Upcoming "After the Shot...Finding Your Deer" Seminar by John Jeanneney

Shot Analysis and Salvaging a Call

By Andy Bensing

I just finished my 50th call of the year with a live jump of a non-mortally wounded deer. I thought it was a gut shot by the hunter's phone interview, but when I got to the hit site it was quite clear what really happened. The ground hunting hunter reported a line of white hair on the ground making me think a low belly opening slice like I have seen often before with big mechanical broad heads. The big mature buck reportedly acted like a gut shot as well. He jumped slightly at the shot and stopped 30 yards away and stood with tail down and breathed heavily for 15 minutes as he milled around "acting oddly"  before walking slowly away. 

 

The hunter reported a lot of blood where the deer stood for 15 minutes and an easy blood trail leading away. I had tracked successfully for this novice hunter before so he called me from the hit site at 9am an hour after the shot and I advised him to wait until 2 hours before dark (3pm) which would be 7 hours after the shot  before tracking. The hunter called back after dark and reported the blood trail petered out after 600 yards with one big puddle along the way. From the phone conversation I believed he had pushed him unseen in the dark when he tracked him that night.

When I got to the hit site in the morning the real story was there to be seen. The "line" of white hair was actually a big oval "puff" of white hair and some of the white hairs had brown tips indicative of the white hairs at the border of the white and brown on the back of a deer's rear legs under the tail.

 

The hunter had been unable to find the bolt from his crossbow even though he reported a double thump when he shot. I  assumed one thump hitting the deer and a second one with the bolt likely striking a tree behind the deer a split second later. When my dog Eibe surveyed the hit site before taking off down the line she found the bolt embedded in a tree 15 yards behind the puff of hair.  The bolt had deflected left 30 degrees from the original line of travel after striking the deer. With the 25 yard shot hitting the deer so far off the point of aim and so many small branches in the line of sight I lined up from the puff of hair and the stump the hunter was leaning on for the shot I suspect the first thump was a deflection off a limb before the bolt hit the deer rather than the striking of the deer.

 

The puff of hair  and the brown tips on the white hairs told the story but the bolt confirmed it. It appeared to be perfectly clean but when I sprayed it with peroxide, as you can see in the photos below,  it showed a glancing blow. The shaft between two of the three fletchings foamed up but the opposite side did not. Also the rest of the shaft did not foam at all except for a very small spot on one side of the shaft  just behind the broad head an inch or two. After wiggling the broad head out of the tree,  only two of the three blades of the Grim Reaper mechanical broad head foamed as well. Also the large amount of blood reported by the hunter where the deer milled around for 15 minutes was just a bunch of drops. Lots of small drops but nothing even approaching "a lot" of blood.

 

 Note wet spots of peroxide with no foam on shaft between fletching.

 

Note white specks of foam from peroxide.  The shaft appeared perfectly clean before the peroxide was applied.  I was surprised to see it foam up.

 

Not seen in this photo but only 2 of the 3 blades foamed from the peroxide and a small speck of material foamed on the shaft 1 or 2 inches back from the broad head on the same side of the shaft as the 2 blades that foamed.

Looking at the small specks of foam from the peroxide on the bolt I could visualize 2 of the 3 blades of the mechanical opening as they contacted the back edge of the rear legs of the buck and sliced the skin open barely touching the muscle underneath and lightly spraying a little tissue on one side of the bolt's shaft.  As the blades created drag on one side of the shaft the back end of the bolt would kick away from the animal and as soon as the blades passed out of the skin the bolt would try to true itself thrusting the fletching back towards the deer's rump and smacking 2 of the 3 fletchings against the wound in the skin. This would cut an enormous amount of white hair as the blades raked across the back of the rear legs.

 

After evaluating the shot I told the hunter there was almost no chance of recovering the deer but since I had driven 90 miles and was there any way I would give it a shot. I was personally curious if this big buck who reacted so conservatively to the glancing shot would lay up and rest. And there is always the chance that somehow I miss interpreted the sign and he was more severely hurt. At the very least since I was so sure of what had occurred from the available sign I planned on using the call as a training exercise and learning more about my dog.

 

Well I started my dog and she easily followed the 600 meters the hunter had tracked and just kept on going through the point of loss without missing a beat. 165 meters past the hunter's point of loss the trail made a J-hook and we jumped the buck unseen but it was clear from my dog's actions that the trail had gone hot.  He was laying 50 meters off his back trail.  We chased him about 1½ miles in easy terrain just for the fun of it and to observe the pattern he would take. As expected for a minimally hurting deer he took minimal evasive  maneuvers at first feeling little threat from his pursuers being he was really not that hurt. He did make one small tricky move but that was pretty much it.  He ran out into a field and made a 50 meter circle and then cut back at a hard angle across an opposite field.  At one point after that  he busted through 5 or 6 bedded does.  We saw the does running hard ahead of us and tracked his single tracks across  their beds.  I wonder if he did that on purpose?   The does ran down the same trail he did for awhile. I was quite proud of my dog in that when the buck's single tracks branched off from the group at a Y in the trail my Eibe never missed a beat and was right on him and ignored the does' heavy, hot line.   When I was sure Eibe was just on him by himself I picked a convenient place to quite the trail when the buck veered in a direction that was not back towards the truck.

We had chased the buck live for an hour over a distance of about 1 ½ miles and he had shown no signs of weakness.  I had seen my dog negotiate the buck's evasive circle maneuver effortlessly, and I gained even more confidence in her ability to concentrate on the correct line when we busted through the bedded does.  This was a productive day for my dog and I salvaged out of a non-gettable call.  And a nice fat tip from the hunter topped it all off!

Thanks Andy for the great post!

They Call It Blood Tracking

by John Jeanneney for Full Cry

They call it “blood tracking”, but the name is certainly misleading. Hunters, especially men of my age, sometimes say “If there’s blood to track, what do we need a dog for? Dogs and deer hunting don’t mix. EVER”. 

For many years I’ve been tracking wounded deer after hunters gave up on them because there was no more blood. I even do my advanced training with tracking shoes, deer feet attached that lay a scent line produced by the interdigital glands between the cloves of the hoofs. This works, but my deer hunting experience this fall reinforced my faith in the capability of a dog to follow a designated deer, even an unwounded one, just as a police bloodhound can follow an individual “alleged perpetrator”.

I was hunting on a food plot in my own woods when a doe came in. Following her was a buck, a big six of the sort that never has a chance to get much better in my part of New York. I had caught him on my trail cameras and he was distinctive; there was nothing else around like him. I waited and finally I got the “perfect” shot down into the oat plot  50 yards below me. The cross hairs were just where I wanted them, and at the shot the buck took a big leap into the brush and disappeared.

I went down quickly to the hit site. No blood, no hair. I knew this does happen sometimes. I knew my gun and I was confident/super optimistic as even experienced hunters can be when it is their own deer and a good one. What I did not see, until several days later, was the top of the log behind which I had been sitting as I shot.

 My scope had shown a clear shot, but the rifled slug barrel, an inch and a half lower, had been in line with the top of the log as you can see. The shot had been deflected, and I had never hit the buck at all. All this I did not know until I went back to this stand several days later.

It was getting dark and I didn’t have much time to look for sign in the briars and logging slash. I had seen nothing, but I knew that my tracking dog would make short work of the problem after supper. And we would get there before the coyotes.

After supper I took Joeri down to the woods. My plan was to work the woods roads around the five acre block the deer should be in. I wanted to make sure that there wasn’t a blood trail leading out of it and down into the valley. Normally I begin at the hit site, but I had already checked this thoroughly, and I didn’t want to work through the thick stuff again if I didn’t have to.

On the circuit around the block Joeri indicated, at one point, that a deer had crossed  the woods road, but there was no visible blood; Joeri was willing to leave this line, so I just marked that point with tape and continued around to the hit site.

I put on the long, stiff tracking leash, said “Find him!”, and Joeri began to work down through the briars and logging slash. He had a definite scent line, but I never saw a trace of blood. Oh well! Once you get started, you don’t quit. If a hunter had called me from 30 miles away to say that he had shot at a nice buck, but had no evidence of a hit, I would have gently turned down the call. But with my own deer on my own land it was different. More about this later.

Joeri came out of the slash, crossed the wood road exactly where he had previously indicated  scent and I had marked the scent line. Still no blood, but the scent line was only two hours old and Joeri had no problems. He is a slow, careful worker, which is just what a 76-year-old guy needs.

We worked down into the valley and  on to property where I had permission to track. Now it was not so thick and with my coonhunter’s headlight I could see 50 yards ahead. We had gone about a half mile on the steep timbered hill and there he was! He got up and he flagged as he took off. I could distinctly see the high rack. I’m not too sure about why he was lying down and let me get so close, but there was no blood in the bed where he had been. And he had raised his white tail as he took off. Not good! But we continued for another 3/4 mile over hay fields and across a creek. Sometimes I could see his tracks in the frosty grass. I’m sure we crossed the scent lines of other deer, but it made no difference to Joeri. He was on his designated deer.

We crossed a state road, and I had no permission for the property on the other side. I marked the crossing and the next morning we were back with the necessary permission. We tracked another half mile, which was much more difficult. There was still no blood or bloody beds. When we came to another creek, wide and deep this time, I gave up. I still had my doubts, but Joeri and I had done all we could.

When I later returned to my stand and saw the log in the photo, I felt better. I knew that I had not killed that buck for the coyotes.

As I said earlier I would have turned down this call if someone else had called me from a distance with the information that I gathered at the start of my track. The problem is you can never know for sure as you screen calls. Earlier in the bow season a bowhunter called me on my cell while I was having lunch at Subway. All he had was a couple of drops of blood, and he had searched in vain all morning. Since he was very close by, I said, “All right, I’ll check it out for you.” It didn’t sound good.

Joeri took the line. No blood for 300 yards. I told the hunter and his buddy, “It doesn’t look like we’ve got anything here. Everyone agreed but Joeri. When he saw we were ready to turn around he yelped and pulled. “All right” I said, “I’ll give it another 100 yards.” Fifty yards farther on, there lay the deer.

In most European countries, where tracking dogs and handlers are much more numerous than here, it is the custom, and often the law, that all shots, which are not clearly a miss, have to be checked out with a tracking dog. These are called “control searches”. One study of control searches for roe deer shot in Denmark showed that 25% of the control searches there led to finding the deer.

We are a generation away from anything like this over here. Tracking dogs and handlers are still spread so thinly that we usually have to screen our deer calls and only take the ones most likely to produce a dead or mortally wounded animal. We like to learn that there is a good amount of blood at the start. But once we are at the hit site, a good dog knows that there is a lot more to blood tracking than blood.

Classic Deer Behavior from a Classic Poor Shot Selection

by Andy Bensing
November 13, 2011

Here is the story of a track I had that encompassed many valuable lessons about blood tracking with a dog and hunting whitetail deer in general.  When the call came in the hunter reported having arrowed a mature buck from 20 feet up and at the close distance of only 5 to 8 yards.  When I got to the hit sit the distance was actually even worse.  It was only 4 yards at best.  To make matters even worse than that, the buck was facing directly towards the hunter when he shot.  In that configuration, there is absolutely no chance of double lunging the animal and only an extremely very low chance of hitting the heart.  This is a shot that never should be taken with a bow.  The hunter did not see the arrow hit the deer but he reported a bright red blood soaked arrow with short gray or white hairs on it. 

At the shot, the deer barely reacted and walked away 10 yards and stood wobbling for 20 seconds then walked another 15 yards away and lay down behind a tree in some brush.  The deer laid there, with no window for a second shot, for 45 minutes with its mouth wide open panting.  After 45 minutes the hunter reported the deer staggered to his feet and wobbled away out of sight without offering another shot opportunity.  The deer left a solid 2 inch wide strip of bright red blood from a few yards past the hit site to the place it laid for 45 minutes.  After it got up from the 45 minute bed there was not a single drop of blood found by the hunter or my dog the next day over the course of the whole track as seen below.

After hearing the hunter's account of the deer's behavior after the shot, I assumed he had hit back farther than he had aimed and gut-shot the deer.  When I got to the hit sight I quickly discovered that the deer had been single lunged, not gut shot.  There were 2 oak leaves in the 45 minute bed filled with coagulated blood still showing the typical hundreds of bird shot sized bubbles often seen in blood gurgling out of a deer from a lung shot.  From that point forward there was not a drop of blood found.

In retrospect, what likely happened was the razor sharp arrow cleanly slipped between the ribs and pierced one lung without touching any bone and the deer barely knew anything happened other than a sudden shortness of breath and sick feeling.  He walked over, laid down to rest, the lung collapsed and therefore stopped bleeding as Mother Nature had planned.  Mature bucks are masters of conserving energy.  They rarely panic.  That's how they get to be mature bucks.  Once the bleeding stops and the deer has been lucky enough to not go into shock (as a result of not panicking and running off all crazed and losing too much blood too fast) now all you have is a tired anemic deer with one lung.  No different than a person who just came out of surgery after having one of his two lungs removed.

When I started my dog Eibe on the 24 hour old track she had a bit of difficulty getting going.  I am guessing that with all the massive blood the first 30 yards the area was flooded with scent and she had a hard time figuring out what the deer himself smelled like.  We knew what direction the deer had walked out of the bed but I let Eibe take 4 or 5 trial runs in several directions for 30 or 40 meters each until she finally locked into the deer's individual scent.  There was no blood to be seen and she started poking her nose down into the fluffy oak leaves and checking hoof prints in the soft underlying ground.  Once locked into the correct buck we tracked bloodlessly for 1000 meters through open forest and field and up a steep hill to a briar and laurel thicket.  The trail went about 100 meters into the thicket on the top of the hill and then began to hook back. 

At that point I said to the hunter that I believed we were about to find a dead deer or jump him still alive. This deer had shown typical wounded deer behavior.  He had rested till he got his wits about himself and then headed efficiently back to a safe bedding area to hold up.  Deer will often make a button hook, as indicated on the map above, before bedding down.  This allows them to watch their back trail and see predators coming and slip away before the predator is right up on them.  And that is exactly what this buck did.  After hooking back 100 meters and laying on the edge of a bench 70 meters off to the side of his back trail, this buck saw/heard us coming and slipped away before we saw him.  Eibe got stuck for about 5 minutes at his bed in the button hook I assume because of the abundance of scent there from being there all night.  Once she got that worked out she shot off like a rocket and I suspected then we were on the buck's hot trail but could not be sure as there was no sign except for the classic pattern the track had been taking. 

After 500 meters on the hot trail with no confirming sign I was starting to worry that maybe we were not on the correct deer's trail.  Most of the hot trail showed no hoof prints or sign at all except I had seen some small fresh tracks that went with some very small, warm to the touch droppings.  Not a good sign as these could not possibly have been from our buck.  The small prints eventually disappeared and the trail then began to curve around to begin to make a circle and large prints from a running deer appeared on the line.  I believe the buck initially just walked away from his button hook bed but we eventually got closer and he began to run and therefore started making easily visible tracks. 

I still wasn't absolutely sure Eibe was on the correct deer but when I saw the path of the deer on my GPS circling back to his original trail from the day before my confidence level began to rise.  What are the odds that some other random other deer would take this course?  Not very high in my estimation.  I told the hunter that if the deer we were following continued to loop back towards the button hook bed then we could be pretty darn sure it was the buck we were after.  Deer, just like rabbits and other prey animals make circles back over their previous course of escape to confuse their pursuers. 

Well this buck did not use that strategy but used another strategy that I have seen before.  When he got to the place I expected him to circle back to the button hook, he instead ran right through an overgrown field filled with deer paths everywhere but took the exact course through the field that he had gone the day before but in the opposite direction for 250 meters.  Clearly no coincidence.  If I had had any doubts, they were gone.  This was the correct buck that had been shot the day before through one lung.  The other thing I was pretty sure of was that he was too strong to catch up to with a tracking dog on a leash.  I forgot to mention the other strong, evasive maneuver he used that worked pretty well for him. 

I am sitting here typing this out with my arm in a sling because at one point when he started the 250 meter retrace in the field, it appeared he purposely avoided an easy crossing of a 7 foot deep by 4 foot wide ravine and jumped across the ravine at an awkward spot.  Well, his pursuer, me, fell into that ravine when a log he used as a bridge broke!  But I am pretty tough too so I handed the leash to the hunter for awhile and hobbled along till I got my wind and could take the reins again.  The buck continued back right past the original hit sight and eventually got on the back trail of the trail he had followed before he was shot.  At this point I considered all the following information I knew about the deer:

1.    One lung hit that collapsed and stopped bleeding.
2.    Hole out bottom of chest but not really that much blood likely lost.
3.    Was willing to go up a very steep hill within one or two hours of being shot the day before.
4.    Never let us get close enough to see or hear him even in some very open hardwoods after chasing him
1½ miles after the button hook bed.
5.    Appeared to be able to run through the forest at will without struggling 24 hours after the shot.
6.    Made a very large 500m circle and had enough wits about him to throw in a 250 meter back track.
7.    Tried to kill his pursuers (and almost did) by setting up a booby trap at the ravine :-)

I decided to give up the trail.  As long as this deer can fight off any ensuing infection, this deer has a good chance to recover from his wounds.  I hope my shoulder heels as quickly!

After the Shot: How to maximize your chances of recovering game when using a blood tracking dog

We received the article from Andy Bensing, who published it at www.marylandhuntingquarterly.com.
Thank you!

Most times when a hunter fires gun or bow at a deer the animal is easily recovered by the hunter either right where it was standing or a very short distance away.  But that's not always the case.  Many circumstances can cause a shot to go awry and that's where blood tracking dogs  can help.  Even well placed shots sometimes do not produce external bleeding and the deer can run off bloodlessly several hundred yards before expiring.  Blood tracking dogs are also especially useful where time is of the essence in warm weather or in areas with large coyote or fox populations.  The advice below is beneficial for any tracking situation, dog or human eye, so if you are interested in raising your odds of finding your quarry that just ran off out of your sight, read on.

Sometimes timing is everything in a tracking job.  If you go too soon you may push the animal and if you wait too long it may spoil or be consumed by predators.  Most of the information you need to decide when to start tracking is available right when you first shoot and at or near the hit site.  It is not the purpose of this article to give detailed instructions on how and when to eye track your deer.  There are several good books written on that subject.  But rather following the advice below will maximize your chances of recovering your game should you end up needing the services of a blood tracking dog.

Right After the Shot:

1.    If you do not see the animal fall dead, pick a landmark at the last place you saw the deer disappear and at the hit site.  Use your compass and rangefinder to take a bearing and distance on those spots to help you find  them once you are out of the tree.  Even 20 yards away will look quite different once you are on the ground.
2.    As the animal runs off try to see where the animal has been hit.
3.    Remember the angle the deer was standing when you shot.
4.    Take note of the animal’s reaction when it was hit and ran off.

• jump / buck
• run hard and fast
• bound off
• hunch
• walk off slowly
• tail up / down
• limping in the front or back

Tracking your Animal:

1.    Once you have settled down after the shot and memorized or written down the above details tie a ribbon around the tree before you come down so you can easily follow your compass bearing back to where you shot from. Now you can proceed to the hit site to gather more information about the type of hit you have made.  Information gathered at the hit site will help you finalize your decision to track immediately or wait.  Your approach to the hit site as well as any tracking you will do later should be done in a calm and quiet manner so as not to spook your deer if it is still alive and laying just out of sight.  Tracking quietly may allow for a follow up shot as well.

2.    Clearly mark the hit site so it can be easily relocated.  Flagging tape hanging from a branch, not tied around a tree trunk, is best.  Toilet paper is a good emergency substitute.  Remember, depending on circumstances you do not know yet, you may have to relocate the spot in the dark.

3.    At the hit site and the whole time you are tracking

a.    Observe and remember as much sign as possible

• Hair - color, length, amount
• Blood - dark red, bright red, frothy

                         Pattern of Dispersal
                               - Dropping down from left, right, or center of deer
                               - Spraying or squirting out one side or another
                               - Height from ground when rubbed off on vegetation

• Stomach contents - gritty material in blood or on ground
• Bone fragments - pick them up and save them
• Unusual pattern of tracks that might indicate an injured leg
• If archery hunting, if and when you recover your arrow, inspect it but do not clean it off.

b.    Try your best not to step on any blood, hair, or bone.  Try to walk to the side of the trail.  Scent from these items will be transferred to your boots and contaminate the area as you search.  This does not make it impossible for a tracking dog, but it sure makes it much more difficult.

c.    Mark your trail clearly as you go and leave all the ribbons up until the deer is found.  You should always be able to see back to the last place you marked.  Again, flagging tape hung from branches works best.  Mark your trail as you go even if you are SURE your animal has fallen dead just outside your view from the stand.  Many trails that start out with lots of blood dry up after awhile and a well marked trail is not required but very valuable to the dog handler.

4.    If you jump your quarry

• Take careful note of how it is moving and for any visible signs of injury.
• Try to locate the spot where it bedded and mark it well.
• Back off the trail and call the tracking dog.

 5.    When Blood / Sign runs out – Point of Loss

If you know you will be using a blood tracking dog, it is best to just back off and call the dog at this point.  If you have been careful to not step in blood along the way, it is acceptable to carefully search out ahead and behind to try and locate more sign, but the more searching you do, the more difficult you make it for the tracking dog.  Keep this in mind as the trail begins to run out.  If you do search out from the point of loss it is useful to the dog handler to mark with your ribbons the farthest points you have gone.  Tie a knot in the middle of the ribbon to distinguish them from ribbons marking sign.

By following the above procedures you will give the blood tracking dog and handler the best advantage possible in finding your deer, but keep in mind tracking dogs do not find them all.  Typically leashed blood tracking dogs recover about 35% of the deer they track.  About 50% of the time the dog and handler will uncover sign and circumstance that show the deer is not mortally wounded.  Often the deer is jumped and visually confirmed as likely to recover.  The remaining 15% of the time the tracking is stopped or the trail is lost for various or unknown reasons.  Regardless of the outcome, after you call in a blood tracking dog you can leave the field that day knowing you have given your best effort possible to recover your game.

Find-a-Tracker at www.unitedbloodtrackers.org

Andy Bensing with his tracking dachshund Eibe.