So yesterday, I learned the hard way that my area's bucks are still holding their antlers . . . at least most of them. While this season has been tough, it has also produced a few sheds and a couple dandies. Mostly were early droppers that have been out there for at least a few weeks. Given their position in the snowpack, I figured that the shedding activity was starting right on normal schedule, but since then, it's been increasingly difficult to pick up anything. Yesterday was a bust. Our first trek through our prime areas with the shed-o-meter stuck on zero. Lots of beds, lots of snow, gangs of deer, just no new sheds. About 4 hours into the hike, we happened upon a very clear bloodtrail in the snow. Given the size of the track, and the location of the deer's home range, all signs pointed toward a recently shed buck. So, we backtracked him into a remote thicket, where we eventually lost the blood in the myriad of trails, beds and criss-crossing tracks. This is the second time this season that I've walked into some suspicious blood droplets atop the snow. This begs the question - how long does a buck bleed after dropping a side? Does it vary based upon the size and depth of the pedicle? If I hit a bloodtrail atop the snow, should I break off my shed hunt to backtrack it and look for the antler, or could these bucks be bleeding off and on for several days after shedding? Obviously, these are areas I'll be hitting again, but it would just be nice to hear some of your experiences with post-shedding bleeding, so I can know how to approach it next time. Anyone know?
John - I crawled through rosebushes, waded through snow, climbed over rock piles, trudged up and down the hill, scratched my face up with pine boughs and everytime I was ready to throw in the towel, I'd find another drop of blood and feel obliged to further exhaust myself by extending the hunt for another half hour, gridding and clambering around the mountainside like a wayward sherpa. I sweated like a pig and cussed every empty deer bed until my thighs started to cramp up and I had to turn tail for the car. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I was already 4.5 hours into the shed hunt when this whole episode began. I was whooped, and the shedmobile was FAR away! The deer, they taunt me. They intentionally make it personal. He won the battle yesterday, but I will win the war. That antler will come home. I will not be defeated!
Had the same thing happen to me three times so far this year on three different properties. I've found more blood this year from assumed shed bucks than any previous year.I'm 0/3 this year on blood trailing sheds.
Yep I'm 0/2 on that as well. The ones I have found were not trails though. Just a group of spots like your pic and then nothing else. I just knew they were going to be laying there somewhere but nothing in the vicinity at either spot. Never seen this before and was wondering if I was just crazy....good to know I am not the only one!
Interesting, obviously from that looks of that pic, he was dripping from both sides of his head about the same amounts..... did all of the blood spots double up like that one Fran? If I ran into those blood spots, being so closely matched up in blood volume.. I'd be thinking fresh matched set somewhere down the backtrail.
Troy - it looked like the blood was definitely coming from his head, because I could see where he'd been craning his neck out to browse on some small white pines, and the blood droplets were down inside the pine clutter, off of the track trail. We backtracked him into an area where he'd been holed-up the evening before, and that's where the wheels fell off. It had snowed about an inch overnight, just enough to dust over an already faint old blood trail. Throw in the fact that there were other deer in there moving around, and that just muddied the water even more. So it seems like a lot of you guys are running into these bloodtrails, which makes me feel like I'm not losing my mind.
I ran into that last year, but I knew some coyote hunters were in the area and thought maybe they had hit a coyote but later found out they weren't on our land. I never did find a shed in that area and now this year I found a couple drops of blood on the outside of a bed but with all the snow I haven't really looked to hard yet.
