Top_Heavy's World

A friend shot a great 5X5 on Tuesday morning. He and another friend went to recover it on Tuesday afternoon and ran out of blood before dark. They searched until exhaustion and then the rain set in. I offered to help with the search and finally got time to walk this afternoon. The blood trail ran out about 400 yards from the stand and they had marked the trail with a green and pink ribbon. I started the body search there...
Wounded deer don't usually have their wits about them, they are just in the escape mode, so I find they look for the trail of least resistance. I simply started my walk at the ribbon and followed the trail he was on. I put myself in the deer's life and I "FELT" where he walked. I noted a split in the trail and stated "He went down one of these 2 trails, I would guess it was the left split", we were walking the right split. I crossed the creek at the bottom of the hill and asked "Have you walked this yet?" they had not, the deer's core area was 2 ridges and 800 yards in the other direction and the main bedding areas were not any where in the direction I was walking... I started my back and forth pattern as soon as I crossed the creek. I was going to work the area between the 2 trails I felt he might have taken. I went less than 100 yards and then moved 20 yards farther from the creek and went back towards the tiny drainage I used as a reference point. I made the trip 4 times and was turning to start the 5th when I saw the big deer laying next to a blow down. I yelled to Curt and he thought I was hurt or something... there was no way a guy could walk into a 1000 acre timber for the first time ever, with no blood trail to follow and find a big mature deer in less than 20 minutes.... IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE, but I did it. I had some luck and some Divine Intervention, but with an open mind, a fresh set of eyes and an uncanny ability to think like a deer, I found his buck. "I wouldn't have found it until shed hunting season... I wouldn't have ever come over here... that was amazing" was all Curt could say...

Each deer is different, each shot is different, and each property is different, but one thing that is always the same... if you don't keep looking for a deer you believe you killed, you will never find it! They don't always end this quickly, but don't skip any areas, even if you don't think a deer would go there, sometimes it pays off! That buck had taken the left trail, crossed the creek and died about 75 yards on the other side, almost 1000 yards from the tree stand!