Hello, I shot a bird last night with a bow. Hit it really good and he flew off. I ran out of daylight so I came back this morning. I found blood below a tree and I can't figure out if he roosted there last night or if it just so happened to be blood from him flying. My arrow is still in the bird and the blood beneath the tree did have bubbles in it and fresh. I've shot a lot of turkeys with my bow and I'm usually able to find them but this has me stumped. I don't know whether to stay in the straight line he flew and keep going that way or if maybe he flew to a different tree last night. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I figured I would provide an update from yesterday because it ended up being the most bizarre situation I have ever encountered. I did end up finding the turkey. He ended up in the exact opposite direction from where he flew the night before. Here is my best guess of what happened. When I came in yesterday morning, I heard gobbling to my left but I assumed it was another bird. I ignored it because I thought it could not have possibly been him (I will get back to that). I kept searching in the direction that he flew the night before. I have usually found birds about 200 yards in a straight line from where they flew so I spent the whole morning looking in that direction. The whole time I was looking, the turkey that was gobbling stayed in the same spot for 4-5 hours. He gobbled from daylight until about noon and then stopped. After hours of searching, I backtracked and found blood underneath a tree in the direction that he flew the night before. It was fresh which really threw me off. After thinking of what could have possibly happened, I figured I was either dehydrated and thinking illogically or that my newly birthed theory could actually be spot on. I started thinking that maybe when it turned daylight, he flew down the hill in the opposite direction from where I had been looking and stayed in that spot gobbling all morning. That theory made the most sense when I started thinking that the bird gobbled in one spot repeatedly for hours and then just all of the sudden stopped. So as my last resort, I made my way over to where I had heard the gobbling and sure enough there he was by a creek upside down, legs in the air which was strange. This made me concerned that a coyote had gotten to him but when I got up to him he was perfectly fine. I don't know if my theory was correct or not and I never will know, but that is my story and I'm sticking to it! And I know I didn't dream all of this because I have the picture to remind me that it actually happened lol.
