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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tracking Wounded Deer, May 29, 2001
Tracking wounded deer will put more deer in your freezer. If you hunt hard and put yourself in a positon to make a shot on a deer and loose the animal, nothing is more of a let down. There are so many variables involved in the hunt, the odds of making a marginal shot with a bow or gun is always there. I have been owning this book for so long, I can't remember where I bought it. I read it over every year and have loaned it to and insisted that hunting buddies read it. To me the trailing of a hit animal is only second excitement wise to making the shot. If you hunt long enough, at some point there will be a tough tracking job. When you come across this tough job and have read this book, you will surprise yourself at how much you see besides the obvious. The book starts off with hit or miss determination. Reading of the blood condition and color as well as hair type which is critical when starting the blood trail. This book will show in great detail the blood from different hits and what I have found to be an incredible asset, a color photo with hair from 12 seperate areas on a deer. Plenty trails start without blood and hair is your only clue. Next the author discusses vital or mortal wounds and how to go about approaching the trail based on your determination of the hit. Next Mr. Smith covers nonfatal hits, string trackers and tracking with dogs. Also the last two chapters cover mistaken impressions such as hitting the wrong deer or even two deer and other such instances,and the final chapter deals with stories involving finding deer shot by other hunters. The book closes with a Bibliography and a very helpful index. The Photos in this book are incredible and there is even an actual deer carcas with a cut away view of internal organs. This along with the actual blood trails and recovered deer will amaze you. From a personal stand point, this book has made the difference of a sad story of a lost deer and putting meat in the freezer after a tough tracking job. Not just for me but for many of my friends that I have helped. This book WILL make you better at recovering your deer. It will also get you invited on many tracking jobs because of your skill in tracking. I have pictures of a 10 point that I shot in 1996 and I put the book in the picture because I found this animal because I learned what to look for from TRACKING WOUNDED DEER.It was 8:15 A.M. and I made a broadside shot with my 30-06 at about 100 yards from about 45-50 feet in a tree. At the time I didn't know, but I had just clipped the paunch side of the liver and the exit was through the paunch. There was no blood, but there were loads of hair and it may sound funny, but several stunned ticks on the ground where the hair was. After collecting the hair and sneaking off back to my camp, I was able to determine where the hit was from the photo of the hair in my book. My concern with no blood and tons of hair was that I had made a flesh wound and knocked off some hair. From the photo in the book I realize that hair was from the lower side of the deer. This gave me hope that I had actually hit the deer in body, but was it a gut shot because of no blood. After this determination my friend and I decided to wait a while, have lunch and then sneak back into the trail where I saw the deer run. After about 35 yards into the bottom we found a drop of dark blood. It wasn't much, but it told us that we had a liver hit. The blood sign was very sparse, but reading the blood splash patterns and other little clues lead us through many back tracks and past one of my buddy's lock on stands. After 3 hours and nearly 300 yards though fairly thick brush, my buddy spotted him. He pointed the deer out to me and I could only see the body to the shoulder, the view of the head was obstructed by some trees. The deer was laying upright just as if he were bedding and I though to shoot, but my friend could see the head and it was on the ground and the deer was dead. After the high fives and hugs were over, sure enough I had barely clipped the liver and exited about 2 inches above the white hair belly line on the opposite side. We got the deer out of the woods and my buddy still had time to make a quick evenig hunt and I had to do the cleaning and picture taking by myself. Bottom Line: Tracking deer after the shot is a critical part of the hunting process. In that respect, this is the best, most educational book about deer hunting I have ever read. Sometimes I think I should just buy a case of these books and give them to all my hunting buddies. JUST BUY A NEW COPY OF THIS BOOK, BECAUSE THERE AREN'T GONNA BE ANY USED ONES FOR SALE. Thanks to Mr. Smith for the Education!!!!!
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by John Trout Jr.
by Jerry Allen
by Richard P. Smith
by John Weiss
