After the shot?

[Dom]

How long do you wait to search after shooting?So many times people get excited and push the animal/game and loose tract of blood/sign and then cannot find their kill.Hunting is not just a video/game that can be rewound.If you are unsure about your shot placement then wait to search.

[The_Real_TCIII]

One hour unless I see them go down. Obviously longer depending on the hit. Honestly I love the wait, there's no better feeling than sitting up there with the bow on a hanger, no arrow nocked, just chilling like the king of the world!

[Hock3y24]

Lighted knocks solved this problem for me, now I know where my arrow hit!

[The_Real_TCIII]

I kill time looking for my arrow with binos

[grampy]

Sit for an hour or so and replay in my mind how it all went down. Over and over.

[JFB]

Lighted knocks solved this problem for me, now I know where my arrow hit!

 

Which knocks do you use? Seems mine do not show up all that well in full day light. 

 

I agree, WAY too many people push deer too soon and they never find deer they otherwise would have. 

[Doc]

Are we talking gun season or bow? Is the hunting grounds private and tightly controlled, or heavy pressured public land? Are we talking clear sunny days, or a driving rain? Time of day (losing daylight?). All of these things and more can have a bearing on what you have to do after the shot.

[Hock3y24]

Green nocturnals, I was surprised I see the green much better.

[shawnhu]

Green nocturnals, I was surprised I see the green much better.

Out of all the lights, green LED produces the most lumens vs amps used. You'll get a consistently brighter light, longer.

X-Calibur Lighting Systems

http://facebook.com/XCaliburLightingSystems

[G-Man]

If it falls in sight I don't wait of not I don't even look for arrow, go back to house eat and watch a movie, then go look

[Taylormike]

I agree. Wait, wait and wait. No reason to search. Sure about vital shot, 2-3 hours. Unsure or questionable, 5+ hours.

[Buckmaster7600]

Dead deer do not travel unless I see them drop 2 hrs. Unless it's raining!

[Fletch]

All depends on the situation.

Weather, shot placement, deer reaction, location, ground cover(snow).......

The 8 I shot the other day I hit a bit back and up. I saw deer run off arrow in it. Heard a crash. I assessed what I knew and sat down for 45 minutes. Got down dead deer 60 yards.

I saw arrow had half of a 30 inch arrow in him angled into the boiler room. I was pretty certain the crash he was dead before he hit the ground but without a through double lung I could not be sure I got both lungs hence the wait.

[WNYBuckHunter]

If I see them drop, theres obviously no reason to wait. If not, Ill usually still get down and look at the point of impact, and take a peek at my arrow if we are talking bow hunting. Hair, blood, etc at the POI can tell you alot about the situation. If I cant see the animal down, Ill give it 30 to 45 mins before trailing if it looks like a good hit. If it seems to be a gut shot, Ill give it a few hours.

[Jeremy K]

Same as others mention,I'll get down and look for/at the arrow ,maybe look for the first signs of blood to evaluate the hit. I'll go back and get some layers off and grab a roll of toilet paper to put a square on each blood spot as I go.

[Nomad]

I can't remember the last deer I shot in gun that I did not watch go down, oh

Last year one doe,because it was in a corner of a field and I had a small window, but I know my.270 crushed her so I got right down and found it a short distance away.

In bow I'd say close to half my deer I watched go down so no waiting , big fan of 2 blade cut on contacts, looks like they don't even feel the hit two just went back to feeding after snapping their heads up .

If I know a good double lung hit and it runs out of sight, I sit a half hour. Lesser shots longer sits .

Edited November 5, 2015 by Larry302

[LET EM GROW]

My lighted knocks definitely help with knowing where the shot was but, unless i see the deer fall from the stand, ill wait at least an hour or two before i track, if i know it was a good shot. If the deer expired in 5 minutes, it will be there dead when i get to it 2-3 hrs later anyways.. un pushed.. But ill replay the whole scenario over and over again..

 

any shot back from the lungs, ill wait 6-8 hrs or more depending how far back.. I would rather find the deer dead and closer, rather than pushed and stressed even more.. and maybe never found again.. been there few times too many

[Uncle Nicky]

I'm guessing we're talking about bow hunting. I'm kind of impatient this way, about 1/2 an hour is all I can sit, before I walk over to the impact sight & start examining clues, I'll make my decision on whether to start tracking at that point. If I see the deer go down and it's not moving, I'll head over within 10 minutes, bow-in-hand, just in case.

[ATbuckhunter]

Normally id get down after 15 min and take a look at the arrow to try to judge what kind of a shot it was. if i determined its a good shot, ill sneak out and bring some things back to the car and come back to track and drag it away. 

[wolc123]

I wait 1/2 hour on average prior to leaving the stand during morning hunts.  In past years, sometimes less on late afternoon hunts, to take advantage of the daylight (more on this later).   Every shot is different however.   I only ever hit one too far back and a half hour wasn't enough for that one as I never found it.  If that ever happens to me again, I will wait at least 4 hours, even if the shot was taken right at dusk.  Most of my archery kills have fallen close enough for me to hear the crash.   None of those got back up, so the half hour was plenty.  I would not wait at all if one fell in sight, but that has not happened to me yet during archery season.  More than half have dropped in sight for me with a gun.   I still wait 15 minutes or so with those and have been rewarded with a fair number of "multiple-kills" over the years as a result. 

 

For many years, I stopped hunting with a bow about 15 minutes before legal sunset to have a little natural light left for tracking.   Last year I bought some "bloodglow", which makes blood glow in the star and moonlight.  The two bucks I killed since getting that went less than 40 yards, so I have not got to try it yet.   It does give me the "recovery confidence" to hunt until the last legal minute now, well worth the $29 purchase price (enough for 4 deer).  

 

There are some hits where waiting does more harm than good.  I hit my first archery buck outside the vitals, but the broadhead remained inside his front upper leg, on the opposite side.   Keeping him moving kept the broadhead cutting and kept him bleeding.   Ideal tracking conditions made for a long but slow recovery.   Several hours and miles later, I found him too tired to stand and finished him with a center lung shot.  Having two guys to track helped a ton with that one as one of us was always able to find the blood trail after each temporary loss.         

[Core]

Hindsight is 20/20, but when I hit the rear on a deer this week I have to wonder if immediately going after it would have in fact been the proper thing to do (I waited several hours and the deer never laid up anywhere, it kept moving without pressure), thus pushing it (large piece of state land, so had the room to do it) and preventing it from clotting. The trail got lost when the wound sealed over after many hundreds of yards. I read about that approach here, after the fact: http://www.bowhunter.com/feature_articles/feature_articles_a_bowhunters_guide_to_blood-trailing_deer_113010/

 

This actually mirrors what wolc123 just said. But then it all presumes one knows where the arrow hit, and these things are moving quickly and sometimes hard to tell.

 

I will never know, though, and will do my best to not ever have to try it again.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Core

[Dom]

Like many have said I wait about a 1/2hour then check arrow and blood if all looks good Imark the first blood and wait 15 min's longer.Hunting mostly state land so I try not to push to other hunter's I have had Deer that I was tracking being gutted by the time I got to it.

[Doc]

I have heard the theory of pushing deer to prevent them from laying up and licking the wound, etc.  And I do have to admit that whenever tracking a deer and coming to a bed, the next blood was always a problem finding. I have been lucky and have been able to eventually find the next blood after the bed, but was always a tough challenge. That does lend some credibility to that idea of pushing deer, and keeping the wound open and working and denying them a chance to administer their version of emergency first-aid.

 

But I still have not really adopted that procedure. For one thing, I am not really that fast to be very effective at running down a deer, even a badly wounded one.....lol. And that whole idea does run contrary to 99% of everything I have ever heard or read about deer tracking. I guess I will leave that kind of experimentation to other people .... lol. I'll stay with the conventional wisdom on this one.