Ep. 583: Foundations - Blood Trailing Breakdown, Part 1

He told me quite a few times how he never makes bad shots, and to be fair, he's like one of the best shots I know by far, and he honestly doesn't screw up very often when he draws that bow back to his face. But it happens, and it might be something between your ears, or it might have been something I don't know what happened with your rig. But bad shots do happen. Good shots happened too, and

how you follow up on all of them. You know, that's probably big enough topic to cover ten of these episodes, but I'm only gonna give you too. I do think this is probably more important than almost any other theme I could hit on with this podcast. I hope you listen closely, and I hope you'll learn something from it.

You know how when you go out like with old friends, like maybe high school friends or some buddies from college, and they tell a story about how you did something really stupid or crazy, and when they tell it, you think to yourself, that's that's not how that happened at all.

You remember it totally different. If you ever take a criminal justice course at a college that dives into the topic of eyewitness a counts, you learned pretty quickly that we are really bad at witnessing events and then remembering them as they actually happen. It's hard to fathom, too, because we all trust our memories a lot, but this

is the truth. You learn this in life in many ways, especially if you marry a woman who has a memory like a steel trap and you have a memory like one of those I don't know, sand sifter beach toys you give two year olds to play with at the beach if you want to. Totally random example has nothing to do with my every day grind your soul into the ground life. Anyway, we just generally suck at remembering

things correctly. And what does this have to do with deer hunting, well, we all pretty much kind of suck it remembering how we shot a deer or how we shoot our dear. You know, the adrenaline kicks in your nerves are afraid and we are just pure reptile brain. A lot of times when we try to shoot a white tail. That means we don't really interpret the events as they actually happened, and we have to fill in

the blanks. And new hunters often fill in the blanks to their benefit, Like instead of a low brisket style hit, they might decide that they must have hit the harder, low lungs. Hunters with tons of experience they kind of often go the other way. This is I think due

to being on surprising and often disappointing blood trails. Those hunters, those experience hunters often make a pretty decent shot and they get overly cautious because they've seen what can go wrong and they don't want to make any mistakes to make it go even more wrong. You can count me in that camp. I second guess myself a lot, and I'm always learning that what I see during a shot and what I remember are often at odds with what

actually happened. Every white tail outfitter out there will tell you this is damn near the rule and not an exception to it. Acknowledging this reality, I think it's real important. We all have to know and believe that we get details wrong when we shoot a deer, because we do. When I started filming hunts, this hit me right in the face, like one of those flying Asian carp that keeps marching their way up river to places once devoid

of them. Now, filming hunting mostly sucks, and I know that's the first world problem to bitch about, but I hate having someone in a tree who ultimately has the thumbs up or thumbs down on you know, whether I can shoot or not. I hate it for other reasons too, But what I like it for is that it shows me how wrong I can be. I've shot quite a few critters on film over the years, and most of them have shown me that in some way my memory

had betrayed me. It might be I don't know how much a buck dropped, or the actual body position of an antelope or something else, but it's pretty much a guarantee that what I remembered isn't exactly what happened. This is the first point I want you to really consider because it feeds a bigger blood trailing strategy. But and there's always a but it's also really important to take note of your initial impression when you shoot, Like, what

did your instincts say in the moment? Did you believe the angle was really good and at that point of impact was close to where you intended good, that's good? Or did you have a feeling that something went a little ry maybe the hit was a bit farther back than you like, or maybe the dear mood right before the shot and took your slight quartering away angle and made it more severe. Okay, remember that. Also, try really hard to remember right where your dear was standing and

right where it ran. What did it do when you shot? Did it mule kick? Did it hunched up to take off like a rocket? And when it ran, was it, you know, at the edge of the ridge or maybe did it just step over a log in the trail? Did it bound off between two birch trees, or maybe splash its way through a low spot in the swamp next to an island a willows. All of that stuff matters a lot. Initial reactions initial impressions. They are important

because they are usually somewhat right. What happens, though, is that once we settle down and start replaying things in our heads, we start to rewrite the script. One of my favorite songs in the world to listen to and play on guitar is Schism from Tool, and in it, the good Reverence sings, I've done the math enough to know the dangers of our second guessing. I think about that a lot, and I'm reminded of it a lot when I shoot deer. The initial impression is important, but

it's kind of like a sand castle. As soon as you build it, the wind comes along and start whisking away some grains of sand here and there, and then the waves start lapping at its foundation. Soon the whole thing looks different from when you built it. And what I'm saying is take note of what you believe happened as soon as it happened your first impressions. You will reference these often. You will also use this to counterweight what happens next, which is that it's time to gather

some evidence. Now, this is the first part that gets a little tricky. After you shoot a deer, how long should you wait to get down and look for your arrow or look for blood at or near the impact site. To me, this depends on one thing. What are the odds I'll spook the wounded deer if it's dead, calm, and the cover is thick, or basically a situation where I don't know how far the wounded deer went, I'm going to sit up in that stand for a while,

maybe an hour, maybe more. If there is a thirty mile prour wind and I watched the deer drop down into a valley and out of sight, I know the odds of me getting down and spooking it are pretty low. The very first consideration always is to not spook a deer when you don't have to. This is probably a horrible comparison, but they always say that if you're abducted, don't let them take you to a second location, because

if they do, it's lights out for you. When it comes to wounded deer, you do not want to push them to a second location. You want them to tip over or bed down in a spot of their choice and then be there expired. When you do slip into blood trailer, the deer that beds down and gets pushed to a new spot is a deer that you are far, far less likely to recover. Sometimes we make that mistake by just getting down from our standard looking for our

arrows or looking for blood at the impact site. If you can get down safely and start looking, you should, but only only for the first bit of evidence. Finding your arrow is huge, and this is where lighted knocks are a really great option. Hell they're a great option for seeing what happened throughout your shot and immediately following it. An arrow that passes through and burries in the ground

with a glowing knock is pretty easy to find. An arrow that buries into the deer and then leaves the scene with them is pretty easy to see with a lighted knock. But even if you don't use lighted knocks, you should still try really hard to find your arrow. I see people make this mistake a lot, and it drives me crazy, mostly because it's a testament to how impatient a lot of people are on blood trails. This, by the way, is something that everyone needs to understand.

Patience not only kills big bucks, but it's really your best friend on a blood trail. It is too often we default to looking for a whole dead deer, when we should be looking for the tiniest amount of evidence that will tell us not only what kind of hit we are dealing with, but what direction our wounded deer really went. Remember that, please, So you sneak down as quiet as a mouse pissing on a cotton ball, or I don't know, something like that, and you walk over

to the impact site. Unless the ground is rock hard, I tend to almost always look for running tracks. Even little deer move some dirt and leaves when they run, especially if they go from standing still to full on get the hell out of here mode. These scarred up tracks almost always kick off a blood trail. But even if they don't, your job is to find the arrow. If it's there, Your arrow and what will be on it are crucial to developing a high odds blood trailing plan.

To find it, you have to find exactly where the deer was standing when you shot, and then work it beyond that point. I know that's simple, but it's true. Sometimes the arrow is right there. Sometimes it's twenty yards farther downhill, buried in a patch of thorns or nettles. Occasionally it skips off in a random direction. The point here, my friends, is that people often give up way too quickly on finding their arrow. This is a bad idea.

Do your best, give it some time and understand that often the arrow is within maybe twenty or third yards of the impact site, but usually, or at least sometimes, isn't overly visible. Now, if you do find your arrow, pay attention. Is it stuck six inches in the dirt or is it laying on the ground? Is it broken? Is it covered in dark red blood or little pieces of meat and fat? Is it covered in the deerest partially digested breakfast. Are your broadhead blades still intact or

they busted up like you hit bone. This is something I say to myself all the time, and we'll circle us back around at the beginning of this podcast. The evidence doesn't lie, even if our memory does. The evidence on your arrow just doesn't lie. If you believe you double lunge your buck but the arrow is covered in gut material, then you're just wrong. Something happened that you don't remember, and it doesn't matter because the arrow and

its evidence aren't lying. This initial finding is crucial for planning out the rest of your trailing efforts. Trust me, when I say trust the evidence. Now you might be thinking that's really great advice, Tony, But I shoot my dear with a muzzle order or maybe a two seventy. There's no arrows involved. Thank you very much. Well, you're welcome. And in the case of shooting a deer with just about anything shy of a nuke, the impact site is moody. Importante,

is there blood right there? That's usually a good sign. Instant blood or blood within a few feet of the impact site always makes me feel a little better. It's not a guarantee that immediate recovery is imminent, but that at the very least you hit something that is carrying blood. I like that. Is that blood splattered on the tree right by the impact site or just missed it on a few leaves? Is it like gouts of blood that

almost look like an impressionist painting of rose petals? Or is it just a few random drops stippled across the maple leaves? Can you glass down the trail and pick up more blood pretty quickly or not? What's the quantity? Like, what's the quality like to is it frothy, pinkish lung blood or dark red blood that might indicate a liver head or possible be a heart or artery hit. Is it just your run of the mill looking blood and not so great quantities that could indicate any number of

different hits. Is their hair there? What color is it? Is it short and brown or is it long and white? Does the hair indicate that you might have hit lower than you thought? What does the evidence tell you? And each piece of evidence that you find, Really your job is just to filter a few things. The first is to compare it to your initial impression right after the shot. The next is to use it with whatever other evidence

you've got to make a better and better plan. Did you think you smoked your buck and that he'd be dead in seventy five yards only to find some bit of evidence on the arrow of the impact site that makes you think he might be a lot farther away.

Trust the evidence. The biggest mistake I see a lot of hunters make is that they convince themselves that they should take off on the blood trail too early and that they'll recover their deer in no time due to the fact that they think they made a good enough shot. The other mistake they make at this point is they text three of their buddies, and they say it's time to run up the posse and start blood trailing together. I highly highly advise against this at the onset of

any questionable blood trail. The reason why is that the more people you get involved, the faster you'll go, because the most impatient person in the group will often set the pace. This happens with large groups of pheasant hunters, too, and it drives me crazy. It's one of the reasons why I don't hunt in large groups. Everyone wants to be the first one to shoot the rooster or find the next drop of blood, but both activities should be

closer to a crawl than a sprint. I'd much much rather trail solo or with one other person who knows what he's doing, and then we'll follow me and allow me to set the pace because it's my blood trail. And I can't stress this enough. If you have to grid search later than all the help you can get as good. But for now, right at the onset of a blood trail which you don't know how it's gonna end, keeping it small and keeping it slow is the best plan. And before you get too far down that trail, decide

what an appropriate amount of time is to wait. Now, there are some general rules about this stuff, but I'm not gonna tell you because they don't matter to me. A whole lot. Well hit, double lunger, heart shot, Dear, he isn't gonna lay out there long before I go get it. Anything else is going to get a buffer of at least a couple of hours, maybe quite a bit longer. If I know I'm dealing with a liver or a gut hit, I'm going to give it probably six to eight hours. Now, I know you're thinking, what

if it's hot? What if I got a ton of coyotes in my area? This is another time when patients and caution are important. We way overstate the likelihood of losing our meat to heat, especially overnight when it comes to white tails. I have a boatload of September deer, and I've never lost any too heat spoilage. Overnights in September are cool enough in general to make it less of an issue than we often think. Now, I'm not talking Florida or Louisiana deer here, though I get it.

Your local conditions will vary, and if it's not supposed to get below seventy five degrees tonight. You have got to consider that. You have to filter that info through your plan and decide that maybe eight hours is just too much time in that heat, but four is doable. You don't want to be cavalier here. You want to be as cautious as you can while still being smart about it. And as far as the song dogs go coming in and munching up your deer, this is another

danger that we often overstate. Now. I've heard horror stories out of places like Kansas where a pack of coyotes will clean up a whole deer in a matter of minutes. If you know that's a real possibility in your area, you have to factor that in and play those odds, just like you would with heat. You can't control the

coyotes or the weather, but you can control it. If you talk yourself into going after a gut shot buck an hour after you hit him, just because there is a possibility coyotes will find him, got to be real honest with yourself after looking at the initial evidence and then factoring in the likelihood of meat loss for whatever reason. This is a balance that's hard to find, even if you have a ton of experience. Sometimes you'll get it wrong, but the goal is to get it wrong as rarely

as possible. Does this seem like a lot. It is. Our job once we shoot is to do our best to find our dear and not lose an ounce of venison. It's a heavy lift sometimes, but just like when you're facing a torturous pack out of a bull elk, you bought the ticket, so you better get ready to take the ride now. Next week I'm going to talk about what to do during a blood trail and how to ensure that with every step you take you're getting closer to your dear and not skiing losing it. That's it

for this week, my friends. I'm Tony Peterson and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast, which has brought to you by First Light. As I always thank you so much for your support. I can't tell you how much it means to me. It's really great. If you want more of a white tail fix this time of year, you can't get enough of it, head on over to the Mediator YouTube channel. You can check out

Mark's new show Deer Country. You can also head over to our Wire to Hunt YouTube channel, and we've got a boatload of how to videos on there, or you can head on over to the metator dot com slash wired and you're gonna read all kinds of white tail related articles written by myself and Mark in a whole slew of white tail Killers