| The hunters need to know how the bleedings | | | | angled off in the direction of their flight with the |
| takes place after the deer is shot and how to find | | | | intention of picking up a blood trail and following it |
| those bloods stains etc. if not then he might lose | | | | for perhaps fifty yards to my dead deer. I found |
| his hunt for his lack of the hunting knowledge. This | | | | no trail, with or without blood. The ground was |
| blood searching is much easier when it is in the | | | | very dry, covered with dry leaves. The squirrels |
| snow. But on bare ground it is difficult to trace | | | | had been burrowing in these leaves so that it was |
| them. Unless there is profuse bleeding, it is very | | | | virtually impossible to follow any kind of a track, |
| easy to overlook small amounts of blood and thus | | | | let alone find one. Not understanding the lack of a |
| lose the trail. | | | | blood trail, I returned to the spot where I had |
| During the season I had shot a deer that ran | | | | been standing and from there to the first location |
| away. They were two standing together and I | | | | of the deer. |
| straightly follow them up but did not found any | | | | At this spot, I found a tuft of hair which proved |
| blood. The dry leaves where the squirrels were | | | | that I had hit the deer. Beyond the hair, I found |
| burrowing in these leaves make it more difficult | | | | two slivers of bone and a small piece of lung |
| for me to find the bloods. | | | | tissue. I identified one of these bone slivers as a |
| The distribution of blood along a trail will give the | | | | piece of rib. The other I thought was a piece of a |
| hunter some idea of the location of the wound. | | | | shoulder blade. This tentative identification of bone |
| Superficial and abdominal wounds will sometimes | | | | fragments was prompted by an effort to explain |
| bleed so little that the only place that blood will | | | | the lack of a discernible blood trail. (I was using a |
| show on the ground is where it is dislodged from | | | | .38/55 rifle and the bullet from one of these guns |
| the deer's body at the end of each jump. If a | | | | usually leaves an exit wound which permits free |
| body cavity is punctured so that blood can be | | | | bleeding.) About the only possible deductions I |
| collected there, this blood will often be forced out | | | | could make from the evidence at hand were that |
| as the animal's body contracts at the end of each | | | | I had hit the deer high in the lung cavity that |
| jump. This blood will be found at varying distances | | | | bleeding would be internal until that cavity filled |
| from the track with the distance being regulated | | | | and, since the lung had been pierced, the deer |
| by the force of the contractions and the size of | | | | would die. |
| the wound. Sometimes the only blood that can be | | | | I followed that deer from track to track, never |
| found will be on trees and bushes which the deer | | | | leaving a known track until I had found the next |
| has brushed against in passing. This seldom occurs | | | | one, with only an occasional drop of blood to |
| until the deer has stopped running and clotting has | | | | assure me that I was on the right trail. After a |
| slowed the flow to a trickle. Very few hunters will | | | | two-hundred-yard trail I found blood enough to be |
| follow a wounded deer long enough for it to reach | | | | seen from a standing position. When I reached |
| this stage of bleeding. | | | | that point, the deer lay dead about twenty feet |
| One of the more difficult tasks of trailing a | | | | farther on. After founding the tuft of hair, two |
| wounded deer which I have attempted occurred | | | | slivers of bone and a small piece of lung tissue, I |
| early in the season. Two deer were standing in a | | | | was convinced that I had hit the deer. This makes |
| hardwood growth about seventy-five yards from | | | | me think that I have hit the deer high in the lung |
| my position. I shot at one of them and they both | | | | cavity and the bleeding takes a little longer. After |
| ran. I could follow their course with my eyes, but | | | | following the blood for about two hundred yard I |
| could not observe their actions and the trees and | | | | found the deer lying dead. |
| underbrush prevented me from obtaining a | | | | How the blood is distributed along the tail can help |
| second shot. I was as sure as a hunter can be | | | | the hunter some idea to locate the wound. |
| that I had made a solid hit in or near the shoulder | | | | Sometimes less bleedings may create problems |
| or lung area. | | | | for the hunter to locate the deer. But very few |
| I was so sure of my shot that I did not go to | | | | hunters only follow the deer to the extend it |
| the spot where the deer had been standing, but | | | | stopped to bleed. |