Several years ago I'd gone hunting with a friend, to a place he thought I'd have a chance at a decent-sized buck. Since I'd never shot anything larger than a spike, I was excited.
Through the late afternoon, nothing moved. Then, at the very end of legal shooting, I saw a deer slipping through the trees. I couldn't tell just how big it was, because it was so far away; I could see a lot of white over its ears, though, so I knew it was a good buck.
Although I'd never fired the gun at the distance the deer was from me, I decided to risk a shot. I put the cross hair just above the back of his neck, and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flash blinded me momentarily, but I could hear the deer going off to the left. Then he snorted at me.
I was convinced I'd missed, but my friend and I spent quite a while looking for blood or the deer. When we couldn't find either one, we gave up and went home. Three days later, my hunting buddy called me.
"Guess what?" he said. "I found your deer today." I hadn't missed after all. I'd hit him in the shoulder and he'd run off to the left, as I thought. But he went down after only 20 yards or so; the deer that had snorted at me was another animal.
Losing downed game is a painful and humbling experience for any hunter. And given the perception of hunters and hunting in general, it can be bad public relations if a non-hunter or anti-hunter finds a dead deer on his or her back forty.
Lieutenant Jack Polk, law enforcement patrol supervisor for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, has been hunting in the Southeast for most of his 47 years. He feels bringing game out of the woods once it's down is part of the hunter's obligation to both the sport and the wildlife. "It's a moral obligation, as well as a sporting obligation," he says.
Captain Ed Tyer, hunter education coordinator with the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, says public perception of hunters is a major problem. "The lack of ethics is one of the biggest problems facing hunters today. There are a lot of people who are not opposed to hunting, they are opposed to what hunters do. So they're anti-hunter, not anti-hunting."
Tyer says this attitude has come about because of a lack of ethics and a lack of responsibility. "For instance, we surveyed our students who had completed the hunter education course. We asked one question, 'Do you oppose sport hunting?' And we found out that a good portion of people who hunted opposed sport hunting. The anti-hunting movement has put such a label on the term 'sport hunting' that it means killing something for the sport of it and leaving it lay. And it even meant this to hunters."
According to Tyer, any hunter who doesn't make every effort to find a deer is not living up to his or her responsibility. "Generally speaking, a deer is going to leave some kind of sign. He's got to--he can't just up and fly once he's shot. Once you find that sign, follow it far enough--get down on your hands and knees if you have to--until you are absolutely sure that deer has not been hit. If it has been, it's up to you to follow that sign. And when you follow it out 'till you lose it, you start circling around until you find it again. That continues on until you either find the deer or you drop dead from old age."
Making certain you don't lose a deer, though, starts long before you're on your hands and knees in a swamp, trying to decide if that red leaf has a blood spot on it, or is just showing fall color. It begins the day you choose a gun.
Tyer's personal preference is for a 6mm or .245 and up. "I wouldn't recommend anything like a .223 or .222. If you know you've got a cartridge like that, then you have to look for the shot. You're talking about one shot only, and you have a three- to a four-inch target, and that's just below the ear."
Once you've selected your gun, you need to choose the right bullet and then learn the gun. That takes a lot of target shooting, Tyer says. "I don't know that you can shoot too much. There are some people, if you're really a competent shooter, that sighting your gun in is all you need. Other people, a hundred rounds may not be enough."
Tyer points out that all commercial ammunition is not manufactured equal. "If you buy 150-grain Remington, and 150-grain Sierra, and 150-grain Federal, they're not necessarily going to have the same point of impact. If you sight in with one brand of ammo, and one bullet, stay with that."
The best thing to do, Tyer says, is try several brands of ammunition until you find the one that shoots best in your gun. "I know it's expensive, but if you're going to get serious about what you're doing, then ultimately you would buy yourself a box of each of the brands of the weight bullet you want to shoot, and then shoot that in your gun and see which one does the best for that particular gun."
The last step before you head for the woods, Tyer recommends, is to try the gun at different distances and see how it performs. Charts are available that predict the rise and fall of the bullet at different distance, but Tyer prefers to find out for himself how the particular cartridge will perform in his individual gun.
So now you're in the deer stand. You can see a deer coming, and you know he'll be within range in just a minute. What do you need to look for, listen for, and be aware of when you get ready to fire the gun?
According to Bo Pitman, owner of White Oak Plantation near Tuskegee, Alabama, a hunter needs to think about landmarks before he or she pulls the trigger. If you've been in a stand for more than a few minutes, he says, you'll be watching key areas from where you think the deer will come. Fixing particular trees, stumps, or brush in your mind will help you go to the spot where the deer was standing when you shot.
"That's going to be the first place you go," Pitman says. But that's not the only spot you need to be aware of, he continues. You need to watch where the deer goes, so you have some idea of the direction in which to look once you're on the ground.
"Everything the deer runs by, you ought to be making mental notes of it when the deer's leaving. Mark the trees it runs by, the ditches it crosses, fences it jumps, or whatever. And the last place you saw it, of course. Then go there, unless you saw it fall over."
Sound is also important. Polk listens for the animal to run, and says sometimes you can hear it fall. "Most of the time it will kick a time or two. You can hear that kick, and you know it's down."
Pitman agrees. He says you may be able to hear the deer a lot longer than you can see it. "Sometimes deer do funny things. It may circle right back, or you may hear it fall and go to kicking. Or, you can hear them run just clean out of hearing. Then you've got an idea which way to go."
Besides being an avid hunter, Polk also teaches tracking to law enforcement agencies and the U. S. Forest Service. Though most of what he teaches is man-tracking, the same principles apply no matter the object of the search.
When he reaches where the deer was standing, he doesn't look first for blood. "It may not bleed immediately. If it's a shot that didn't exit, there may not be blood for the first 20 or 30 yards. I look and see if I can see where it lunged away."
The most common mistake hunters make, Polk says, is to circle around looking for the animal itself. "That's a bad mistake. If they've got blood, they should trail the blood, no matter what other running sign they see. There may have been other animals there that you weren't able to see when you took the shot."
Pitman says hair is the first thing he looks for. "When that bullet goes in, most times it's going to come out. There ought to be a tuft of hair lying there. Especially if you're on a green field or in real clean woods, you ought to be able to find the hair."
According to Pitman, the amount as well as the kind of hair conveys information. "Sometimes if you have a graze it knocks out a whole hat full of hair. If it's a low hit, it'll be white hair. If it's a high hit, it'll be real dark hair. If you get real short, fine hair, then you know that's a leg hit. You ought to be able to find broken bones."
Once you find that spot, Tyer says, mark it. "You can mark it with flagging tape; I know people who carry a roll of flagging tape, the kind surveyors use, all the time." He recommends placing the flagging at eye level so you can see it for some distance.
"You can also use your tape to mark your trail," Tyer continues. "Mark where you started. Go on down where you find a drop of blood, and you mark that where you can see it. Before long, you can turn around and you can see the direction the deer was traveling by where you've been." That can give you at least an idea of the direction the deer might continue to travel in.
It will also give you a place to start if you lose the blood trail. "Then you start working in a circle looking for sign," Tyer says. "You can always tell where your line of travel was by the markings going back." The color of the blood you're following also can give you some idea of where the deer is hit. For instance, dark blood indicates a deep cut. Light colored blood usually has air mixed with it.
"The only place I shoot is at the back of the neck," Tyer says. "Then if I saw a lot of hair in the blood--bubbles in it--it would almost have to have been a hit in or around the throat."
Polk adds, "If it's a light-colored red blood, it may not be a deep body shot--it may be just a glancing shot. If it's frothy, it probably hit the lungs. If it's deep red, it's probably a good body shot, probably hitting the heart or an artery."
Don't assume that a deer will always continue running in the direction in which it started. Keep alert for the possibility that the animal may lay a "false" trail. "If he runs down a trail and something scares him, he's just as apt to turn and run right back that trail because that's a safe place he's just come from," Tyer points out. This behavior could give you a trail that appears to take off in two directions.
Tyer says hunters need to be careful not to walk directly in the blood trail. "You want to walk away from it just as much as you can." He points out that not all blood trails are on the ground. "There are times that you might brush your hand up on a limb that's got blood underneath it. A lot of blood won't reach the ground. Look for it on bushes, on leaves of little scrub oaks or pines. Look at the animal-height limbs and brush."
If you shoot a deer just at dark, what kind of light is best for tracking? "A big one!" Tyer says emphatically. He says a good flashlight will show up spots of wet blood very well in the dark. Polk is less concerned with the size of the light than how it's used. He recommends a good flashlight, held low. "If you hold it up at shoulder height like most people would, you can't see. If you hold it low so it casts the light in front of you, almost like the light was coming from behind you, you can see much more."
When tracking at night, according to Polk, broken vegetation and other clues become more important than they are during the day. "The blood, of course, keeps you 100 percent right, but there are other indications there that you're on the right track. An animal that's running and wounded will break things that he wouldn't normally break. You're going to look at that more than you would in the daytime."
One other recommendation Polk has for tracking at night is to have another person with you. "One person holds a position, because you can talk back to him and listen to his voice as you circle to pick up the next spot of blood, and it keeps you on track."
After searching for a deer in the dark and not finding either the animal or any blood, Polk still goes back the next day and looks again. "If I shot at him, I'm going to be sure of whether he's hit or whether he died, even if I have to look the next day. Every time you shoot you should look."
Pitman agrees. He says he goes back the next day, even if the hunter is convinced he has missed the deer. Ninety percent of the time, he continues, a lung-shot deer is going to take off running, leading many hunters to think they missed. "There's no telling how many deer would ruin if we didn't go back for a look. That's something we've got to do."
At night, he says, you can walk right by a deer and not see it. But what do you do if the blood trail gives out? Pitman says then it's time to sit down and think.
"If everything's failed and you've run out of blood, sit down and think where the nearest creek is, and where the thickest cane patches and briar patches are. The thickest areas, the most secluded areas are where if he's hurt but he can still travel, that's where he going to go to bed up. That's where you'll find him."
The idea of losing a deer in the field upsets Pitman. "The main reason is that it's not fair to the deer. It's too precious a commodity to let waste. It's not ethical to let one go. It doesn't have to be a big one--it can be a spike or a doe or just a yearling."
Even if you follow all these tips, the day--or night--may come when you still lose a deer. That's one of the risks you take when you hunt. But by knowing how to follow a wounded deer, and by doing so systematically and carefully, you can reduce the chances of having every responsible hunter's worst nightmare come true.
Copyright (c) 1989 Carolee Boyles-Sprenkel. All rights reserved.
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