http://www.MS-Sportsman.com April 2015 | Mississippi Sportsman 81
three hours since the deer was hit, so we were confident that
if we were patient and used the proper techniques, the buck
would be recovered.
A good rule-of-thumb when trailing a liver-shot whitetail is
to wait at least two hours, which would usually allow plenty of
time for a deer to bed down.
The blood trail from a liver-shot deer is usually fair, but it can
become difficult to follow. As was the case here, the trail starts
with periodic drops of blood and increases with time and travel
distance.
A solid liver hit produces much more internal blood loss than
that seen externally. Quite often, before the deer beds down or
expires, external blood loss will subside and become very hard
to follow.
At this point a liver-shot deer will have almost bled out inter-
nally, and death will be imminent.
This is almost exactly how our blood trail was playing out.
The blood sign became more profuse as we entered the
before-mentioned thicket; the line of travel became more sinu-
ous and meandering, with occasional small pools of dark blood
where the deer had most likely stood for a few moments.
The trail then culminated in a large, wallowed-out bed in a
thick clump of brush that was covered with blood sign,
We slowly and quietly circled out from the bed, but could not
find so much as another drop of blood. Our deduction was that
the buck was near death in the bed and, upon seeing us in the
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