Top 5 Blood Tracking MYTHS! Don't MAKE THESE MISTAKE

I'm Chris with Afflicted Broadheads and today we're going to talk about the top five tracking myths. Stay tuned. Okay, so there's a lot of myths when it comes to tracking. So we're going to knock a few of them out here today. And the first one we're going to talk about is that deer always go downhill. Seem to hear this all the time. Every year people talk about this and this is only 100% true, 100% of the time, that deer will go downhill if you're hunting at the top of a hill. That's it. I'm sorry. Deer are going to go wherever they want to go and usually it's going to be towards cover. Now the myth of deer always go downhill kind of developed out of because people are usually hunting the higher elevations of a property. So it just kind of lends itself to making sense. That's where that came from. People are hunting on the knolls, the tops of ridges, hills, mountains, whatever it is. And so naturally the deer were headed downhill towards more cover. And so that's where that myth kind of developed from. But it is not necessarily something that you can take to the bank. Deer are not always going to go downhill. They will definitely go uphill if that's where cover is, if that's where they feel they're going to be safe, they are going that direction. So you can scratch the deer always go downhill myth off of your list of tracking myths. The second thing that we want to talk about is that deer always go to water. Deer always go to water when they're thirsty. But after they are wounded, they do not always go to water. One of the reasons that people feel that deer always go to water is because the areas that they hunt, those lower areas with water, whether it be a river or a stream or a pond, that's where the thickest cover is. And that's where the deer want to go to get away. That's their escape. They're going into that thicker area, wherever they feel comfortable. And oftentimes that's just naturally around a water source. Makes sense, right? You have your lush green thick areas that are growing into your swamps and your stream beds and things like that. So again, that myth was derived around those areas of cover. That's where the deer are going, happens to be water there. And so people feel that deer will always go to water. They won't. Again, they are a cover seeker. They want to go to that cover. Now there is one exception where deer are going to seek out water. And that is if you hit south of the diaphragm, into the stomach, the guts, whatever, that's a long process for them to expire. And what happens is they actually get sick. They get an infection and they get a fever and deer get fevers. I know it sounds crazy, but that will drive them to water that will drive them to be thirsty. So there are inherently some shots on a whitetail that will drive them to water because of thirst or fever in that regards. But it is not a constant guarantee that after their shot, they are going to go to water. Number three, if there isn't a lot of blood, the deer didn't die. This one scares me the most out of all of the myths because every year there are people that give up the tracking job because they're discouraged when they got to where they shot their deer, there was no blood. So they figure nothing happened. And sometimes they're not taking the time to look. Is there hair? Is there blood just a few feet farther? Really kind of have to take the time to investigate the scene, but no blood absolutely can still mean that you had a fatal shot because it is all about shot placement. We've talked in some of our other videos about, you know, blood trails and the amount of blood and what equals a great blood trail and shot placement is your number one key type of broadhead is also another key. If you shoot a white tail high and even when you get a pass through, blood takes time to get to that hole. You may have a long trail where there is no blood at all. And then all of a sudden the blood has been able to reach that hole that the arrow had made and now all of a sudden you have a decent blood trail so you cannot always depend on blood. We tracked a deer a couple weeks ago that was a hard quartering shot away and the arrow went in took out along the top of the heart and stuck in the opposite shoulder and it was a really close seven yard shot from up in a tree steep angle. The arrow stayed in there wasn't a pass through because of the shoulder and there was no blood for 640 yards. There was no blood but there was a dead deer and he died right away. He just left out of there in a big hurry was during the rut. He was already all hyped up took off on a dead run and ran till he just ran himself completely out. 640 yards is a long way with no blood. Now of course when we got to that animal the cavity was full from stem to stern up front of the diaphragm just completely loaded because everything was internal there was nowhere for it to go. So if you feel good about your shot give every effort every amount of time you can even grid searching if that's what it results to to be able to look for that animal and look for new sign hair blood or whatever at longer distances because no blood is definitely not a good reason to not trap or follow up on a deer that you think that you have hit. The fourth myth is just the opposite. Lots of blood means a dead deer don't we wish I would love if that was the case. The fact of the matter is everybody has a different opinion on what is a lot of blood right. So if you hit a deer in something major vascular you get them in the heart the lungs right in that area where there's a lot of vascular association and you have a low shot and there's nice big holes there. You are truly going to have lots of blood. You're going to see a lot. You're going to be super excited and you will know right away. But then there's sometimes where there is a pretty good amount of blood and because we're we're so hopeful that the shot was good and that animal is expired. We're calling a decent amount of blood a lot of blood. We're super excited but it's really not all that much blood. A muscular hit on a whitetail can bleed a lot and is not fatal. In fact you can hit a vein in one of the legs and it will bleed like crazy. You will think you really did a great job but it's not a fatal hit and there's lots of blood for a long ways. These are the tracking jobs that go you know half a mile a mile and you're still trying to be hopeful and it is just not a fatal wound. Think about the times that maybe you have cut yourself and the amount of blood there was just for a superficial wound. Nick myself with a chainsaw a couple weeks ago and it was a wonderful blood trail and it was really just a scratch. So if you think about it that way the amount of blood the type of blood there's a lot that goes into deciding you know what truly is a lot of blood and what kind of blood it is what color is it you know do you have spray holes is it coming from the nose and mouth is it just dripping off the side of the deer there's a lot of factors there. So not always does a ton of blood equal a dead deer. Number five a tracking dog will find my deer. Well it's every tracking dog's dream to find your deer. The problem is if your deer is not dead the dog can't find it. So we go back to shot placement is again critical here. The dog can only do so much and there are some wonderful dogs out there and it is so fun to watch them work and be successful. But we often are the ones that impede dogs from even being successful. What I mean by that is we get too many people involved in the tracking job. We walk all through everything. We destroy the scent trail. We interrupt what a good dog could get on and help find a deer if it is dead. The problem again is we kind of impede that. And the other thing is we're always hopeful about our shots right. I mean if you ask any hunter almost any hunter about their shot it's always perfect. Look if the shot was perfect the deer would be dead. So something is not right in that equation. So you can't always depend on a dog to help you find your deer. They are a huge help. They're a big asset when your deer is dead. When you just have a wounded deer where your shot placement was not where you thought it was a dog will not be an asset to you at all.