So far this year,, I’ve helped 6 different individuals find their deer that they couldn’t find..
this is where our skills as trappers really shine,, because we have the ability to see things that others miss.

This was a decent deer this morning…

He was shot last night and the guy decided to wait until morning to continue to find it,,,
I found the blood trail quite easily and I saw where it had laid down…it wasn’t dead,, blood was in the bed and it was fresh,,we had kicked it up,,, I told him that the deer was still alive but it wasn’t far ,,, because that blood was fresh…
No sooner had I said that, I saw the deer moving slowly in a small strip of brush and was heading down into the creek bed. It was not moving fast at all..
I told him that we should circle around… and sure enough,, the buck was down in the creek bed,, it’s all dried up,, but the deer was just plain out of gas and couldn’t get back up on the creek bank because it was too steep and it just laid down…
The guy put another arrow into the heart and that was all she wrote,

Had I not seen the deer and how slow it was moving,, I would have opted to wait a few more hours instead of pushing it… It was a lethal hit,,, and the deer would have eventually expired..
But it all worked out.

Decent deer.

A lot of shots are lethal but not all are ethical.

I don't believe trappers have any special ability to see sign.

Rather, I believe a lot of deer hunters have no ability.

One of the coolest things I think someone asked me to do was a bow hunter that may be the only real bow hunter I know that does it right... scouting all year... moving and jockeying for position day after day... going after the one monster hes pinpointed to wherever... i used to coyote hunt with him... he called to ask me to find his deer. We did and it was a dandy. We crept up on it and it raised its head and I stopped about 40 yards away and we waited it out and got him. A real dandy. I got a picture somewhere, he let me pose with his bow and took my pic with my phone and his deer. lol. That was a good day.

X2

If the deer doesn't drop at the shot, these nimrods think they missed and move on...I've found several deer while scouting or still hunting, see blood and follow it to the deer.
It ain't brain surgery, but seems a lost skill for most.

Agree

I agree with that and believe we are observant to more.

I have tracked a few too. the hunters stay back and talk about their shot while the trapper figures it out.

It is worse with bears around here. A lot go after being shot well and don't fall right away, people get nervous and chase them to soon and the bear runs for 20 or more minutes and gets lost.....jk

I’ve gotten pretty good at tracking deer over the years. I’m the guy friends call when they have a difficult one to find. Most of those folks are younger guys and don’t have a whole lot of experience tracking deer so I’m glad to help.

A week and a half ago I had one of my shortest but most difficult tracking jobs. It was my own deer. I hit it with my 06 at 80 yards and saw it go down. It got back up and I saw it run about 20 feet before disappearing down a steep hill.

I walked down to where I hit it and found hair and blood.





I knew the general direction he had run, so I started looking for scuffed up leaves, but there were none due to two days of steady rain. The leaves were soaked and heavy. I found the next drop of blood about 25 feet away at the end of a small blow down.

Lining up the first blood and that blood I used that as an indicator of the general direction he had run and spent the next 30 minutes looking for more sign. I couldn’t find any. So I made a big circle around the property, hoping to see him laying in the open woods. No luck.

I went back to where I found the second blood and started really looking hard. I finally noticed some disturbed leaves about 30 feet away at a hard angle to the line I thought he had taken. Now I had a new line of travel and carefully followed it off to one side of where I thought he might have run. Another 50 feet from the slight scuffing of the leaves I found another drop of blood.

You can see that he wasn’t bleeding much at all. A small puddle where I hit him and three drops of blood in 30 yards.



He was running down an overgrown power line. I lined up the second blood, the scuff mark, and the last blood and eyeballed down the hill. I finally saw a patch of white belly hair down in a hole in the thick stuff.



I had a heckuva time getting him out of there.

It had only run about 60 yards, but it took me two hours to find it.

Turns out it was a big button buck, the biggest one I’ve ever killed. It dressed at 82 pounds which means it had a live weight of about 104 pounds. I thought it was a doe when I shot it.

great job guys,

I've had to track one on my hands and knees, blood drops were small and few and far between....finally found him, it was shot with a slug and you'd think that big hole would bleed more,.....was a bucket of blood when I opened him up....shoot enough of them and you see some strange things....

Around here a lot of the bait sitters get nervous and don't chase them at all.