How to Blood Trail a Deer

Sometimes a deer will simply drop in its tracks, ending your hunt the moment you squeeze the trigger. Just as often, a deer will run out of sight and start the next chapter of your hunt. Once you touch off that shot, you’re obligated to do everything you can to recover any deer you may have hit. That’s why learning how to blood trail a deer effectively is a critical skill every deer hunter must develop. Obvious blood trails are fun to follow while unraveling more challenging tracks can prove painstaking, puzzling, disheartening, and — in the best cases — incredibly rewarding. The toughest trails will test all your woodsmanship skills. That’s why we pulled together general blood-tracking wisdom, plus handy tips to help rookies and experienced trackers alike.

Gear for Blood Trailing Deer

Usually, you don’t need any special gear to follow a strong blood trail. Simply grab your flashlight if it’s getting dark and follow splotches of blood to a dead deer. Eventually, however, you’ll run into a trickier trail. That’s when you’ll be glad you packed at least one or all of the following:

It’s also wise to save contact information for your local blood-dog tracker or a drone-recovery team (where legal) to your phone ahead of time. You might not have enough service where you’re hunting to Google tracking-dog handlers in your area, but a phone call or a text might get through with a marginal connection.

How to Analyze Your Shot, Hit, and Sign

Tracking a deer starts as soon as you take your shot and doesn’t finish until you either find your deer or throw in the towel. While there are nuances to tracking a deer for bowhunters and gun hunters, these general guidelines are universal unless otherwise mentioned.

Assess Your Shot

Note first how you felt during the execution of the shot, and how the deer reacted to it. Did you feel confident or did it seem like you could’ve pulled the shot? Did the deer duck the string or kick and barrel out of there? While terminal ballistics are ultimately unpredictable and so are deer, consider these classic guidelines a rule of thumb for what kind of hit you may have made:

• Mule kick or jump – Often associated with a lethal shot to the heart.
• Hard sprint – A deer that runs flat out, sprinting and frantic, is often hit in the heart. Lung-shot and liver-shot deer will often run, too, though it varies how hard and how far.
• Hunched back – This is a classic sign that you hit too far back. It usually  indicates a gut shot to the stomach or intestines. Often gut-shot deer may run a few yards then slow down and stop, arch their backs, then walk or trot off. A tucked tail can also indicate a gut shot.
• No reaction – This could be a clean miss, or it could be a lethal shot — some deer, including double-lung shot deer, don’t act hit until they keel over.

Note Landmarks and Distances

Before you climb down to look for the hit site, do a little prep work to ensure you can actually find it first. Remember that if you’re hunting from an elevated blind or tree stand, everything will look different once you’re on the ground. Here are two simple ways to orient yourself before you move:

• Identify landmarks. Note memorable objects and landscape features in relation to exactly where the deer was standing when you shot, as well as the last place you saw the deer. Maybe the deer was standing a few feet from the third-to-last fence post when you pulled the trigger. And if you shot a buck that ran full-tilt out of the field and just behind that big sycamore on the treeline, keep its distinctive trunk in mind so you can head there later if need be.
• Range the hit site. Sometimes there will be few, if any, landmarks to help you orient yourself. Maybe you were hunting a big bean field and, now that it’s dark, everything looks exactly the same. To prevent distance disorientation, use your rangefinder to obtain the exact yardage to the hit site (and the last known location of your deer). Once you start walking, reference how far you’ve gone simply by turning around and ranging your stand or blind. That way you can always check if you’ve stopped short (more common) or wandered too far while looking for your arrow or the start of a blood trail. Keep walking until the yardages match.

Inspect the Hit Site

Once you find the hit site, analyze all the sign you find. Combine physical sign with your assessment of the shot you made.

Bubbly, frothy blood is usually the oxygenated blood of a lung hit. The more bubbles, the better. Just a few bubbles here and there can indicate a marginal lung hit, which deer can recover from if you struck a small piece of one lung.

Bright red blood can also indicate lung blood, but it also could just as easily come from a superficial muscle wound. “Bright red blood doesn’t always mean a lung shot,” says Shane Simpson, an experienced blood-dog tracker. “Bright red blood could be muscle. Blood coming from the lungs is highly oxygenated, it’s bright red and when it goes out to the different muscles in the body, it’s still bright red … You could hit a deer in the leg and the blood will be bright red.” 

Dark red, maroon, or purplish blood usually indicates a liver hit. It can sometimes appear thicker than other blood.

Clear, yellow, or green slime that smells like guts means your bullet or arrow passed through the digestive track. You may even find a green slurry or undigested bits of vegetation. Sometimes you’ll find evidence of a gut shot paired with good blood in the event of a hard quartering shot.

Hair can indicate a lot of different types of hits, and is more common to find when bowhunting or if you made a near-miss with a firearm — just shaving hair but not hitting home. Identifying the type of hair can help you determine where you hit. Here’s bowhunter-ed.com’s guide to deer hair identification:

• Back hair is long, dark (often black-tipped), and coarse
• Neck hair is like short back hair except it is light-colored on the front of the neck
• Brisket hair is very dark and is twisted near the junction of the neck and the body
• Side hair is short and brown with dark tips
• Bottom of the rib cage is a mixture of white and dark brown hair that is straight, moderately long, and thick
• Belly hair tends to be white, long, fine, and sometimes twisted
• Tail hair is very long
• Hair on top of the tail is dark brown tipped with black

No blood is never fun to find, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you missed the deer or even that you made a bad shot. Both are possibilities, but so is a perfectly lethal shot. This is when it’s especially important to consider how confident you felt at the time of the shot and the deer’s reaction. Go to the last place you saw the deer — often a field edge or trail — and begin searching for blood there. I have shot plenty of  deer that didn’t produce visible blood trails at the hit site, but that begin bleeding once they ran a little ways.

Decide How Long to Wait Before Tracking

Conventional wisdom dictates big-game hunters should wait a minimum of a half hour to pursue their quarry after any shot that requires trailing. The idea is that an animal doesn’t always die right away, and by giving it time and space to expire, you’re not spiking its system with adrenaline that might cause it to run farther. Waiting lets an animal bed down and bleed out, aiding your eventual recovery.

But on a safari for Namibian plains game a few years ago, my professional hunter didn’t wait even 30 seconds after my shot. He would chase game that fled at the hit, leaving me to scramble for my safety and run after them both. I was intrigued by this rule of the bush — unless you see your quarry drop, grab your shooting sticks and start sprinting — and wondered how it might apply at home. The short answer is that you can immediately start tracking a wounded deer, sometimes to greater effect than if you had waited the requisite 30 minutes. It all depends on what kind of hit you made. To help you make the call, consult this flowchart.

Depending on the amount and type of blood, a blood trail can indicate a fatal hit or a hit that might cause a deer to bleed out if pushed. Never push a gut- or liver-shot deer.

Heart or Lung Shot

Deer die immediately or within a few minutes of a good shot to the heart, lungs, spine, or brain, or in the event a major artery was severed. If you’re 100 percent confident you made one of these shots, it’s okay to pursue your deer sooner than 30 minutes (particularly if it’s hot out).

Liver Shot

This is a lethal hit, but it typically takes longer (think hours) for a liver-hit deer to expire. Avoid pushing your deer and instead return in at least six hours, potentially longer, to track your deer. 

Gut Shot

This is a fatal shot, but it can take a long time for a deer to die from a wound to the digestive track. Don’t pursue a deer if you only find evidence of a gut shot. Instead, back out, give the deer plenty of space to bed nearby, and return at least 8 to 12 hours later with backup, including (ideally) a tracking dog.

Many hunters who hit deer “just a little back” assume they hit both the lungs and the liver, meaning a quick kill. In reality, these are often the gut/liver shots, and those hunters usually take up the blood trail too soon. They bump the deer out of its first bed, which greatly decreases the chances of recovering the deer.

“A lot of people think that liver hits kill pretty quickly, and it does in some cases,” Simpson says. “But I’ve tracked deer that were alive after 16 hours after they were hit, and it was a liver shot.”

What the Experts Say About How Long to Wait

Hunter-Ed.com: An excerpt from the curriculum approved in 45 states: “You should wait for at least a half hour to an hour before trailing a deer, unless the downed deer is in sight.”

National Bowhunter Education Foundation: The NBEF states that “a wise bowhunter gives the animal time to expire,” and that the normal waiting period after arrowing a big-game animal ranges from 30 to 60 minutes. A caveat to this is quick pursuit in the event of a poor hit outside the chest or body cavity (neck, leg, rump, or back). In such instances, the deer might run away quickly but then calm down, stop bleeding, and possibly survive. “If you can follow the animal rapidly and aggressively, it will continue to bleed, even from a relatively minor wound…It may lose enough blood to get careless and give you another shot. It may even die from a wound that would not normally be considered fatal.” 

John Jeanneney: Tracker, tracking-dog breeder, and author John Jeanneney advocates taking advantage of the onset of shock in an animal immediately following a shot. He recommends carefully approaching wounded game for a finishing shot. Allowing an animal shot in the heart, lungs, shoulder, or leg time to collect its wits could result in a wounding loss.

Bowhunters can read more here about how long to wait to start tracking, and how to blood trail a deer.

Tips for How to Blood Trail a Deer

Everyone tracks a little differently, but these are a few universal guidelines for how to blood trail a deer.

• Turn on the tracking setting in your hunting app or smart watch. When I start on a trail, I turn on the tracking setting in my onX Hunt app. At best, it’ll be interesting to see how many yards a deer went. At worst, it will help you establish what ground you already searched and any patterns that emerge from a birds-eye view on a map. Just remember that GPS isn’t perfect, and your track can be off by a few feet and blood trails can be just as difficult to find a second time as the first. Physically mark your trail, too.
• Leave your own trail. Use flagging tape or tissue paper to mark drops of blood as you find them. This is particularly important if you need to backtrack. Flagging tape is easier to spot at a glance and useful in the event of rain or snow begins to wash away or cover your trail, but will require you to go back and remove each piece later. Tissue paper torn into small pieces and stuck along the trail is relatively easy to find again and biodegradable.
• Don’t move forward until you spot the next drop of blood. It’s easy to get excited and charge ahead when you find blood, but you can accidentally destroy your next clue by stepping on it. Instead, keep your feet firmly planted and use your eyes to search for the next drop before moving forward. Once you find it, advance carefully, and don’t step on blood you’ve already found. 
• Search above ground level. While blood definitely falls on the ground, it doesn’t always make it there or isn’t easily visible (exposed soil is particularly difficult for identifying blood with the naked eye). So pay attention to grass, brush, tree trunks, corn stalks, and other taller vegetation that might have blood on it. This is particularly common with higher exit wounds, which tend to spray blood out instead of drip directly down.

• Pay attention to the shape of blood drops. The pattern of individual drops often, though not always, indicate which way a deer went. The ragged, irregular side of a drop typically points in the direction of travel, while the smoother side points back the way a deer came.
• Remember to look up. It’s easy to become absorbed in the nearsighted work of searching for blood, but don’t forget to regularly scan the woods and brush ahead of you. You might spot a big splash of blood that could save you a few steps, or you might even see your deer lying ahead. Looking ahead is particularly critical if you think your deer might still be alive and you need to make a follow-up shot. In this case, it’s often best to bring a buddy who can help unravel the blood trail while you keep your attention on the horizon.

If your deer crossed a property line, check your state regulations about recovering hit game, and ask for permission from the landowner to keep tracking if necessary. Even if it’s legal to check private property for hit game, it’s usually a good idea to ask for landowner permission to maintain friendly neighbor relations and so they can keep an eye out for your deer if necessary.

How to Track a Deer with No Blood

The hardest blood trails are often those that have little to no blood at the hit site, or that appear to have no blood at the hit site. Every hunt is different and even mortally wounded deer do unpredictable things. Here’s how to pick up the trail when you can’t find any blood, or when the blood trail runs out.

• Relocate to the last place you saw the deer. If you can’t find blood at the hit site, check the last place you saw the deer before it ran out of sight. Often that’s a field edge or along a trail in the timber. Sometimes deer don’t start leaving noticeable blood until they run a ways.
• Return to the last place you found blood. If your blood trail runs out and you’ve lost it, backtrack and begin searching again. The deer may have gone in a different direction than you initially thought.
• Spray hydrogen peroxide on the ground and brush. Hydrogen peroxide is a deer hunter’s best friend. It’s cheap and it foams upon contacting blood. The same chemical reaction that allows hydrogen peroxide to magically lift bloodstains from your camo also reveals hard-to-see blood before your eyes. This trick is most effective when the blood trail is so subtle that you can’t easily see drops before your eyes — think pinpricks on a damp, leafy forest floor after dark, or on dewy vegetation — but one does exist. 
• Use your binoculars to carefully scan the ground well ahead of you. You might spot a big splash of blood, an antler tip, or even your deer piled up.
• Where legal, consider using a thermal to pick up a deer’s heat signature. Thermal devices aren’t authorized in all states for tracking deer, but when used ethically, they can be helpful for identifying dead or wounded deer at a distance and in the dark.

If none of these tricks work, consider backing out now and contacting a tracking dog handler. (Check out United Blood Trackers.)  The more you disturb an area before calling in a blood dog, the harder it will be for the dog to single out the scent of a wounded deer. Remember, blood-tracking dogs don’t actually track the scent of blood — they’re trained to follow the scent left by a wounded deer’s interdigital gland, or the scent gland between its hooves. That’s why they can keep tracking a deer that’s no longer leaving blood.

• Look for other deer sign. Pay attention to other clues in the area. Look for hoof prints, dirt kicked up by a fleeing deer, disturbed leaves, hair on the ground or snagged in barbed wire, deer beds, fresh scat, and more. This can tell you a lot about which direction the deer might have traveled. 
• Look for any big-picture patterns. This is when your onX tracker or the trail of flagging tape through the woods might come in handy. For instance, maybe you’re actually working in a dead-straight line, or maybe you’re making a huge loop toward a known bedding area.
• Pay attention to well-used deer trails. Healthy deer prefer to use the path of least resistance. So do wounded ones. If you’re trying to track a wounded deer, especially in the timber, work your way along surrounding deer trails. Once, after a blood trail petered out on me, I pushed deeper into the thick brush I was searching. I had to duck under branches constantly until I came upon two heavily used deer trails in the woods. There, 50 yards from the last blood, I found more in the middle of the trails.
• Where legal, contact a drone recovery service. Unlike dogs, drones aren’t bothered by contaminated scent or muddied trails. A drone operator uses thermal and/or video imaging to look for the deer itself rather than its trail. You can try to find a drone recovery pilot here.
• Recruit buddies and conduct a line or grid search. As a last resort, organize a thorough search of the area and be sure to have everyone turn on any tracking feature they can on their own hunting apps or GPS watches. This will ensure you cover as much ground as possible, and help identify any areas you may have overlooked. Remember that once you conduct a grid search of an area, it will be extremely difficult for a blood-tracking dog to pick up your deer’s trail.

If you’re still looking for your deer well after the window of safe meat recovery, try these last resorts.

• Contact nearby landowners. Ask if they’ve found a dead deer or noticed any injured deer, and to alert you if they do.
• Keep an eye out for buzzards and other scavengers. Even if you can’t recover the meat, you may be able to salvage a skull (if it was a buck) and learn what went wrong with your shot or your blood trailing work, and how you can do better next time.
• Hang trail cameras in the area. If you exhausted all your options and thoroughly searched a large enough area, it’s possible your deer survived. He could reappear on camera in a few days, recovering from his wound and very much alive.
• Hunt nearby. A wounded deer may revert to its previous patterns, staying in familiar surroundings and feeding heavily as it tries to recover. You may get a second chance.

Blood Trailing Tips  to Consider for Next Time

Select a projectile that produces large entry and exit wounds

If you’re concerned about tracking conditions where you hunt (maybe you hunt in thick timber, wet weather, swamps, etc.) consider choosing an arrow set up or cartridge that you expect to completely pass through your deer and leave a large exit wound.

“If you like two leaky holes, and there’s a lot to be said for that, you’re going to want to shoot something like a Nosler AccuBond, a Barnes Monolithic, or a Hornaday GMX,” shooting editor John B. Snow once advised while explaining why some hunters have reported bad blood trails with the 6.5 Creedmoor. “If you want lots of internal damage but not necessarily a pass-through, look at the Hornaday ELD-X or a Nosler Ballistic Tip — any of those lighter, polymer-tip bullets should fit the bill. Just know that there’s still a chance that it’ll blow through the deer.”

Choose your shot placement for an optimal exit wound

Shot placement is always key, and that remains true for blood trailing. It’s particularly critical for bowhunters. Shooting from an elevated position and aiming for a pass through can produce low exit wounds that bleed heavily and create stronger blood trails.

One of the hardest blood trails I’ve ever had to follow was a doe that I shot with my compound just before last light. I knew I’d hit the deer but I didn’t find my arrow or any blood at the hit site. Eventually, I found a single drop of blood more than 60 yards from the hit site. I painstakingly trailed the scant blood until it ran out and, eventually, spotted the doe lying another 50 yards away. My broadhead had lodged inside the deer’s far shoulder, resulting in a high entry wound and no exit. If I had selected my shot a bit better, I’d have had a good trail to follow and saved myself the stress.

Consider filming your hunts

While it’s gotten trendy to film your own hunts in recent years, it’s actually a smart idea to record your shot when possible. Reviewing the tape can help determine where your bullet or arrow struck, or to identify precisely which way your deer ran. This is particularly true if you’re hunting solo and don’t have the benefit of a spotter, if you’re a new hunter and need advice from buddies, or you tend to experience high adrenaline during your hunts (which can make it difficult to remember exactly what happened in those hectic moments after the shot). Blood-trailing dog handlers also like to have video to review before pursuing a deer.

You can easily record videos with just your cell phone and a simple tripod that wraps around your treestand rail, limb, or blind strut.

FAQs

Where are blood tracking dogs legal?

Blood-tracking dogs are legal to use in almost every state, although each state has typically has regulations about how to proceed (for instance, some dogs must be leashed or you must track in the presence of a game warden). According to Blood Trackers United, blood dogs are illegal statewide only in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona. To review regulations in your state, click here.

Where are drones legal for deer recovery?

At the time of publication, drones are legal for deer recovery in at least 14 states, according to the National Deer Association: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. (Missouri is the most recent state to legalize drone recovery for deer.) It’s also legal in the Canadian province of Manitoba.

Where are thermals legal for deer recovery?

Some states allow drones with thermal imaging for deer recovery (see above). Many states prohibit handheld thermal devices for deer recovery, while others don’t address them at all in your regulations. Your best bet is to check your state’s regulations for mention of thermals.

Additional Resources for Blood Trailing Deer

Final Thoughts on How to Blood Trail a Deer

Sometimes blood trailing a deer can be obvious, with huge splashes of bright red blood leading you directly to your deer. Other times it requires careful, painstaking work to unravel. Do your best to make an honest assessment of the hit and decide how to pursue. When in doubt about your shot, back out and call for reinforcements. And never give up while there’s sign to follow. Sometimes visible blood trails can taper or disappear, but your deer might be lying ahead, just out of sight.

 

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