Tracking injured/wounded prey

ivanthehunter

Only recently i have read of two occurrence of hunters who where unable to track their wounded quarry for one reason or another.
I know a little about tracking live animals but not about tracking wounded ones. I know in any type of firearm hunting a 'one shot one kill' approach is favored in all situation with any type of prey but things dont always work out as planned..
Training or knowledge would be advantageous to both the hunter and the injured animal. An animal which is successfully tracked can be humanely dispatched and the hunter can then sleep easier knowing that the animal is no longer suffering.

Its great that most people spend days training to become good hunters through accuracy. This noble training regime would be greatly augmented by some form of 'injured animal tracking' training.


Is this skill hard to pick up on?
What are the main thing to look for?
Does type of injury effect the animal behavior?
What can be gain from a study of blood trails?
Are there any devices to aid hunter in tracking?
What sort of ranges can injured animals travel when a)spooked b)relaxed?

This is just a sample of the possible question that one might ask..
What do you lads/lassies think?

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whitser

no amount of training at tracking can replace the nose of a good dog. i think anyone hunting with a gun should have a dog along. i know most deer stalkers on the continent will use a hound of some sort. teckles and bavarian hounds are commonly used. but german pointers are quite usefull at that type of work. even a properly trained terrier could do it no bother. a dogs nose would better any team of trackers.

jwshooter

ivanthehunter wrote: »

Only recently i have read of two occurrence of hunters who where unable to track their wounded quarry for one reason or another.
I know a little about tracking live animals but not about tracking wounded ones. I know in any type of firearm hunting a 'one shot one kill' approach is favored in all situation with any type of prey but things dont always work out as planned..
Training or knowledge would be advantageous to both the hunter and the injured animal. An animal which is successfully tracked can be humanely dispatched and the hunter can then sleep easier knowing that the animal is no longer suffering.

Its great that most people spend days training to become good hunters through accuracy. This noble training regime would be greatly augmented by some form of 'injured animal tracking' training.


Is this skill hard to pick up on?
What are the main thing to look for?
Does type of injury effect the animal behavior?
What can be gain from a study of blood trails?
Are there any devices to aid hunter in tracking?
What sort of ranges can injured animals travel when a)spooked b)relaxed?

This is just a sample of the possible question that one might ask..
What do you lads/lassies think?

i can not under stand people that do not keep a dog for tracking deer or game.The h cap was a golden opportunity missed there should have been more on dogs and less on section 42s and stuff that the novice does not have to know just yet. it is the most important part of the art of stalking learning to read the strike ..hair and what part of the body its from the way it is cut , blood skin bone . also the hight of blood and hair on grass trees all make up a picture of what happened . i have a wire hair pointer .there must be at least 500 deer shot over her with very few lost .she will blood trail for hunderds of yards .point un seen deer sit still for hours .and eat all my sambos .there is many a picture of her with a happy hunter with his and her trophy ,that other wise would be still in the woods .

riflehunter77

jwshooter wrote: »

i can not under stand people that do not keep a dog for tracking deer or game.The h cap was a golden opportunity missed there should have been more on dogs and less on section 42s and stuff that the novice does not have to know just yet. it is the most important part of the art of stalking learning to read the strike ..hair and what part of the body its from the way it is cut , blood skin bone . also the hight of blood and hair on grass trees all make up a picture of what happened . i have a wire hair pointer .there must be at least 500 deer shot over her with very few lost .she will blood trail for hunderds of yards .point un seen deer sit still for hours .and eat all my sambos .there is many a picture of her with a happy hunter with his and her trophy ,that other wise would be still in the woods .

Well said jwshooter you cant beat mans best friend

jimbo 22

Bit of a novice here,

Was wondering are German Short hairs suitable for tracking wounded deer or is it just the wire haired that is suitable?

I always wanted to know

Do they have to be trained to follow wounded deer or does it come natural like hunting Game birds?

Thanks in advance jimbo 22

jwshooter

jimbo 22 wrote: »

Bit of a novice here,

Was wondering are German Short hairs suitable for tracking wounded deer or is it just the wire haired that is suitable?

I always wanted to know

Do they have to be trained to follow wounded deer or does it come natural like hunting Game birds?

Thanks in advance jimbo 22

the short hair are obedient and steady dogs and used alot for deer work on main land europe , but there not as robust as the gwp .i would have no problem training a gsp for deer work.but most of the dogs in ireland are only used on birds . and with there short light coat the cold might get too them a bit. with our wet windy winters ..As for training a dog for deer .Deer are a prey anaimal to dogs so they will hunt them ,the trick is to get them to hunt them your way.i am training a pup at the minute for deer work by stalking rabbits .i do not let her near the dead rabbits ,its just the obedients and steadness im looking for

ivanthehunter

Dogs are great but they aren't always suitable to every environment or every shot out come. A slightly injured deer will only out run a hound or lead him half way around the world. The slight wound will soon become inflamed through infection and cause the deer serious distress.
Tracking skills here would allow a hunter to fire a second shot......

Its my understanding that the colour of the blood will indicate the severity of the wound. The darker the better!........?

Also bubbles in blood would indicate a lung shot...

Injured Deer which feel weak have a habit of back tracking along the path/run that they have just used as they run away form the hunter, they back track through scrub or brush thats just off the path and just down wind of the path that they have just used. They try to gain this position of advantage so as to be alerted to any possible pursuant who will be coming down the path. A dog here would only spook a deer, and if that deer was in reasonable condition it might charge off up the side of dangerous mountain or a dangerous valley where a hunter might not be willing to travel.

Gut shot animals have a tendency to drink water so a tracker of an injured animal might do well to check out the local watering spots in a down wind sweep.

Changes of the gate print will lead to a prediction of the injury sustained if it was in a leg or shoulder.
( Gate reefers to the style of movement ie limp, walk, bound, trot, run..)

The main things to remember is not to track too soon!! let the wounded animal bleed out a bit for a good hour or more,

Other indication of an injured animals whereabouts can be gained by the vocalisation of other species, namely their warning calls. Careful study of animal warning call will be quite beneficial to your tracking skills, birds are quite good but the king of the warning calls is the Grey squirrel who utters different warnings for different species. Warning calls work best when hunting predators like fox..


I would like to know more about these really important skills......

jwshooter???? This sounds like great stuff..
Quote "read the strike ..hair and what part of the body its from the way it is cut"
Can you explain this a bit more, i have an idea what you mean but i'm unsure..

yank_in_eire

ivanthehunter wrote: »

Its my understanding that the colour of the blood will indicate the severity of the wound. The darker the better!........?

On the contrary, dark blood usually means a gut shot and a slow death for your quarry. Bright arterial blood is what you want to see, and lots of it.

jwshooter

ivanthehunter wrote: »

Dogs are great but they aren't always suitable to every environment or every shot out come. A slightly injured deer will only out run a hound or lead him half way around the world. The slight wound will soon become inflamed through infection and cause the deer serious distress.
Tracking skills here would allow a hunter to fire a second shot......

Its my understanding that the colour of the blood will indicate the severity of the wound. The darker the better!........?

Also bubbles in blood would indicate a lung shot...

Injured Deer which feel weak have a habit of back tracking along the path/run that they have just used as they run away form the hunter, they back track through scrub or brush thats just off the path and just down wind of the path that they have just used. They try to gain this position of advantage so as to be alerted to any possible pursuant who will be coming down the path. A dog here would only spook a deer, and if that deer was in reasonable condition it might charge off up the side of dangerous mountain or a dangerous valley where a hunter might not be willing to travel.

Gut shot animals have a tendency to drink water so a tracker of an injured animal might do well to check out the local watering spots in a down wind sweep.

Changes of the gate print will lead to a prediction of the injury sustained if it was in a leg or shoulder.
( Gate reefers to the style of movement ie limp, walk, bound, trot, run..)

The main things to remember is not to track too soon!! let the wounded animal bleed out a bit for a good hour or more,

Other indication of an injured animals whereabouts can be gained by the vocalisation of other species, namely their warning calls. Careful study of animal warning call will be quite beneficial to your tracking skills, birds are quite good but the king of the warning calls is the Grey squirrel who utters different warnings for different species. Warning calls work best when hunting predators like fox..


I would like to know more about these really important skills......

jwshooter???? This sounds like great stuff..
Quote "read the strike ..hair and what tapart of the body its from the way it is cut"
Can you explain this a bit more, i have an idea what you mean but i'm unsure..

hi ivan . i do not know where you got your info from but its real bear grylls stuff ..a gut shot ,stomach you hear a pop sound , its a easy one for the dog i would send her straigh away it. the animal will die in most cases with in three hours or so ,if you have no dog best leave it till then. gut stomach this time a liver shot this is where we get the dark blood from the deer can go quite a bit but will die in about a hour i would send the dog straigh away .the worst shots are low chest front legs , head and jaw a animal hit in any of these s spots and not killed your in for a long day. the hair tells the full story there is no less than 20 types of hair on a deer.if you get a ball of fluffy hair chances the bullet clanced or quarted along the skin .straight cut with skin and bone your animal was hit hard . over the years i have seen lads shoot deer every where i once had a man out 10 years or more ago managed to shoot a stag in the hoof at 80 yards lucky it was on the hill .he shot well on the range same man buck fever

ivanthehunter

These tit bits of information come from detailed accounts of native American hunting technique which was not all that successful from the point of shot (arrow) placement but it made up for the lack of consistent shooting through a deep understanding of animal behavior.

BryanL

i think you mean " tid bits"

tit bits, would be for a different board and can be very hard to track and expensive when you do track them down:eek:

Sparks

Lots of antagonistic waffle pruned out as suggested. Lets hope this gets the thread back on topic.

ivanthehunter

Sparks wrote: »

Lots of antagonistic waffle pruned out as suggested. Lets hope this gets the thread back on topic.

Right I'll give this thread a go at restarting on the good side of a tough charter:D

Deer tracking seems to be something that deer shooters would like to understand to bring them to level of hunters.:p me included:eek:

But lets face facts here, a lot of these skills were lost hundreds of years ago and only a few Irish people exist who have skills on or even remotely close to this level. What seems to be apparent is that everyone engaged in hunting knows some thing about tracking but they either don't know enough to think it worthwhile posting here or they doubt the importance of the one thing that they have figured out as being helpful in the tracking of their quarry.
If you have a skill related to tracking please please post it here and try and help relight the embers of a skill that once lite a path through the darkness..

What senses do we as humans have that help in this task?
Sight, Hearing and Smell would be useful but what about touch and taste.

Sight:-
We can surly see a wounded animal run, we can see blood, broken foliage, scattered leaves, flattened grass, foot prints, fur caught on fences and thorns and we can see their droppings. These are only some of the obvious signs that one can see with some practice.
But our eyes can also show us much much more, things like paths and obstacles and the lie of the land. We must engage our gray matter here to try and become one with the mind of the deer and we do this through our understanding of deer behavior. You must proceed by following sign but you do this in tandem with predictive brain power calculation of the possible path of the quarry as it negotiates obstacles as it sees them and not as you see them. Remember that an injured animals abilities are probably greatly reduced and hence it will tend to take the easier path only if it thinks its not being pursued.. Its quite an easy thing to do and is more reliable that predicting the weather from observation which by the way is some 90% accurate:rolleyes:

Hearing:-
Lesson 1.1 be quite if you wish to hear a wounded animal.
How to be quite? well its very easy to be quite by wearing the correct clothes and removing loose objects from pockets, it also helps if you aren't over weight. Pick your footing spots well and deliberately making an effort not to over reach stretch any of your steps and risk a noisy correction of footing. Good practice is small quicker steps with an effort to avoid noisy sticks and if possible sliding you foot under such sticks..
Believe it or not but a wounded animal can some times be heard breathing from its 'lie up'.
Its probably a hard thing for a hunter to hear much after discharging a firearm but it is possible to hear a deer running through the woods or through heavy cover but foxy grass can be quite:p deceptive as its similar to running over a quilt;). If you remember the earlier post about animal warning calls you won't be surprised to know that stressed animals will often make small murmurings or grunts. Deer especially are well know for making a small grunting noise when they are stressed so its possible that a deer that doesn't believe NB that its being pursued will make these murmurings when it lies up with a painful injury, so keep your ears open and your mouth shut. If its a lung shot a tracker might hear bubbles or a gargling sound. Any suspect sound should be processed as some thing of importance. Remember that in complete darkness you will be amazed how important hearing is.
On a solo camping trip to a local forest i was surprised by a close encounter with a deer. I had a camp fire but it was only a glow, when out of the quietness and the total darkness that can exist in a deciduous forest i heard footsteps:eek: but i was able to tell it was a deer as it slowly walk by at a range of 10 yards because of the timing between its feet hitting the ground but also by the understanding of the swing of its feet as they hit the ground and how this was confirmed by a small period of time when the sound of the dead leaves rustled momentarily before each foot hit the ground.:cool:
you get the picture!

Smell:-
Well what to say about smell? Surprisingly you don't even need to have a nose to take advantage of or to suffer foul from smell.
When tracking you should try and be as smell neutral as possible. If any of the forum have had the pleasure of smelling some of our foreign visitors who eat a completely different range of food, you'll appreciate that curry's and other such foods leave a strong smell on the human body.
Clothing is no different it should be washed in something with no fragrance to remove the dirt and then be allowed to hang out in a wild and airy space. Boots are difficult challenge and several web site offer solution on this prob and i have my own.
Even without a strong sense of smell you can rely on animals to act in such a manner that shows they believe us humans to posses such strong nasal senses as them.
Smelling on the go!
Deer urine is quite a strong smell but i think that my nose would have to be very close to the ground to detect it, so why not put your head a little closer to any suspect samples or bring the samples to the mountain:eek:
Remember that once you have smelt deer up close and personal you'll never forget it:rolleyes:. Remember that a dying animal will probably urinate when its just about to pass to the darkside, if conditions are perfect you might stand a chance of detecting this but don't hold your breath. Most people have spent their lives paying little heed of their sense of smell and as such it will not be that fine tuned in relation to a database relation ship with the gray matter but don't worry if your old your smell sensitive cells in the nose are truly from tir na oge as they will continue to reproduce with the same endeavor as that of a younger man.
Creatures under stress will urinate and you might well find signs of this while tracking if your successful. If an animal has pissed on that trail chances are that it does not think it is being tracked. If an animal has laid up at at particular area for a while and you suspect this to be the case then an investigation with the old smeller might confirm your suspicions by detecting the strong smell of deer.

Touch and taste I'll leave alone save for the simple fact that touch can be used in determining how warm or cold blood or droppings etc etc.
Sometimes I've tried to detect by touch is how warm a 'lie up' spot might be in a bid to guess if a deer had just ran off.....

Understanding animal behavior is the key to tracking as is the case in stalking.
Things like the simple fact that alarmed deer will generally run up hill every time they are disturbed and that an injured deer is not able to traverse the terrain as easily as a healthy fit specimen and probably can't jump ditches and fences to the same degree. The above might seem obvious to some when read but you must have thought it so unimportant as to no bother posting here in this quality thread:D.
This type of information will help the tracker make calls when the trail runs cold and ultimately help in the ethical issue of injured animals absconding into the wild and suffering a faith worse than death..

J.R.

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jwshooter

ivanthehunter wrote: »

Right I'll give this thread a go at restarting on the good side of a tough charter:D

Deer tracking seems to be something that deer shooters would like to understand to bring them to level of hunters.:p me included:eek:

But lets face facts here, a lot of these skills were lost hundreds of years ago and only a few Irish people exist who have skills on or even remotely close to this level. What seems to be apparent is that everyone engaged in hunting knows some thing about tracking but they either don't know enough to think it worthwhile posting here or they doubt the importance of the one thing that they have figured out as being helpful in the tracking of their quarry.
If you have a skill related to tracking please please post it here and try and help relight the embers of a skill that once lite a path through the darkness..

What senses do we as humans have that help in this task?
Sight, Hearing and Smell would be useful but what about touch and taste.

Sight:-
We can surly see a wounded animal run, we can see blood, broken foliage, scattered leaves, flattened grass, foot prints, fur caught on fences and thorns and we can see their droppings. These are only some of the obvious signs that one can see with some practice.
But our eyes can also show us much much more, things like paths and obstacles and the lie of the land. We must engage our gray matter here to try and become one with the mind of the deer and we do this through our understanding of deer behavior. You must proceed by following sign but you do this in tandem with predictive brain power calculation of the possible path of the quarry as it negotiates obstacles as it sees them and not as you see them. Remember that an injured animals abilities are probably greatly reduced and hence it will tend to take the easier path only if it thinks its not being pursued.. Its quite an easy thing to do and is more reliable that predicting the weather from observation which by the way is some 90% accurate:rolleyes:

Hearing:-
Lesson 1.1 be quite if you wish to hear a wounded animal.
How to be quite? well its very easy to be quite by wearing the correct clothes and removing loose objects from pockets, it also helps if you aren't over weight. Pick your footing spots well and deliberately making an effort not to over reach stretch any of your steps and risk a noisy correction of footing. Good practice is small quicker steps with an effort to avoid noisy sticks and if possible sliding you foot under such sticks..
Believe it or not but a wounded animal can some times be heard breathing from its 'lie up'.
Its probably a hard thing for a hunter to hear much after discharging a firearm but it is possible to hear a deer running through the woods or through heavy cover but foxy grass can be quite:p deceptive as its similar to running over a quilt;). If you remember the earlier post about animal warning calls you won't be surprised to know that stressed animals will often make small murmurings or grunts. Deer especially are well know for making a small grunting noise when they are stressed so its possible that a deer that doesn't believe NB that its being pursued will make these murmurings when it lies up with a painful injury, so keep your ears open and your mouth shut. If its a lung shot a tracker might hear bubbles or a gargling sound. Any suspect sound should be processed as some thing of importance. Remember that in complete darkness you will be amazed how important hearing is.
On a solo camping trip to a local forest i was surprised by a close encounter with a deer. I had a camp fire but it was only a glow, when out of the quietness and the total darkness that can exist in a deciduous forest i heard footsteps:eek: but i was able to tell it was a deer as it slowly walk by at a range of 10 yards because of the timing between its feet hitting the ground but also by the understanding of the swing of its feet as they hit the ground and how this was confirmed by a small period of time when the sound of the dead leaves rustled momentarily before each foot hit the ground.:cool:
you get the picture!

Smell:-
Well what to say about smell? Surprisingly you don't even need to have a nose to take advantage of or to suffer foul from smell.
When tracking you should try and be as smell neutral as possible. If any of the forum have had the pleasure of smelling some of our foreign visitors who eat a completely different range of food, you'll appreciate that curry's and other such foods leave a strong smell on the human body.
Clothing is no different it should be washed in something with no fragrance to remove the dirt and then be allowed to hang out in a wild and airy space. Boots are difficult challenge and several web site offer solution on this prob and i have my own.
Even without a strong sense of smell you can rely on animals to act in such a manner that shows they believe us humans to posses such strong nasal senses as them.
Smelling on the go!
Deer urine is quite a strong smell but i think that my nose would have to be very close to the ground to detect it, so why not put your head a little closer to any suspect samples or bring the samples to the mountain:eek:
Remember that once you have smelt deer up close and personal you'll never forget it:rolleyes:. Remember that a dying animal will probably urinate when its just about to pass to the darkside, if conditions are perfect you might stand a chance of detecting this but don't hold your breath. Most people have spent their lives paying little heed of their sense of smell and as such it will not be that fine tuned in relation to a database relation ship with the gray matter but don't worry if your old your smell sensitive cells in the nose are truly from tir na oge as they will continue to reproduce with the same endeavor as that of a younger man.
Creatures under stress will urinate and you might well find signs of this while tracking if your successful. If an animal has pissed on that trail chances are that it does not think it is being tracked. If an animal has laid up at at particular area for a while and you suspect this to be the case then an investigation with the old smeller might confirm your suspicions by detecting the strong smell of deer.

Touch and taste I'll leave alone save for the simple fact that touch can be used in determining how warm or cold blood or droppings etc etc.
Sometimes I've tried to detect by touch is how warm a 'lie up' spot might be in a bid to guess if a deer had just ran off.....

Understanding animal behavior is the key to tracking as is the case in stalking.
Things like the simple fact that alarmed deer will generally run up hill every time they are disturbed and that an injured deer is not able to traverse the terrain as easily as a healthy fit specimen and probably can't jump ditches and fences to the same degree. The above might seem obvious to some when read but you must have thought it so unimportant as to no bother posting here in this quality thread:D.
This type of information will help the tracker make calls when the trail runs cold and ultimately help in the ethical issue of injured animals absconding into the wild and suffering a faith worse than death..

a man you must have a lot of time on your hands ,,

ivanthehunter

I see very little information from others here in relation to tracking and as such i can only assume that there is a very small amount of people here who have such skills or the understanding how to track injured animals. I do not claim to know it all but i spent lifetime in the mountains following wild animals and i know that i dont know it all.

There seems to have been very little interest in this thread and one can only assume that shooters put too much faith in their abilities to achieve the "one shot one kill" results that leave no need for such skills.

Maybe skills such as these are not a requirement of hunting in Ireland due to the simple fact that most hunters only have permission for a small area and not a whole mountain.


It seems to be more realistic to assume that obedient law abiding Irish wildlife shooters will be unable to pursue an injured animal over a boundary into to an area for which they have no permission to hunt. So because of this shortfall within the legislation, Irish animals are open to suffering or possibly the hunter may take the decision to ignore the laws guidance in this instance (as it seems to me that there is no allowance made for such unforeseen circumstances) and be a man and have it out with the judge if he is caught and accused of so called armed trespass in his efforts to dispatch an injured animal.

Kareir

surely you should be in the position that 99.9% precent of the time, you shouldn't need to track it? I mean, supposedly with a body shot a deer can run for a while, even though the bullet has pretty much liquidised the vital parts, but with that much blood/movement from the animal, you shouldnt need to "track" it, more follow it....

_Kar.

foxshooter243

Kareir wrote: »

surely you should be in the position that 99.9% precent of the time, you shouldn't need to track it? I mean, supposedly with a body shot a deer can run for a while, even though the bullet has pretty much liquidised the vital parts, but with that much blood/movement from the animal, you shouldnt need to "track" it, more follow it....

_Kar.

its good practise to wait after the shot was fired and not begin following a deer too soon, this gives the deer a chance to lie up and expire without him running too far-then you would track him to his lie up. The ability to track is is a tool of last resort as any deerhunter worth his salt will be trying for a quick clean kill , but a neccesary tool nonetheless..

Kareir

That was my general point, sorry if i wasn't clear. :pac:
I was saying that a fatal wound shouldn't require much 'tracking', as the animal will likely die quite quickly, whereas a liver/stomach shot etc would let it run for quite some time?

_Kar.

jwshooter

Kareir wrote: »

That was my general point, sorry if i wasn't clear. :pac:
I was saying that a fatal wound shouldn't require much 'tracking', as the animal will likely die quite quickly, whereas a liver/stomach shot etc would let it run for quite some time?

_Kar.

you boys have not or shot very few deer to be coming out with this kind of talk ,ivan is right i only know only four or five people that stalk with a dog at heal .that is trained for deer ,the more deer you kill every year the bigger the chances you have of a runner .i seen a mature sika stag shot through the left shoulder the exit was just behind his right shoulder at 170 odd yards with a 270 using a 130gr norma ballistic tip .his left shoulder was broken. he ran down off the hill cleared a wire fence into a ticket crop of soft wood and gone . we found him dead in his tracks but 240 yards from where he tuck the shot ,my dog was young back then but we still found him .its all a learning curve .too many guys are willing to walk away dont want the hassel .its a pity this thread is not going in september and through the season

Kareir

true, only ever watched my dad do it, and he always shot them in the head... i've always thought that's more humane really, if harder to do.

John Griffin

Kareir wrote: »

true, only ever watched my dad do it, and he always shot them in the head... i've always thought that's more humane really, if harder to do.

Headshooting a deer is a seriously risky businness, the brain is a very small target, an inch or two low on a side on animal and the animals jaw gets blown off and it runs away and won't be found.

I have been called out to finish off many deer starving and infected with their jaws missing over the years. They were shot by people that either didn't care or know what they were doing or by people too confident in their own abilities.

Totally agree with JWshooter. Too many lads out there don't know the difference between a missed deer and a runner, or they don't want to know.

The number of heart shot deer that will run is about 50/50, some variation on this will be found with different calibers and setups delivering different amounts of shock or if the bullet strikes bone.
There is no doubt that chest shooting deer is the most humane way of killing and neck and head shooting should only be done by experienced deer hunters.

meathstevie

John Griffin wrote: »

Headshooting a deer is a seriously risky businness, the brain is a very small target, an inch or two low on a side on animal and the animals jaw gets blown off and it runs away and won't be found. ...

Same goes for any animal you might hunt with a rifle : the chest is the biggest part of the creature, presents the "easiest" target and contains all the vitals except the liver and the brain.

A shot through the liver by the way will also result in a relatively quick kill as blood loss from a badly wounded liver is very high and very fast. I've seen this a couple of times on foxes I shot less than perfectly with a .22 hornet ( to far towards the back ) still they only managed to cover less than 20yards before dying. Curiosity got the better of me so I opened one up and found two things : a massive quantity of blood and a badly damaged liver.

kerryman12

I have to agree with John and JW here. Head shots should not be on the agenda for most people.

fortbuilder

Dogs in tracking wounded prey only add to the distance the prey will travel... You are better off to allow your game to bleed out and become languid. In some states such as Montana use of dogs while hunting large game is prohibited.
Generally game will head directly toward water when injured. Thus their trail is often on a straight course. By waiting no less than a half hour before pursuit you increase you success exponentially. Then mark the point the game was injured and take note of hair and blood at that scene. Longer hair indicates a wound toward the lower part of the body or underside. Dark blood indicates intestinal wound and probably liver while frothy or bubbly blood indicate a lung shot. Then, proceed in the direction your prey headed when injured, in a sweeping direction crossing that azimuth back and forth until you find more sign. Mark that location and look back at your first mark. This will be the most accurate azimuth your prey will be heading. And by repeating that sweeping search along that azimuth you are most likely going to find more sign, eventually coming upon your prey.

Cass

Zombie thread. - Closed