By Larry Weishuhn
At the shot, the big South Texas whitetail buck looking straight at us pitched over backwards. Quickly as he had fallen he was up running and disappeared into the Brush Country’s dense thornbush and cactus.
We walked to where the buck had stood. Hunter, Dave Fulson with Safari Classis, his guide and I started to follow the dark blood drops into the brush. The blood it was dark red, indicating muscle blood, drops were several feet apart. I followed the blood trail for twenty-five steps. There I hung some toilet paper on a limb, then returned to where Dave waited. “What do you think?†he asked.
“Looks like he’s shot either in the right shoulder or between shoulder and ribs, I suspect the latter. It does not appear the bullet went through any vital tissue. We can try to follow him. But as you well know if we do, we’ll likely keep pushing him. (Dave, a videographer, writer, guide, hunter with great experience has hunted throughout the world, including many safaris to Africa. He too was no newcomer to having to follow wounded game.) If we leave him several hours and he does die, or even if he stays alive the coyotes will eventually take him down. I suggest we call Roy Hinds and have him bring his blood dogs. If he’s not dead, the dogs will bay him giving an opportunity to killed him. If he’s dead, they’ll find him pretty quick.†I suggested.
Roy Hindes (Hindes/Schulte South Texas Wounded Deer Recovery, https://thehindesranch.com) and his blood trailing dogs are Texas legends! Roy and his dogs come by their trade honestly. His dad Roy Hindes, Jr. developed their line of dogs many years earlier. I had the privilege of knowing Roy’s dad and mother, Fanny Grace, a true Texas Lady, for many years. Back in the early 1970’s The Hindes Ranch started a quality wildlife management program. Today it produces some of the biggest antlered, totally native whitetail deer in Texas. If you have seen some of Dave Richards whitetail photo books (www.richardsoutdoorphotography.com) you will know whereof I speak.
The ranch owners, D.J. and Susan Rubio were friends with Roy. “I’ll be there within a couple of hours.†True to his word a little over an hour later Roy with his son-in-law and partner, John Schulte, arrived on the scene. After showing him where we had left the blood trail, he returned to his pickup and released Migo. “Let’s stay back and let John and Migo go after the deer.â€
Roy and I visited about the past and present. While we did, we heard Migo bark a couple of times. “He’s got him bayed!†Moments later we heard John shoot his .44 Mag pistol. “I suspect he’s down.†Turning to D.J. Roy asked, “Can we get closer by road?â€
Several minutes later we walked to where John and Migo stood next to a monstrously antlered South Texas buck. The initial shot had gone between shoulder and ribs. Without the aid of the blood trailing dog the deer would have eventually been taken down by coyotes and lost. Calling in the blood trailing dog had indeed been the right choice.
In Texas we are able to use blood trailing dogs to recover wounded deer. Many ranches have their own dogs, and others are quick to call in Hindes/Schulte and others with blood trailing dogs. A good blood trailing dog is worth his or her weight in gold during hunting season!
The title of this piece is “Blood Trailingâ€. If you wound an animal and have access to good blood trailing dogs DO by all means have them come to help you find your animal!
If you do not have access to blood trailing dogs, following are some of the things I suggest, starting with the shot.
After studying and knowing where the vitals are in the animals you are hunting shoot only when you know you can place a bullet through the heart and lung area. Use an accurate firearm and bullet appropriate for what you are hunting. Same if you are hunting with bow or crossbow.
I hunt with rifles and handguns primarily. I have also followed numerous blood trails which were shot with sharp projectiles. I avoid taking “iffy†shots, meaning weird angles that obscure the vitals. I avoid taking shots at the neck! Unless there is precise placement of a bullet through the spinal cord or a major blood vessel, a neck shot animal will go down as if pole-axed and moments later be up and gone, likely never to be recovered by a human. Regardless of where you hit an animal immediately after you shoot quickly reload and get back on the animal. If it moves shoot it again. It is far better to trim blood shot pound of venison and feed it to your dog than to not shoot again and not recovering your animals. Far too often immediately after a shot, the hunter starts celebrating, high-fiving with those around him and not keeping an eye on the animal. He or she assumes the animals is down for good, when indeed it is not. While the celebration is going on, the animal gets up and disappears, often for ever! Shoot, reload and get on the animals and if it moves shoot it again. There will be plenty of time to celebrate around the meat pole where your animal is hung for others to see and admire!
At the shot pay immediate attention to how the animal reacts to being hit and the sound made by the bullet hitting the animal. A solid “whack†generally indicates a solid shoulder shot, a “whomp†usually indicates a mid-section shot. If the animal “mule kicks†meaning kicking backward with both hind legs it usually indicates a shot through the vitals, but not always!
Before leaving from where you shot find a landmark where your animals was when you hit it, then do the same with where it disappeared. Make certain you can find those two places. I mention this because I have, often as a guide, had a hunter in a deer blind. He or she shoots a deer, it run away. When I arrive to help recover the deer they point a totally different direction than where the deer really was. If you are a long-range shooter and like shooting animals at long range, that said I am not one of those, have someone stay where you shot from to direct you to where the animal went down or disappeared. Doing otherwise you may well not find where your animal was standing when you shot or where it went down.
Once you get to where the animal was when the bullet hit it, look for signs of the hit; blood, hair and tracks. Tracks, is there anything different about them which might help you follow that particular tracks should the blood trail disappear. When the animal ran away was it running on all four legs, or only three? Following tracks only a short way will reveal this as well. Hair, if you find any, what color is it? Does it look like it came from the body as in dark and long or short such as from a lower leg? If the animal you shot had a white underside, is the hair you found white indicating a low body hit.
If there is blood, what color or consistency is it? Is there blood on both sides of the animal’s track indicating the bullet passed through. If the blood is “frothy†looking, bright red with “bubblesâ€, chances are excellent your shot passed through the lungs. If it is dark red your shot likely hit solid muscle, and hopefully broke a major bone and/or punctured a blood vessel.
Before starting to follow a blood trail, if you have friends there to help, tell them to say “way behind†and even better to stay where you initially hit the animal. You do not want someone stepping on and destroying “signâ€. If you are carrying your firearm and “jump†the animal, you need to know where everyone is. You do not want to take a shot not knowing where your companions are.
In my hunting pack I carry toilet paper or paper towels to clean blood from a downed animal before taking photos, but also to help me mark a blood trail when necessary. In following a blood trail I hang a small strip of paper where I last saw blood. This gets me back there should I lose the trail, but in looking back it give a definite direction the wounded animal is traveling. Should I lose the trail I return to the last blood and start circling, small to larger, until I find more blood.
Pay attention to the color blood once you are on the trail. If at the shot site or beyond you find blood mixed with vegetative matter the bullet at some point passed through the rumen or other digestive system parts. In that instance you should consider backing out and letting the animal lay down and hopefully expire. Give it at least four hours before again picking up the trail.
This bring up, wait or follow immediately! I decide whether to immediately follow a wounded animal or wait based on initially how the animal reacted when hit, what color blood I find and where it drops from the body and/or color of hairs. In every instance I will follow the wounded animal at least twenty-five or so steps to determine these. Too, sometimes animals do not immediately bleed.
If I find blood mixed with vegetative matter, hair from the lower body, or dark blood, I usually back out and wait for four to six hours before following…that is unless it is going to rain or starts raining or snowing, then I’ll keep pushing.
If blood start “thinning†meaning looking watery, in most instances I will back out for two or three hours then return to follow the blood trail, hoping the animal will lay down and I will find it dead in its bed, or give me a chance at a second shot to put it down. This too means the bleeding is slowing, or is clotting at the site of the wound.
In terms of drops of blood, if the drop is round where it hits, the animal was standing still or walking very slowly. If the blood hits while the animal is moving fairly quickly it will “spatter†when it hits the ground or whatever. The way the spatter points is the direction the animal is moving.
Some of the places I hunt have tall grass and dense bush. In those areas I look for blood on the grass and brush, so doing I get an idea where the animal is hit, based on the distance from the ground to where I find blood on the vegetation.
Seriously wounded animals generally do not head uphill, but that is not a set rule. I have seen mortally wounded animals run up steep slopes. Sometimes too animals quit bleeding or the blood trail abruptly stops. Expect the unexpected.
Several years ago I was hunting the Brush Country of South Texas. I rattled in a 150-class typical 10-point whitetail. He turned broadside, I shot. He turned and ran into a “cactus forestâ€. I walked to where he had stood, immediately picked up a frothy blood trail and followed it into the prickly pear cactus as tall as me and taller. I followed the blood trail for about 20 steps and then it disappeared. I walked back picked up the start the trail and followed it right back to the same spot. No more blood and no deer! It was as if something had snatched my deer off the face of the Earth. I started circling. No blood! I walked to and stood just beyond where the blood quit and thought seriously of calling Roy Hindes. Just then something hit the brim of my brown hat, then again. I took off my hat, expecting it to have come from a bird, to my surprise there were two drops of blood. I looked to the canopy of prickly pear above me. There two feet above me was my buck, laying on prickly pear pads. In dying the buck tried to jump the tall prickly pear cactus, died in mid-air and landed, suspended on cactus!
This brings up another aspects of blood trailing a wounded animal, do not give up until you have exhausted every effort. In arid country this means checking and watching waterholes, where a wounded animal will likely go because of blood loss to replenish the body’s need for moisture.
This past hunting season I was hunting on my lease in western Texas. Early the second day of the hunt I found several bucks feeding below a ridge. After a long stalk I was able to get within 300-yards and no closer, I decided to shoot an ancient looking 7-point. I knew my .270 Win Mossberg Patriot topped with a Trijicon Huron scope and shooting Hornady’s excellent 145-grain ELD-X Precision Hunter, was an extremely accurate and deadly combination.
The only rest available was a juniper bush. I got into what I assumed would be a solid rest. But just as I pulled the trigger, a limb broke and I slid to the right. My bullet hit the broadside buck in the hindquarter rather than through the vitals as planned. Before I could quickly bolt in a fresh round he stepped behind a wall of junipers. I watched but did not again see him. I hoped my bullet had either broken a hind leg or severed a major blood vessel. Minutes later, my son-in-law/hunting partner, Lance Tigrett and I headed to where the buck had been standing. I soon found blood, obviously dark muscle blood. The blood trail led up a steep slope. Not what I had hoped for! We followed the blood trail, a drop about every eight to ten feet until we reached the top of the ridge. There we found where he had stood for a while, but bled little. Then he started walking in a northerly direction into the wind on top of the ridge. The blood was starting to become a bit “wateryâ€. I suspect it was clotting on his hair, red blood cells remaining there and mostly plasma dropping to the ground. A short distance later we could no longer find any blood, watery or otherwise. He was walking on solid rock. There were no tracks I could follow. I was sick. I dearly hate wounding an animal!
Lance and I headed to another part of the ranch to look for does. As part of our management program I had a quota of does to remove. Our lease is on a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Managed Lands Deer Management Permit which allows the taking of numerous does and bucks based on many different things relative to a long-term approved management program by special permits.
After taking a couple of does and caring for the meat, we decided to head back to where we had last found blood from the buck I wounded. Headed to the ridge top, I found a very small drop of blood. It did not look like it had been there very long. Tracks indicated it was being dropped by a deer paralleling the ridge top. I followed for about twenty steps, then headed to the top of the ridge in hopes of getting ahead of whatever was leaving the faint blood trail.
At the top I walked very quickly 300-yards then sat down where I could see anything that might walk below me. I started glassing the low country below me and soon spotted a bedded buck 400-yards away. Through my Meopta 10x42 binocular I could see his antlers were quite similar to the buck I had shot at earlier. I watched the buck lick the same spot on his left hindquarter several times. The buck I had shot had been facing right to left. The more I watched he more I became convinced it was the buck I had shot earlier that morning. Again using my binos, I chose a path that could take me within about 25-yards of where the buck was bedded. A strong wind blew from him to me. By being cautious and moving slowly perhaps I could get close, make certain it was the same buck and finally put him down.
The stalk took about 20-minutes. When I peered around the last juniper separating me from the bedded buck, there was no doubt it was the buck I had wounded earlier. I sat down, got a good rest on my knees, cranked the variable Trijicon down and steadied the crosshairs on his shoulder, pushed safety to fire, then gently pulled the Mossberg’s 2 ½-pound trigger. The only movement from the deer was to lay his head on the ground.
At his side there was no question it was the same deer. My initial shot had passed through merely muscle. Would he have survived? It is quite possible. There are very few coyotes in the area. I said a prayer of forgiveness for having simply hurt him with my first shot, and a prayer of thanks for finally recovering him. Persistence and not giving up had paid handsome dividends.
No true hunter wants to wound an animal. But it does happen! When it does it is up to the hunter to make every possible effort to quickly dispatch and then retrieve that animal. Hopefully you will never have to follow a blood trail that does not end merely feet from where the animal was when you shot it!