I recently ended my article on satellite bucks describing last year’s satellite buck kill. What I left off in that article was the shot and subsequent track job that ensued. As much as I’d like to say that the buck ran 50 yards and died, that is not how the hunt went down. The roller coaster experience of the uncertain track job is a microcosm of hunting in general – namely, talking yourself into continuing on to your goal, no matter what circumstances you face.
The Shot
The track job begins with (and is largely dictated by) the shot on the animal. First, you want to have the intent to take an ethical shot. That starts with knowing the capabilities and limitations of your weapon. Should you take that quartering to shot with your archery tackle? A lot of that depends on the physics generated by your arrow, and there is plenty to be found on the internet that can dive into further and more accurate detail than I can. Really, at the end of the day, do you feel confident that the shot with which you are presented can kill the animal quickly?
The second part of the shot is your ability to actually make the shot. You may have all of the intention in the world to take a clean, 20 yard broadside shot at a calm and motionless deer. Your ability to make the shot depends on more than how many projectiles you’ve sent down range during practice. It also includes your ability to execute that shot while your adrenaline is jacked and your mind can’t focus on anything and yet is hyper-focused at the same time. Can you actually put your arrow or bullet where you intend for it to go?
Then there is the third part of the equitation – luck. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you don’t. Maybe you’ve done everything right, have the best shot possible, practiced all year, hunted hard all fall and into the winter, and at last light on a cold night in January you finally draw back on a target buck and your arrow falls out of your whisker biscuit on your 20 year old bow. Maybe you’re unlucky enough to listen to that arrow play a game of Plinko down the tree while I stood…I mean you stand there at full draw with no arrow and a buck broadside fifteen yards away staring at you. Just all hypothetical of course.
Enough lamenting about what might have been. On this hunt in early November, I had a target buck at 25 yards broadside. I had my crossbow sight right where I wanted it. I stopped the buck with a quick doe bleat and let ‘er fly. The satisfying thwack of the arrow colliding with the buck was cause for a rush of satisfaction…followed by hours of struggle.
The First Track
I watched the deer sprint into the brush and heard him crash about 75 yards into the thicket. I was certainly excited by the sound of the crash, but history and stories from more experienced hunters told me to give him at least thirty minutes before I even considered getting down. I sent out a few texts about the morning’s turn of events and packed up my gear. After 30 (ok, probably closer to 25) minutes I climbed down to search for the arrow and inspect the impact site.
One thing that had bothered me in the tree was that I could not see the lighted nock of my arrow. That meant one of a few different possibilities. It could mean that the arrow passed through the deer and disappeared into the tall grass along the trail. It could also mean that I didn’t get a clean pass through like I wanted. Either way, the arrow tells a story, and I wanted to read what it had to say.
I found good blood and hair at the impact site and a good spray of blood leading off in the direction I saw him go into the brush. I was unsuccessful in finding the arrow after searching in the grass and looking in the direction he ran. Because I did not have an arrow and did not see a deer laying dead, I decided to back out. I called a friend to come help track (and ideally celebrate) the buck. Two hours later, we picked up the trail.
Tracking in thick, nasty brush is a bittersweet affair. It has tons of positives because the deer can’t go more than a few feet without brushing up against something that will have blood tagged on it. The trouble is you can get disoriented quickly and it’s hard to follow a logical trail with a destination in mind, because you are in thick bedding and everywhere you look could be a bedding destination. It’s like following a toddler through a toy store.
We found the arrow about twenty yards from where I initially shot the deer. Since I did not think we had a clean pass through shot, I expected to see blood on the front half of the shaft near the broad head with the other half near the fletching to be clean. This would indicate that the arrow had partially penetrated the deer and then fell out as it ran. What we found, however, was the complete opposite. There was darker blood with some bubbles covering the fletching, while the broad head and first few inches were completely clean of blood. How was that possible?
In addition to the numerous decisions made up until this point, we had hit our first real fork in the road. Experience and study of other hunters had gotten me up to this juncture, but this was a really stumper. Here’s where the perseverance of a basic hunter (really any hunter) plays a key role. No one had a script or an article to read for this situation. So, along with my buddy, we hypothesized as best we could and made a decision.
We theorized that the front of the arrow did in fact pass through to the other side but did not completely come through and fall out. The deer then carried it through the grass and brush and fell the rest of the way out a few yards later. Hindsight being 20/20, it looks like our hypothesis was correct. What makes this sport exhilarating and frustrating all at the same time is we had no way to know for sure when we were in the middle of the track job.
The Jump
We believed we had a pass through arrow with dark blood (maybe a heart shot or liver shot) and some bubbles (maybe a lung shot). If I had to rank these situations in order of time for a deer to die, I’d want a heart shot first, then a lung, and finally a liver. There are many articles to be found about the various times it takes for a deer to die based on these shots, but the reality is every shot is different. I’ve had heart shots where a deer mule kicked and died before his back feet returned to the ground. I’ve also had combination heart and lung shot where the deer took hours to die. Every situation is different.
With all of that said, a good heart shot means the deer could be laying dead just yards away. A good double lung shot implies the roughly the same time to die, maybe a little longer. Single lung could mean many different things, but suffice it to say it’s not a short track job. Finally, least desirable in this situation is a liver shot. You’re looking at approximately 6+ hours to die, but the deer will most likely not survive. I could safely rule out a gut shot as the arrow did not have any gut smell or brown on it. Essentially, we’d have a dead deer within 75 yards, or we’d have a much longer day ahead of us.
We decided to see what the next 50 yards told us and tracked the deer through the brush for another 25 yards or so, winding this way and that. He broke through the other side of the brush out into a grassy clearing. It looked like he took off at a sprint from there because the consistent drops of blood dried up. This was discouraging because it seems like he may have clotted, but it can also mean that he was traveling a further distance between each drop. It also told me why I heard crashing and then nothing – he hadn’t crashed down, he got through the noisy part into the quiet grass. I did not have view of this opening from my stand and could not see which direction he went.
With a dried up blood trail comes another mentally discouraging roadblock. You want to follow the blood right up to the dead deer almost immediately, but such was not the case this time. You have to mentally move past the discouragement and focus on what you can control. In this case, we started following the many deer trails that exited this bedding area. We’d follow each one extremely slowly, getting close to the ground and picking up pieces of grass and leaves as we went.
God has an interesting sense of humor in that the leaves of fall may contain red splotches on them from turning colors. These splotches induce a quick shot of adrenaline like you found your lost blood trail, only to rub it with your fingers and see the color remain on the leaf instead of blood show up on your finger. Roller coaster.
Luckily, my buddy was able to pick up the blood trail another 25 yards away. While 25 yards does not sound very far, it’s a country mile when you are following multiple trails inches at a time looking for specks of blood. We were able to follow that blood, which was consistent but not voluminous, for another 40 yards to another thick brushy area.
If you’re doing the math in your head, you’ll notice we’re right at the realistic edge of a heart or lung shot range. As we approached the brushy bedding area, we stopped and quickly debated whether we should back out again (i.e. liver shot) or see what we could find in the brush (i.e. heart or lung shot). In our fervor and excitement of a consistent blood trail, we charged ahead. This brush was the thickest and nastiest yet, and every step took more than a few seconds to untangle ourselves from the thorns and scrub trees. We crashed our way through the brush, following good blood as we went.
I then about had a small heart attack as we heard an explosion of brush no more than three yards away from us. It was so thick that we could not see the deer at all, but we heard him steamroll through the gnarly understory toward the property line. Our hearts and our heads sank. It was most likely a liver shot. He probably would have died in that bed had we backed out and let him go another few hours, but instead we went barreling in. We had jumped the deer.
Stockdale’s Paradox
We backed out and knew we had to give it a much longer time. I was a little after noon, and my buddy left to get set up for his evening rut hunt. I appreciated the fact that he gave up his morning to come help me. There wasn’t much to do after that point but wait. This is yet another mental hurdle to overcome. My mind went into armchair quarterback mode as I second guessed every decision I had made.
Did I take the right shot? Yes, 25 yards broadside and stopped. Was he actually stopped? I think so. Could I have steadied myself better? Probably, but it happened fast. Did I rise up to watch the hit, or watch the hit through my scope? I think I stayed down, but now I don’t remember. Why wasn’t I patient? I don’t know, I wanted the deer! Are you going to lose a buck that will almost certainly die? No, shut up!
If you’re not careful, your mind can go circle in the drain pretty fast. There will be time to evaluate your decisions later (which is an incredibly useful practice), but for now, focus on the plan for the next phase of the track. Which way did he go? Looking at maps, where is he likely heading for safety? I like to think of Stockdale’s Paradox in these situations.
Admiral Stockdale was a POW in Vietnam for eight brutal and torturous years. When asked about the types of people who made it through the POW camps, he said that those who only had high hopes of rescue or escape would eventually die of a broken heart and disappointment of their unrealistic expectations not being met. On the flip side, you can’t just be a Debbie Downer and think negative thoughts all the time; those become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You need to confront the brutal facts of your reality while maintaining faith you will prevail in the end.
As it translates to my situation, I knew the brutal facts all too well. I had wounded a deer, most likely in the liver, and had jumped him once. I had to operate in that reality. I also had to hope that I would actually find him. That’s how you persevere – no expectations, just hope. Tell yourself that you will either find the deer or you will be able to say you did everything possible. You owe the deer and yourself at least that much.
The Last Loop
I went back out by myself five marathon hours later. This gave me approximately an hour of daylight left to pick up the blood trail. Armed with multiple bright flashlights and brush pants, I was ready for a grind. I found the last spot I bumped him and headed off in the last direction he had gone. There was an overgrown horse pasture that he had headed toward. This horse pasture was where I believed he would go bed as it was a thick mess in which many deer bed.
As I followed blood another 30 yards parallel to the old horse pasture, I came to a junction in the path. There was a heavy deer trail that went over an old barbed wire fence at the corner of the old pasture. There was also a heavy trail leading into thicket of the old pasture. I did not have blood in either direction. I walked over to the barbed wire fence, which was three wires strung along a post and stood about four feet tall. I did not see any blood or hair anywhere on or near the fence. I figured if he had jumped the fence, he would have left some sign behind, so I went back to the trail into the pasture.
It was now twilight, when flashlights don’t do a whole lot but the light of the day isn’t much help either. I went down the pasture trail expecting to see blood among the tall grass and crab apple trees that littered the pasture. I went 20 yards without seeing so much as a fresh track. I walked back and forth so many times, including on my hands and knees, half wondering if I had accidentally stepped on blood that I missed. Nothing.
There was a pit in my stomach, a feeling of hopelessness that I could not shake. I stood back at glove which marked my last spot of blood. I knew a rain storm was due to come in overnight – a tolling of the bell for my blood trail. If I didn’t find any more blood that night, I knew I would probably never find that buck. I walked back to the fence multiple times and looked on hands and knees for blood or hair or maybe a nice neon sign that pointed ‘This Way To Buck’. Nothing.
It was at this juncture that I had to make a decision. I had tracked this deer all day, jumped him once, and had no clear direction to go. I could have called it quits, but I knew in my gut that I had not done everything I could to find this buck. I would take one more look around before packing it in for the night.
I decided to work off of the assumption that this buck somehow magically jumped a four foot high fence without leaving blood or hair. I know deer can easily jump that fence; I’ve seen them do it all the time. But to not leave any sign? It seemed far-fetched to me, but since I had run out of reasonable options, hope dictated that far-fetched was all I had left to go on.
Since the trail leading from the fence broke off into a bunch of different directions, I decided to start making circles to cover all of the trails. Basically, you start five or so yards in the general direction you think the deer went, and walk a circle around your spot of last blood. Think of a game of tetherball- your last blood spot is the post, and you are the ball going around in concentric circles that slowly get bigger. I completed a circle at 5, 7, 10, 15, and 20 yards, with no sign. My hope was giving way to frustration and anger and disappointment.
I remember telling myself, ‘ok, one more circle. If you don’t find anything, come back in daylight and grid search the property (this is basically a Hail Mary). One more circle.’ Just like an angler asking for one more drift, a gambler asking for one more hand, or a child asking for one more cookie, one begins to wonder where the line of dedication ends and addiction begins. One more circle, and we’ll find out.
There, on that leaf, that looks like blood. Am I sure it’s blood? Do I dare pick up the leaf and rub it between my fingers? Can I take another disappointment? Only one way to find out – pick it up. You owe yourself and the deer that much. Can’t walk away now.
It’s blood. The tiniest drop, but it’s definitely blood. Drop another glove so you don’t lose that spot! Look, more blood! And more on that tree! And more on that log! He opened back up now…he’s circling back to where he came from. More blood. Ok, now we’ve gone a few yards, but no matter, there will be more…right there! He went through these young Aspens, blood everywhere. Man, it’s thick in here, it had to be tough for him to muscle through this stuff. Fresh tracks, blood and hair, I wonder how much furth…dead deer!
A wave of relief and joy crash together into a laughing, exasperated sigh. Dead deer, and this stiffness indicated he’s been dead for a while. There’s work to be done, people to call, pictures to be taken, tags to be filled, and a deer to hang (more on that process in another article). Before all of that, though, I take a minute to enjoy the moment and thank both God and the deer for this blessing. Meat for my family, bone on the wall, a story to remember, and a lesson learned: one more circle.