Why do blood trails just stop ?

[kyron4]

I friend called me to help track a deer. A good blood trail with 4" pools every 20 yds or so then at about 80 yds. a small pool and a few faint swear 10-15 feet away and nothing. We circled around 100 yds. in all direction and not another drop. She may have made it into the CRP field and we'll look there tomorrow. But my question is how can deer bleed so much then just stop ?

 

[Hookeye]

What looks like a lot of blood on the ground probably isn't........I remember a bowhunter education class many moons ago where they did a blood trail, and folks thought it was a doozy. Afterward they showed the squirt bottle they made the trail with, only half empty.

A good shot, with an exit hole, seems to make deer retrieval easier.

No exit? Can make for some fried nerves.

If it got dark on ya, might want to fire up a Coleman lantern. Those are WAY easier to see blood with than a flashlight.

 

[CathyInBlue]

E.T. likes venison too.

 

[Kirkd]

Clotting factors, vasodilation, etc. i dont hunt, but Im in the medical field, so those factors could stop bleeding.

 

[x10]

sometimes they run out because the heart stops, there's more reasons than answers for sure, I know I've shot a lot of deer but only a handful of them follow all the wives tales and legends of hunting.

good luck

BTW I tried the Coleman lantern even with a reflector and never saw the benefit of putting up with the lantern, Some of the early LED's really were bad for blood trails but the new maglites seem to do a good job,

 

[Mark 1911]

From my own bad experiences, I have found that if you hit them too low in the chest with an arrow, below the heart and lungs, they will bleed profusely for several hundred yards, maybe even a mile, but it will eventually stop. I found myself wondering how a deer could lose that much blood and still live. Tracked one for about a mile and even found a spot where it had laid down. But there was no deer and no more blood trail. If you don't hit them in the vitals, they can survive even after losing a lot of blood. I have heard that deer blood will clot quickly when deer are stressed and wounded, sort of a built in preservation mechanism in deer. Don't know if that's really true, but the profuse blood trails that come to an end seem to lend credence to that.

 

[Hookeye]

Maybe my eyes are different, but lanterns work well for me, much better than a Maglite,
Must admit, I have not tried any of the newer high intensity versions.

In the end though: No body= dunno what happened.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

...right?

 

[.452browning]

Can't give you an answer, but last weekend I took my first deer. A big nanny doe. TC Muzzle loader with 250gr. Shockwave. It looked like someone dumped a bucket of blood where I shot her. She ran 25 yards and collapsed. Heart & lungs hit.

Worthless info but I'm excited to take my first deer. Going out in 2 weeks to hopefully take a big buck at Jefferson Proving Grounds, same place I took my doe.

 

[SaintsNSinners]

blue light is great for tracking blood...

 

[snapping turtle]

If there is any water in the area search from last blood to the water location.

 

[Willie]

What looks like a lot of blood on the ground probably isn't........I remember a bowhunter education class many moons ago where they did a blood trail, and folks thought it was a doozy. Afterward they showed the squirt bottle they made the trail with, only half empty.

A good shot, with an exit hole, seems to make deer retrieval easier.

No exit? Can make for some fried nerves.

If it got dark on ya, might want to fire up a Coleman lantern. Those are WAY easier to see blood with than a flashlight.

^^^^
THIS


Best tracker is a dog...

Blood Trailing Services | HUNTING INDIANA


.

 

[DragonGunner]

Clotting can take place stopping the flow. Or deer has run out of blood but still running till its dead on its feet. In the first case the deer well travel a few more feet or several hundred yards...it will either die or it won't. In the second case which has also happened while hunting I have hit deer in a main artery and they have always been found but the last yards may show no blood. One buck I hit in the hind leg I could see the blood pouring out on impact.....you will know cause when you track you don't have to walk slow to follow, seemed like gallons were everywhere for about 100 yds, then next 100 yds it got much less, then it became drops here and there and then nothing...we traveled in the direction we thought it took and after another 100 yds of no blood there he was dead.

 

[Willie]

The absolute best blood trail I have ever been on was an arrow through the kidneys. It looked like someone had filled a garden sprinkler bucket and splashed it back and forth on both sides of the trail the buck ran on. He was down in 60 yards. The most blood I have ever seen on a blood trail.. almost all was outside the body cavity..