just because they have more receptors doesnt mean they can technically smell better, i think it has to do with the brain as well. How the brain receives and perceives the info. A dog can actually tell if your happy or sad, your blood sugar level. maybe a deers nose is designed more for finding food. Its hard to really say. Do some dogs have more receptors that other dogs?
I don't see how a dog with its sense of smell can sort out everything that has left scent and stay on a track. Amazing. A deer with even better sense of smell than a dog has to smell and sort out the one that means danger. I've been reading on it and it really gets beyond my comprehension level.
i've heard it described as they can smell like we see colors, they can easily differentiate one from the other. Since each nostril can smell independently they can tell which direction the scent is stronger.
The only hard and fast rule on waiting, imo, is with gut (6 hrs.) or liver (3 hrs.). The rest 1 hr. or so and if they get up then they need to be pushed hard to keep the blood flowing, especially broken legs. There are always variables and judgement calls but I don't like losing the meat to coyotes.
Alright Randy….here’s a couple common sounding stories……what do you do?
Scenario #1 Gun hunter calls just after dark and says he shot a buck crossing a powerline at 100 yards about an hour ago…..The deer appeared to have bucked up a little before bolting into the woods. The hunter has found a decent spot of blood at the hit site and sparse blood for about 150-200 yards but then lost the trail….no bone and no hair……..Do you load up and go after the deer or wait until the next morning?
Scenario #2 Bow hunter calls just after dark and says he stuck a good buck. The buck was quartering away from him at about 30 yards. The hunter said it may have hit a touch too far back and high but he felt good about the shot. The deer ran off with the arrow sticking out of his back. He’s tracked him with decent blood for 200 yards and backed out. Do you load up and go after the deer or wait until the next morning?
One of the things about both of those scenarios and the vast majority of calls is that there’s a lot of unknowns. We don’t really know on either hit if the deer is a “8” hurt or a “4” hurt on a 1-10 scale. We can look at the clues we’re given and make an educated guess but even then the information we’re given by the hunter often turns out to be exaggerated…Stuff like “great blood” not quite being so great when you actually get there…..or we tracked it 100 yards turns out to be more like 350. Most calls are basically the same story of….”I shot him….I thought I had a good hit…..followed a little blood……can’t find him.”….lots of blanks to be filled in after the fact…..The one thing that’s just about a given though is that if you’re calling a tracker, then you likely put a really bad hit on him…….Taking everything into consideration in these situations, I look at giving the deer time as erring on the side of caution……or taking the conservative approach and expecting the hit to more likely be a 4 instead of that 8…..planning for the worst, hoping for the best.
With the ides of October upon us, I wanted to add this story to the thread. Some of you may have already read it. It was posted a few days ago on the trackers facebook page by another fellow tracker that was doing some hunting of his own out of state……….Next weekend when you stick that good ‘un that just came by…..force yourself to sit there and make good decisions afterwards. It may sound over simplistic but write down the steps you need to take on a small piece of paper ahead of time and stick it in your wallet.....maybe on the back of your harvest sheet. After the shot, pull it out and follow your own directions…..
Here’s the story in the hunters own words………
“To know to do right and do it not as a Christian is sin. To know to do right and do it not as a hunter usually means no deer. Today I shot a doe. Slightly back, slightly high. I believe I got one lung. The doe was about 15 yards. Almost broadside but head was slightly closer to me. Shot was a complete pass through. Don’t recall a kick but she bolted immediately. Heard her run but not crash. Sounded like she kept going. I didn’t stay in the tree long enough. I waited just a couple minutes and got down. Not to follow but to check my arrow. Almost zero blood on it. Very light blood on the fletching where it meets the arrow shaft.
I took one step in the direction the doe went to see I could see any blood and I seen a bright red slightly watery spot. Then the bad happened. The doe hadn’t run off. She bedded down at the bottom of the hill in the trees. She blew at me and ran off. I couldn’t see her at all. I went and got my dog hoping for the best. He gets to the track about 2 hrs after the track and starts out good. No visible blood until I get to where the doe was obviously bedded. There were about 5-7 leaves that looked just like the one pictured. A little farther up 1 more leaf had a very small spot of blood on it. We went about 75-100 more yards and up a hill, across a fence and then nothing. The deer and the signs just disappeared. No blood, nothing.
The shot was high so I’m sure the bleeding was mostly internal. Restarted 3 times to no avail. He went the same way each time then nothing. This was his first track of his second season. I can’t blame it all on him because I personally did my part to screw it all up before he ever got there. Everything I knew better than to do, I did anyways. I grid searched everywhere I had permission to be. The farmer that own the land is gonna look for buzzards. When he calls I’ll be heading that way to see where I hit (if possible) and see how far she went. Getting down too early and causing her to run off cost me the deer unfortunately. “
Here’s a few steps I would suggest doing after the shot if you don’t see the deer go down or hear a definite crash……..Write down some short hand version of them in your own words and then pull them out and force yourself to follow your own directions.
1) Don’t do anything, be still and be quiet for 30 minutes……a REAL 30 minutes too!!
2) Either keep sitting another 30 minutes or ease down and quietly slip out of the area….Don’t start looking for blood!!!! LEAVE THE AREA QUIETLY!
3) Gather yourself and assess the shot in your mind while you wait. Do you already know it was a bad shot?.....If so, then go back to camp and decide how many hours to wait. Did it look like a pretty decent hit? Then after an hour minimum, ease back in very quietly and assess the hit. Don’t go in wide open and ready to go into full fledge tracking mode….you’re just going in to do some initial “recon”. QUIETLY assess the hit site and the first 50 yards or so toward where he ran. If it things don’t look promising then back out and give it another hour or two... or maybe more if need be…..If it looks like a blood bath, then slowly proceed. One big key when you’re doing this is to keep it fresh on your mind that if you hit the deer…..the he is probably still within a few hundred yards of you…..BE QUIET!....and go by yourself to recon. If there’s any question about the shot then just back out and give it time.
Thats great information. Something I will do while I am waiting is use my binoculars to look for movement in the direction the deer went. I sometimes might stare at the same spot for 5 minutes but sometimes you can see them move to lick themselves. Listen intently. Several times I have shot one that ran 30-40 yards and then stopped and looked at their wounds. If nothing pressures them they will stop and die there.
I have only seen two deer fall within sight. One of those was the exact same thing this deer did, it was a liver hit. I pretty much back out and give every deer at the least an hour before I attempt to look. If its an evening hunt, that just gives time to go to camp and make a drink
The guy at the 8:22 mark on the video: he lowered his black hood and took off his black mask before making the shot?
Hmmmm....he must have either removed it when the camera wasn't looking or he didn't get the footage he wanted the first time so he went back and re-filmed himself shooting the bow......forgetting to put a mask on.
Several times I have shot one that ran 30-40 yards and then stopped and looked at their wounds. If nothing pressures them they will stop and die there.
Yep.....If you'll notice on blood tracks you'll very often times find small spots of blood for the first 50-75 yards or so and then suddenly find a big spot of blood. The big spot of blood is where the deer stopped and stood there. A lot of people say that they waited this and that amount of time but the truth is that many folks jump down within minutes of shooting and run to the hit site......causing the deer to bolt from that spot....
Here's a song for everyone to sing after the shot.
JK 
