Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Bubbles in the blood

What’s your opinion on finding “bubbles in the blood?”

I hear this phrase a lot as a tracker. Now, don’t get me wrong…..I do agree that blood from the lungs looks different than blood from flesh wounds or gut hits, etc…..However, I’m hearing a lot of folks tell me that they see bubbles in the blood so they’re sure it's hit in a lung no matter what else the deer does. Do you think bubbles in the blood means a lung hit?

I've never seen bubbles unless it was a lung shot. I've trailed a mess of them. Never seen blood bubbles in poor gut shots or drt shots.
Bubbles seem to indicate extra oxygen in the blood. To tell the truth never questioned it, just accepted the old theory.

Yeah, I’m thinking the “old theory” doesn’t hold true though in all cases. I think no matter where the hit...that the blood being cast out into the air can likely be oxygenated some and fool people to think they have a lung hit when they don’t. The reason I’m posting this is because I’ve had numerous hunters this year tell me that they had bubbles in the blood so they were sure it was a lung hit. Do you know how many lung hit deer we trackers recover?

I take it to mean something with fat has been hit. The impact of the bullet creates a lot of heat, melts some fat, and that mixes with blood.

They wanna convince themselves and you (CNC)that they made a fatal shot.It's tough when the possibility of losing your deer creeps in your mind.

I definitely don't believe anymore that bubbles mean lung shot.The 8 point I lost during bow season had alotta bubbles in the blood and I never found him.Shot a 9 point that had piles of blood with bubbles in the blood.Ended up being low shoulder/high leg shot that blew through the front of his chest hitting nothing but bone.

I have never gone with the bubbles/lung theory.I do go with bright red/pink/lung though.It means high concentration of oxygen to the red blood cells.Bubbles can appear from blood spewing through a tight wound kinda like the difference in a water hose w/o a nozzle and a hose with a nozzle.

Y'all check out the "bugmasters 6" thread. That is what I would call lung blood I it was on the grains. Am I right by saying that? Plus it's obviously a lung shot.

Have you ever peed on the ground and seen bubbles in it? They were larger bubbles. Lung blood is gonna be bright pink or maybe bright red or both. The bubbles in lung blood are gonna be super tiny, smaller than a pin head, sorta like a sponge. Larger bubbles like a BB size can come from most anywhere.

That would be bright pink with tiny bubbles. Lung shot. We would probably not be called to track him.

On no doubt I was just saying

I've got a buddy that says it was lung blood, it had bubbles in it. He also says he can tell a buck track from a doe track but it's a secret he won't tell us. He also talks about all the deer he has killed in the past but never kills any now.

Several years ago when we dog hunted, at this time of year if you road the dirt roads and found a BIG track that was just ambling down the road for a good ways it was usually a buck. We could just about be 100% on getting a jump on one like that and it would be a buck.
I've never seen any other blood that had bubbles in it that wasn't lung blood.

I've seen blood that is bright red with fairly large bubbles from bleeding wounds other than a lung. No idea how the bubbles get in the blood. I guess it is sometime between when it leaves the body and before it hits the ground. True lung blood is very pink and has tiny bubbles about the size of the bubbles on a head of beer. It is almost foamy.

The bubbles most hunters are talking about is where the blood hits a leaf or something flat, and due to it drying at different rates of speed depending on the weather, it creates little circles on the flat surface, that WAS a bubble by definition - but not due to being lung blood. Widely done in error.

If i hit lungs shooting my SST's the deer usually is laying dead right there, if not there will be a handfull of lung and pinkish blood on the ground where he was standing. Pretty obvious to me, Crimson, if their calling you they didn't hit the deer in the lungs or heart.

Exactly…..We were searching for one the other day and the hunter says he thinks it may be a lung hit. I told him that it very well may be a lung hit but if so it’ll be the first one I’ve ever found.

This. Bubbles in lung blood is more frothy than bubbly.

I would think the so called "bubbles" would be produced from the nose while breathing with blood in the nasal cavity. Doesn't technically mean lung shot though.

lung shot.