Please help bull lost!!

[huntingnut]

The morning started out awesome. Getting out of the car at our destination and getting ready to hike to our hunting spot we hear a few grunts. Game on the first sound we have heard all week. We work our way over to the bull with him bugling and screaming and me back. We make it to about 80 yards and there is another bull screaming at the top of the opposite drawn we started on. The bull we where on screams at us and I scream back. I then notice him moving his cows out of the draw above us. I get him to stop and connect at 50 yards. We give him sbout 40 mins but the other bull is still screaming and my brother is cow calling. We start to track it and go about 200 yards and he crosses a road. We wait about another 20mins and go up a hill to find a 3" blood pool with small bubbles. My brother goes after the car with all of our gear in it and my dad and I wait another 15mins. We go a little farther and start to see about 2" puddles that are starting to get really thick. We go a little farther and give him another 45mins. We folow it out of that finger and across a knoll but now the blood has gone to small drops. We find a little more but then its just tracks and he goes throught a tall grass field and we lose him it's now 12:00 and I hit at about 8:00. We looked all over for 6-1/2 more hours. He had been working his way up hill the whole time going in to the tops of draws and out higher and across the knoll into the top of another draw the do the same thing. This is the farthest I have ever had to track a animal as it is my first archery kill, either a 4 or 5 point to make it worse. Does any have any ideas or info that might be usefull. My dad and I are going back up in the morning to start where the last major blood was. Please help!!! This makes me feel like crap, I want to find this animal so I don't waste this kill.

[elkaholic]

Justr give it ypur all, start makinmg circles outbounbound from the last blood.  I helped track 1 years back where in the a.m. we found where he bed and it appeared that he clotted up?
Good luck, I know that feeling. Ill be praying you find him!

[wrangler]

sigh.... it must be archery season? i know im askin for it here, and it's nothing personal but it seems to be a fairly common occurrence around here. hate to see all the story's of all the lost, wounded animals lately. good luck, hope you find him.    

[huntnphool]

where are you hunting?

[bankwalker]

where are you hunting?

i would also like to know. im headed over the mountains in the morning and am more then willing to help look.

[Jason]

small bubbles in the blood sounds like a lung shot, the only thing I can tell you,and I know from experience is the more people you have the better chance you have of finding him, If you dont find him in the morning the meat will surely be spoiled.

[bow4elk]

describe the shot angle, placement, and if you found the arrow - pass through, smell?, covered in:

a) blood?  what color, bubbles?
b) blood and green fiber matter?  smell?
c) clear mucus like coating with pink blood?

Also, reaction of the bull?  and did you get a compass bearing of his general direction of travel based on the blood trail?

you don't want to bump a wounded elk in a bed!!!!  Your odds will drop dramatically if he knows he's being followed.  Get after it hard right at daylight and don't stop looking....

Good luck!

[DOUBLELUNG]

Go to your last blood with at least one other person.  Mark it as a GPS waypoint.  Take the scale down as low as it can go, probably 200' or so on the map scale at the bottom of the display.  Turn your track feature "on".  The guy with the GPS slowly circles outward, making a tight expanding spiral.  The others stay by him and search for blood - they can meander around the guy with the GPS a few yards, the guy with the GPS does nothing but keep you tight and parallel to the track line.  When you find new blood, mark it as a new waypoint.  Track from that blood.  Get your face all the way down to the ground, look parallel to the ground - it's amazing how well you can see an animal's track looking along it, that looks like nothing from above - even when there are tracks all over.  Keep marking new blood as a waypoint.  When you lose the blood, repeat spiraling out from that point.  

This can be really brutal, especially with heavy brush, blowdown etc., but is necessary - otherwise chances are good you will miss the animal.  It is amazing what they can auger into.  

Good luck - hope you find him.    

[huntnphool]

I know from experience is the more people you have the better chance you have of finding him,

Thats why I was asking. If he was local I could go help tomorrow.

[huntingnut]

Thanks for all of the tips guys. I am on Clemens Mountain off of Chinook Pass, south east of Bald Mountain the Umpatnum unit. It was an up hill shotentry looked to be just below mid line and just behind the shoulder at about 30 deg. The arrow has yet to be found, so we don't believe it was a pass through. The bubbles where just in the blood not much of a color. Just after we found that puddle we found one about 5 yards that was deep red, not purple, and pretty thick. My dad and I will be heading up in the morning and hopefully back with the animal, other wise we will be back on Sunday. Thanks again for the tips, any more would be appreciated.

[robodad]

I have seen whitetails back track on themselves so after you lose blood you might try to follow the trail backward for a while and see if the blood branches off indicating he back tracked then split off in another direction  I have had other animals do it so elk might as well !!

I really really hope you find him, I know the feeling you have in your stomach right now and it sucks, don't worry though we will all be tracking right along with you in our thoughts hoping you find him in a pile at the end !!!

Good Luck and stick with it !!

[bankwalker]

i lost a cow 2 years ago that back tracked and ended up only being a few hundred yards from where i shot it. but i had tracked the blood trail for about 700yds in one direction and in a couple circles throughout the process.

tracking an animal after the shot is always the hard part if they get more then 100yds between them and the location of the shot.

i may or may not make it in that direction. idk if my car will make it back that far. ill have my two-way with me and will try and get in touch with you guys if im in the area.

good luck finding the animal

[luvtohnt]

Let me know if you still need help. I will be free this weekend if you have not found him by then. I am always willing to go help people find animals they have shot. Just send me a pm and we can meet up somewhere in the general area.

Brandon

[saudog]

sigh.... it must be archery season? i know im askin for it here, and it's nothing personal but it seems to be a fairly common occurrence around here. hate to see all the story's of all the lost, wounded animals lately. good luck, hope you find him.    

I have two buddies that have lost bulls allready this year.  One of them thinks since he didn't find the animal, it will be fine.  I know people with rifles lose elk too, but it just doesn't seem like as often.

[bucklucky]

May have stuck him back further than you think, maybee a possible liver shot that clipped a lung?  He would go a long ways, and would probably end up circling back around towards where he was already heading, I have had that happen to me. If you hit it right where you said he shouldnt have gone too far unless bumped but still even if it was a single lung shot he shouldnt have gone over 4-500 yards. But I have definately been wrong before. Good luck!