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Another all day search

Jmp209

By Jmp209,
in Bow Hunting

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Jmp209 Newbie

Jmp209

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Bit of a long story. So yesterday I was sneaking through some beech brush while still hunting just over the edge of a ridge. I was about to come to a new lease road when I hear a side by side coming along the trail and can see the road is only about 30 yards away from me now. The road is perpendicular to me and he rides from my left to right and I hear him turn around about 75 yards away and start to come back then stop and shut the machine down. So I kneel down and think about what to do when I hear a deer coming through the brush towards me coming from the way of the side by side. At 30 yards I can finally see him and then see he's buck. I draw right before he hits a small alley in the brush at an estimated 25 yards from me and he stops perfectly in the opening. I honestly got a case of buck fever and saw that all my pins were on his chest cavity and released without ever picking an exact spot. He tore off in what I thought was a parallel line to the lease road and was quickly out of hearing range. A minute later the side by side fired up and I saw him ride by back down to my left, the way the deer ran. It was now 9:20 A.M. I backed out and returned with a friend a short while later and we were able to find the back half of my arrow snapped off almost next to the lease road and covered with hair and a little blood. We were able to track him onto the road where he ran down the road about 20 yards and cut down the hill on the other side. Right next to the road we found my broadheads and front half of arrow covered in great blood and the blood trail started picking up. Now we hit a posted sign and don't know what to do. We come at the property from a different direction and actually run into the well tender who is just about to leave for the day and says he can't really give us permission but wants us to find the deer so says he will go along with us. We tell him the scenario and he says "I think I saw where you're buck ran into the brush." Turns out he was the guy on the side by side and saw the buck along the lease road and turned around to watch it when it went into the brush towards me and he just sat and waited to see if it would come back out. He said it came back out alright but was running flat out down towards the bottom of the hill. He helped us search and we were able to track for about 50 yards before losing blood. Then another 40 yards and 2 more drops. Then nothing. We ended up having 4 guys do arcs and grid searches in the area an found no more blood or the deer. The area is thick with tree tops from road construction and and oil wells that were started about 3 years ago. The well tender says he's got to go and we will need to get the landowners permission to keep searching without him. We track down a number and make a few phone calls and finally get the go ahead to continue and also put a call into deer search just in case. While sitting around thinking about what to do I all of a sudden remembered we have a thermal imager at work. We make the half hour drive each way to grab it and make it back out to scan the tree tops and brush for any warm spots. We start looking in the general direction of the last blood we were able to find and follow the terrain through a thick brushy gully with tree tops and downs logs all over. Within about 10 minutes we see a hot spot come up on the screen and we get excited. Just a large rock warmer than the surrounding ground though. We walk a little further and find another hot spot. My buddy says "wouldn't it be awesome if this thing takes us right to your deer?" I'm fairly skeptical and as we're getting closer to this spot we still can't see anything that looks like a deer. We get to within 5 yards of it and he's like "there's a deer right there, it's a buck" he actually didn't even see the deer at this close, he saw the antlers sticking up a little. It had bedded down in between 2 logs right tight up to a tree, looked just like a log. We had walked right by him earlier while searching and never would have seen him with the naked eye. We finally found him at 8:30 P.M. Took an hour to drag him 50 yards out of the brushy ravine with one of those little clip on hat lights because our other flashlights all died while searching. Then another hour and a half to get it to the top of the hill where I could finally get my side by side in to load it up and drive it the last half mile home. Finally got it to my house just after 11. He's not the biggest but he is definitely one buck I will never forget. IMG_20161106_231332982.thumb.jpg.dc23f17

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Jmp209 Newbie

Jmp209

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Using technology to recover a deer, awesome!

Sucks that your flashlights failed you when you needed them most. I carry lights that can easily last over 24hrs. Technology of flashlights have come a long way.


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Yea we weren't nearly as prepared for a night search and recovery as we should have been but this will probably always be one of my favorite hunting stories and memories. The difficult parts make the success that much better. Haha but I think in the future we will try to eliminate the difficulty caused by lack of good lights.

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chas0218 Newbie

chas0218

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One of the main reasons I plan on buying the CAT S60 cell phone. It has a built in FLIR imagining camera. Will work awesome for insulation jobs too. Do you think any of the blood would show up on the camera if looked for shortly after the shot? It would be nice to find those pin head drops of blood.

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Jmp209 Newbie

Jmp209

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One of the main reasons I plan on buying the CAT S60 cell phone. It has a built in FLIR imagining camera. Will work awesome for insulation jobs too. Do you think any of the blood would show up on the camera if looked for shortly after the shot? It would be nice to find those pin head drops of blood.


I wondered the same thing about wether it would work on blood or not. I think the real small drops would lose heat too fast and end up the same temp as the leaves pretty quick.

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Jmp209 Newbie

Jmp209

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I was thinking on my own tracking job last week, how a thermal camera might have been a big help. 


I don't know if we ever would have found this deer without it. We had given it our all with our tracking skills and came up short. We may have eventually found him by grid searching but probably would not have been able to salvage any meat. I remember reading your post and I think you were in the same boat as us with no blood trail and pretty certain you're deer was nearby and already dead. I think this could have definitely helped you pinpoint him sooner.


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E J Rising Star

E J

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Sweet recovery! I used a thermal imaging cam many years ago to help a sweet corn farmer deal with a raccoon problem. It was the coolest thing watching the coon army heading our way. This was probably 12-15 years ago and I think the camera was a 40,000 dollar camera that a friend borrowed from work.

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chas0218 Newbie

chas0218

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Just a thought, not sure if they would work or not. Neat concept and for the price if they work I think they would be worth it.

 http://www.redsgear.com/aimshot-heatseeker-black-hs3510b.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&scid=scplp14061702&sc_intid=108991&gclid=CjwKEAiA6YDBBRDwtpTQnYzx5lASJAC57ObM8TcSZeVQ9ZO8woe94Bkh_3T8lds-oDCIit08WQgjNBoCHYnw_wcB

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Jmp209 Newbie

Jmp209

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Jmp,

How far were you from the deer when the unit started picket up the different heat signature? And how long do you think the deer was dead?


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We were in tree tops and saplings when we picked it up at about 30 yards on the screen. I'm sure it would have picked him up sooner if he wouldn't have been tucked back into some logs. Even after being gutted, dragged out and laid in the yard for a short while last night it still showed a good heat signature

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