I honestly believe that many people don't understand how to trail a deer. Give it some time, go to where you shot him. Have everyone else stay back, and 1 person find first blood, unless you are very comfortable with the others. Mark first blood with toilet paper. Based on the ammount and type of blood and way the deer acted, determine whether to trail him then or wait. Have one person on point, finding blood and marking with toilet paper. Everyone else should stay way way back. Unless you are very comfortable with another person's abilities. If you lose blood. double mark the last spot, and immediately get your eyes close to the ground and work through the obvious directions he could have gone. Work those out for about 20yds a piece, damn near on your hands and knees. If you find blood resume previous. If you don't, start grid searching the immediate 50 yd radius, by yourself. If you still don't have blood, that is when you start gridding it out with a bunch of people in the direction of travel first, then over the whole area second.
Yep, toilet paper is a hunters best friend in more ways than one! You can look back sometimes and start to see a straight line forming with the toilet paper too. That has often times led me to the next blood drop by following that line and finding another drop 20 yards away or so.
If there's more than just me, I always am the front guy and the other person stays at the last blood seen. Once another drop is found they move up and I look for more. Repeat until no blood can be found. I will then usually switch and let another fresh set of eyes search from the last blood drop.
After that point when more than one person cannot find blood, we start a grid search.
The biggest mistake I see with bow hunters though is that they get down too early after the shot. Wounded deer tend to go only as far away into the brush until they feel safe and will lay down and eventually bleed out. Get down too early and make noise, and they'll get up and move away. If it's cool enough, give it a good while before you get down to go look if you did not see it go down!
