Outdoors: Recovering wounded game

By Bob Chapin

Special to The Windham Eagle

Many of us are looking forward to getting back in the woods this fall in pursuit of whitetail deer. We’ve done our scouting, sighted in our rifles or grouped our arrows within a tight circle and gained access to our hunting areas from landowners or on publicly owned lands. Most of us are confident that given the right opportunity, we can do our part and safely and securely harvest an animal. As luck would have it, we are blessed with a shot opportunity our first morning out.

The hold is steady, the deer is standing broadside, it is in range and free of any other deer, and the area behind the deer is clear hillside. The shot surprises us a little bit because we squeezed the trigger or the release oh so gently. We expect the deer to drop in his or her tracks and are doubly surprised when it runs out of sight. We are flabbergasted and immediately begin to question what we did wrong. We want to run up to where the deer was last seen, and we expect to find the deer just out of sight. That may not be the best strategy at this point.

Preparation for this situation actually begins before you leave the house. It includes things like placing surveyor marking tape or tissues in your kit that you can use to mark the spot from which you shot, the exact spot the deer was when you shot, and where the last spot you saw the deer as it was running away. Use these markers to locate the direction the deer went and as a reference if you have to backtrack. You may also wish to record the contact information contained in the Maine hunting regulations regarding people who provide dog tracking services should they be needed.

How long should you wait before proceeding to the deer’s initial location? It depends. If it is not raining or snowing you can take your time. Conventional wisdom for archery shots that kill by exsanguination, or bleeding out, is to wait 30 to 60 minutes. The deer may not even know it has been hit, may not have heard the shot, and may simply move off a short ways, and lie down where it bleeds to death. If you follow up too quickly the surge of adrenalin it gets from hearing you may give it enough energy to move off where you may not find it. Rifle shots can be followed up much more quickly because in addition to muscle and tissue damage they kill with a degree of hydrostatic shock. If you have rain or
snow falling every minute you wait risks the trail being washed out or covered up so go quickly after the shot.

Once you get to the spot where the deer was, take care not to walk in his tracks. Walk to the side and look for signs made by his hooves or his body as he pushed through tall grass particularly if there was a dew or frost that morning. Finally, look for blood. If you find any blood as an ethical hunter you are committed to an exhaustive search. Blood can tell you more about the shot. For example, bright red blood may indicate a large muscle hit or a liver hit; blood with bubbles in it indicates a lung hit. In addition to looking at the ground, look at fallen limbs or logs the deer may have stepped over. Look at brush and leaves up at the height where the wound would likely be. Deer are considered thin-skinned animals and all of the deer I have taken with archery resulted from complete pass throughs, meaning the broadhead passed through both sides of the deer making a blood trail on both sides of his tracks. Blood out of the body very long turns black pretty quickly so if it has been some time since your shot expect to see black splashes or drops, sometimes very small. Drops of blood may attract insects so look for them congregating around any spilled blood. Finally, other indicators may help. Crows, magpies, and Blue jays quickly take an interest in an animal not moving and their calling may alert you to its location. If all else fails, call the dog tracking people sooner than later. A hunting partner I had in Germany shot a Reh deer from a hochsitz or high seat at about 7 a.m. We searched for that deer for two hours before the landowner engaged a tracking dog and the deer was recovered in 15 minutes, no meat spoilage and my partner got his trophy.<