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Blood trailing ended up being a thing this weekend, figured I’d throw one more spin off out for the sake of serious discussion.
One of the things I try to do is to go to the spot of impact even if I have a good idea of where the critter actually dropped. It’s a way for me to build a memory bank for future reference on more difficult tracking jobs. We did this with the Kid’s coyote Monday evening as well. He had an idea where it was but it was actually easier trailing it than it would have been just randomly looking in that area. Funny thing was my daughter spotted it the same as his buck last year. We were looking down and it was about five yards away.
Even living in update NY I don’t have much experience with blood trails in snow. The few that I’ve shot in those conditions were usual DRT. I have run across blood trails from other hunters and always try to follow them, especially if it looks like no one else has. It’s never amounted to me filling a tag but I do it just the same.
About the only take away I’ve come up with is that I’d much, much rather have a track that starts out sparse and gets heavier than one that looks to be hit hard at the start but peters out. I hate grid searches at the end.
I also haven’t ever quite gotten how some people determine where the hit was just from looking at drops of blood. Sure, if there’s gack mixed in that’s a bad sign of a gut shot but I’ve never really seen “dark” or “pink” blood. Typically it’s just red. I remember reading once that the only true dark blood was still in veins returning to the lungs, once it’s exposed to oxygen the hemoglobin will immediately red. Foamy blood I get, but it’s always been so obvious that there’s no doubt. Often there’s hunks of lung mixed in anyway. When it’s obvious that it’s being exhaled that’s always a good indication as well.
I’ve also seen heart shot deer cover a lot of ground without bleeding much. A direct hit on the pump often stops the flow but where they go down it’s usually messy.
Saturday night was almost too much help. We did ok not stomping the trail once we got going but I was glad we had everyone helping to find that initial line. We were definitely spread out at the start. Otherwise on a tricky job I prefer three people, one to stay at the last spot and two sets of eyes looking ahead.
Not really looking for specific tracking stories, unless one has something that stands out about something you learned from it, but more interested in what you like to see or not see when you have to go looking and how you go about it.
One of the things I try to do is to go to the spot of impact even if I have a good idea of where the critter actually dropped. It’s a way for me to build a memory bank for future reference on more difficult tracking jobs. We did this with the Kid’s coyote Monday evening as well. He had an idea where it was but it was actually easier trailing it than it would have been just randomly looking in that area. Funny thing was my daughter spotted it the same as his buck last year. We were looking down and it was about five yards away.
Even living in update NY I don’t have much experience with blood trails in snow. The few that I’ve shot in those conditions were usual DRT. I have run across blood trails from other hunters and always try to follow them, especially if it looks like no one else has. It’s never amounted to me filling a tag but I do it just the same.
About the only take away I’ve come up with is that I’d much, much rather have a track that starts out sparse and gets heavier than one that looks to be hit hard at the start but peters out. I hate grid searches at the end.
I also haven’t ever quite gotten how some people determine where the hit was just from looking at drops of blood. Sure, if there’s gack mixed in that’s a bad sign of a gut shot but I’ve never really seen “dark” or “pink” blood. Typically it’s just red. I remember reading once that the only true dark blood was still in veins returning to the lungs, once it’s exposed to oxygen the hemoglobin will immediately red. Foamy blood I get, but it’s always been so obvious that there’s no doubt. Often there’s hunks of lung mixed in anyway. When it’s obvious that it’s being exhaled that’s always a good indication as well.
I’ve also seen heart shot deer cover a lot of ground without bleeding much. A direct hit on the pump often stops the flow but where they go down it’s usually messy.
Saturday night was almost too much help. We did ok not stomping the trail once we got going but I was glad we had everyone helping to find that initial line. We were definitely spread out at the start. Otherwise on a tricky job I prefer three people, one to stay at the last spot and two sets of eyes looking ahead.
Not really looking for specific tracking stories, unless one has something that stands out about something you learned from it, but more interested in what you like to see or not see when you have to go looking and how you go about it.
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