Wayne, congratulations on getting the job done. And, you mentioning the white smoke from black powder made me think that the wounded animals left because they weren't found before they died or escaped continued on long after muzzle loaders were gone from the scene. The lead slugs from early BP cartridge guns were little better in that regard. But, again, congrats, and here's the well-earned attaboy.

And I forgot to include a link to the official deer hunging song for your listening enjoyment. 

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Wayne

I think I may have seen some of the guys in that video around here. Of course, out here that 'thirty-point buck', reduced to Western count would only be a fifteen pointer. Common enough for us to see in the hills of Nevada.

texasmac wrote on Nov 6^th, 2019 at 12:47pm:


Yes, I'm sure there was some of that, but most were hunting for sustenance rather than sport, so they learned from an early age how to track and trail. 

My last deer was hit right where it should have been with a .30-30 (it was a Winchester sponsored hunt), and it left no blood trail to speak of. When the guide came back to pick me up, he was certain that this little dude from CA had botched the shot. 

It was dark, and my flashlight was pooping out, so he left me his and walked off muttering as he left to pick up another hunter. By the time he came back, I had found the buck. He looked at the impact on the deer, then asked me to show him how I trailed it. 

I pointed out how there was a TINY drop of blood here and there, how I marked those with trail tape and used that to establish a line of flight. When the sign died, I was forced to walk in ever increasing circles until I found sign again. 

Now I'm no Nessmuk, but after we looked at the trail, I got a slap on the back from the guide, and he treated me "right friendly" for the balance of that Texas trip. 

Good on 'ya for expending the effort to find your deer!

Here's a very good youtube video.  See how the whitetails form a scrape and urinate in the scrape, which is especially clear with the last deer.  You can see the urine pooling under the deer. And around 6:20 into the video a very old deer shows up.

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Wayne

No forensic expert and I don’t write for the rags but I’ve shot a few ungulates with soft lead and  black powder. So my freezer and my opinion says soft lead 30-40:1 at decent muzzle or black powder velocity will penetrate through most elk and deer unless it hits big bone. Hit a shoulder with a .610 soft lead ball on a cow elk and you’ll find moderately broken and fragmented bone near side and if it stays on course and hits the far side it can either exit or mushroom to like .875” on the broad bone. Otherwise the ball or bullet will almost always fully penetrate and exit  leaving more than a good blood trail. The best part of this type of hunting is no bullet fragmentation or blood-shot meat destruction. From what I’ve read buffalo hunters routinely had full penetration hits.  A bled out animal is a better tasting animal. 

Hard to say how or why animals that are presumably hit get away but I’d say it’s a couple chapters in the book of hunting. Bad hits, hits at the end of the daylight, tough country to track or traverse, taking shot at extreme range or just don’t like the meat only want the rack. My biggest beef are the high tech long range shooters who station and scout on four wheelers. Locate and set up long range optics similar to military sniper ops. Little concern for the animal as shots are evaluated on distance alone. Taking shots across canyons at low light late day with range finding calculating scopes is not hunting , it’s sniping. These shooters no nothing about tracks, animal behaviors or traversing hunting ground. That elk in the cross hairs was only a target and at these ranges there are lots of wounding shots.

Rick

I want to announce publicly that I am an ignorant fool. 

I have lived most of my adult life in the West, and I never had much difficulty tracking or trailing in any terrain I encountered. But this year, my wife and I moved to northern Georgia. We have 25 nice acres in the mountains, and while it is not as game rich as the seller stated, we do have turkey, lots of bear and a few deer. 

But what I have learned is that the leaf litter of the mixed Hemlock and deciduous forest is near impossible to see tracks in. I have been having fun with trail cameras, but even when I know for a certainty that game has been on a section of trail in the past 24 hours, I can find no sign of their passage. 

It's worrying me sufficiently that I'm considering using a modern rifle this year to improve odds of dropping an animal where I can find him. 

So, I appologize for presuming that I knew something about tracking animals. I confess to being fearfully ignorant!