentioned here, do not only look on the ground, also twigs and branches carry blood.

Also very important after the shot: To look where the animal goes, how it behaves watching through the "fire" and LISTEN very carefully, you either hear the beast dissappearing over t horizont, you hear how it runs against trunks or bushes and even how and where it drops.

every hunter needs to know how to track a wounded deer. there is going to be a day when you wound one.

ever tracked in the snow? it makes things so simple! (if its stopped snowing of course)

As for the comments on a heart shot deer not running very far... Three years ago my son shot his first whitetailed deer, a nice little 2.5 yr old 8-point. This was an average, run of the mill buck of that age in the midwest, weighed around 150-160 on the hoof. He shot it right where he should have with a smallbore rifle, directly behind the shoulders, and got both lungs and the heart. Perfect shot, right? Well, somebody forgot to tell the deer, 'cause he took off in one of those low, fast, tail flopping, bulldog runs, and ran DIAGONALLY across the FULL LENGTH of a 40-acre cut bean field and fell (ran into it and his velocity carried him all the way over it) over a fence before he collapsed on the other side. Diagonally across a field that size is about 550 yards give or take a few, and he did this with absolutely no heart or lungs. Also, there was absolutely NO discernible blood, and we had the benefit of watching where he ran! He was basically dead on his feet after the first couple of seconds, but somebody forgot to tell him that, lol! NEVER underestimate how far a perfectly well-hit, completely dead-on-its-feet animal can run! Oh, and the shot was with a 100 grain .243 from approx. 35 yards, from a ground blind. Just goes to show you that ALL wild critters are tougher than we give them credit for, and can go a heckuva lot farther than we expect, even a little whitetail!

jdunlapmo, that's amazing! Can you estimate the time he ran for? Do you think he was alert and therefore charged with adrenalin? The two red deer I have seen shot (one mine) showed a lot of tenacity too! And looking at their build (under the skin) it's not that surprizing. I watched the remainder of the second group of deer effortlessly 'hop' over a fence. Wild animals are tough. They have to be.

I was told of a grazing antelope that was unaware of the hunter, that took a shot to the heart. It was startled, took a few steps, then carried on grazing! I have no idea how long it took before it collapsed.

quote:

Originally posted by 303Guy:
I was told of a grazing antelope that was unaware of the hunter, that took a shot to the heart. It was startled, took a few steps, then carried on grazing! I have no idea how long it took before it collapsed.

This has to be a kick back to the old adage " ---the first story teller doesn't have a prayer---" roger