Had a few questions... I don't hunt but I'm trying to collect some information so any help would be appreciated. How often do you have to track deer/game after it's been hit b/c it runs off? Out of those how many (percentage wise) are unrecoverable because you can't find them? How much time is spent tracking those animals? Thanks in advance.
There's a bunch of threads on here that go into great detail about this topic. That being said, if I feel like it was a good shot but didn't see that animal drop I always give 45min-1 hour at the least. If I don't think the hit was very good I give 4 hours during a morning hunt and over night for an evening hunt. I've lost deer before using this system but the reason is because the blood simply ran out and the deer wasn't close by after that. Deer are strange animals. Sometimes they'll only go a few yards from a hit that didn't seem that great but will go for a mile with a hole in their hearts. I can't put a percentage on it, maybe 1 in 10 are lost because the animal was simply unrecoverable? Everyone will be different, though.
G-Street, Thanks for the quick reply I really appreciate it. I'll poke around more on here for similar threads but hopefully some others will chime in too.
Deer are remarkable animals they are probably one of the fastest blood clotting animals out there. It's tough to drop a deer in its tracks with a bow but with a gun it's possible. Many times I recover the deer but there are those deer that have what we call armor and they just don't stop running and as hunters we just can't find em. I try and take as much time as I possibly need to find them but sometimes it just doesn't work out. One time a couple buddies and I spent 8 hours looking for a deer that ran through swamps and the thickest nastiest crap ever. Sadly we never found that deer. but we gave it our best shot.
PCO50, Thanks for the reply as well. What do you think the farthest distance you had to go to track them? 1/2 a mile? a few hundred yards? What about hogs? Do they pose as much of a challenge as far as recovery goes in comparison to deer?
I tracked one with some guys for over a mile through rough terrain before we got a second shot on it. That was a gun shot deer. Honestly the deer I have had to track the furthest have been shot with guns and poorly hit. I shot one a few years back with a bow and after the shot the deer walked walked about 40 yards from my stand and started eating. About 45 seconds later it fell over and died right there. That deer had been shot through the lungs and clipped its heart and he barely showed any physical reaction???
I have also tracked a deer for over a mile. She just didn't quit and she was shot in the shoulder with a 30-06. I have never tracked a hog because we don't have them here in MN. But i'm sure they would be close to the same. But other than that i don't know much about them.
PC05 and Parker70 thanks for the replies. I'm in Florida and have some friends that hog hunt often so I'll have to talk them about it some more. Deer are definitely remarkable creatures. I appreciate all the info. Thanks again!
@avb are you doing a survey or something? just curious. for me this will be the first year hunting with a bow but the longest I have had to track a deer that I have shot with a gun its roughly 100 yards. sometimes they run longer than others even though you get a perfect shot. Every harvest is different when it comes to a deer which keeps us all sitting in out stand year after year.
