bubbles in blood

[Decker]

Anything can happen at any distance with any weapon, no matter how short, no matter how much ballistic power. As a retired professional guide of 10 years I can say that I have seen my share $@*%. One particular client shot a black bear at 8 yards with a .300 ultramag, blew a 2" chuck of bone out the exit wound. Found good frothy, bubbly, pink blood. Listened to her chew on a tree in pain (as some bears do when dying). Four professional guides tracked until the wee hours of the morning, then we went back the next day and picked up where we had lost blood. Followed another two hundred yards, tracking without blood and eventually had to give up. I'm sure that bear is dead. I know we did ALL we could to find it. The moral here is that hunter couldn't have safely gotten any closer, had more velocity, or taken a better shot. $@#* happens. And yes elk are tough, but personally I think bears are tougher.

And while you're all throwing around the word ETHICAL (to a guy who's just looking for advice on how to help find his BUDDY'S elk, he wasn't the shooter mind you) how many of you have actually given grouse a "sporting" chance and let them fly before shooting?

When a mob, wanting to stone a woman for adultery, kept demanding an answer from Jesus he told them "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" Imagine if they had only been wanting to stone the prostitutes friend just for being friends with her. ...Just sayin'.

[krout81]

I have seen bubbles in a low shot that "missed all vitals".  Blood was everywhere saw bubbles so exspected to see the bull dead within 100 yards.  Blood eventually disapeared, but ended up tracking 3 hours into dark.  Quit tracking when we ran into a slough.  When we came out on the highway we were 2.4 miles from the truck.  Next morning came back and he was dead on the other side of the slough.  He must have gone 3 miles at least.  Moral of the story ELK ARE F'ING TOUGH

[Deep Forks]

Did Grousetracker ever let the people who tryed to help know whether or not they found or went back and looked for the elk.

[TikkaT3-270Shortmag]

No we never found the elk.  I was the one that shot it.

[Decker]

No we never found the elk.  I was the one that shot it.

So YOU'RE the one they have all been stringing the gallows up for!? 

[madmack76]

was this in lincoln creek area?

[grousetracker]

i cant believe someone started up this post again over a year later, i went back 2 more times to see if it may have crossed the road, i hunt that area all the time and was told by a loader operator that he saw a bull with a limp with in 200-300yds of where my partner shot it. travis did nothing wrong but make a bad shot, he felt he could make the shot ,knew the range, and shot. i would have shot too! when i saw that bull come off the ridge i would have sworn it was not shot, i watched it run 400-500 yds, gather the cows and walk into the timber. not one sign that he was hit. travis had me come up the ridge and meet him, he was on the blood trail and told me he had shot it.

[boneaddict]

Gotta love the threads I miss on this site.     I am not going to jump him for taking the shot though I believe it was a bit far for my taste.   I hope the bull recovered and is on his way to ripe old age.  I think and I don't know what you did, but am guessing you pushed him too quickly.  If indeed it was a lethal or sub lethal hit.   He would bed down fairly quickly and stiffen up.    That might be a lesson learned from all of this.  To finally answer your question, there can be bubbles from other than lung.  Lung would be more froth and more pink as stated.  It may seem like he got brow beat but it was actually a good post.

[throttlejocky20]

They can go far with one lung.

I took a long shot on my cow this year 64yards. She was slightly quartering away my shot was very low, at first watching the arrow flight and the reaction of the cow we were almost sure of a miss. We could not find my arrow or any blood at the point of impact or the first 30 yards. But following the tracks we found blood then the pink bubbly stuff. I only got one lung and she went along way. and at one point we lost blood and spent almost 1 hour doing circles from the last spot before picking it up again. another 80 yards and there she was.

[boneaddict]

Glad yo ufound her.  Good tracking!

[PolarBear]

Glad yo ufound her.  Good tracking!

You did it right!   Most guys go up to the point of impact and if they don't see a pile of blood they decide that it was a miss and move on to the next victim. 

[krout81]

Most guys?   that is apretty broad statement about archery.  I would hope that "most guys"  look a little harder than where the elk was standing for their arrow and blood.  You have seen other hunters actaully shoot not find blood or the arrow and just walk away? 

[PolarBear]

I should have said a lot of guys instead of most.  I didn't single out any particular user group as being worse than another.  Finally, yes I have seen so called "hunters" walk away from mortally wounded animals because they were either lacking the skills to find it or were just too lazy to do so.  It happens a lot more than you might think and it pisses me off to no end!

[bankwalker]

any person who thinks they wouldnt shoot 60 after practicing that shot is not being rational.

thats b.s. ... 60 yards is a long ways and a lot can happen in the time it takes an arrow to get that far.

exactly. i would never shoot past 40yds. i practice out to 80yards.

just because you can shoot a good group at that distance does not mean you should shoot at that distance. there is far to many things that can go wrong. for one thing....shooting at a target and a live animal are to completely different things.

[sportsman002001]

Very intresting read with some intresting points here. My bull for 2006 was a 50 yard shot and when I shot I hit him a little futher back than one would like. This was about an hour before dark and went straight to where he was standing and found my arrow covered in blood. I found a blood trail with very minimal blood so I flagged the first blood and backed off and hiked out and made a few phone calls because I knew we were going to need help tracking.

So about 2 hours later we went back in with flashlights and started tracking with very little blood and just looking around and found the bull bedded down. He had only gone about 80-200 yards and had bedded down. Keep in mind it was dark out and the bull was still alive and there was about 6 of us looking and I could not get a shot into that bull and then he stood up and bolted.

Now the toughest decision I had to make go home and try to sleep or continue to track and take the chance to push him even more. Very tuff decision but it was to go home and come back the very next morning and look when we have daylight. Needless to say very little sleep that night as I could not stop thinking about that bull being out there and possibly dead.

We got back up there the next morning and started right from where we had jumped him and followed in the direction that we heard him go. There was no blood trail to follow about 45 min of looking we had found the bull bedded down about 150 yards from where we busted him the night before and he was still alive. You could walk up on him as he could only pick his head up and you could tell his was just sick. So we got another arrow into him and let him expire. When we gutted the elk my first shot just nicked the liver.

Ever since that elk I am all about waiting a good couple hours before I start tracking. And patience pays off but let me tell you it sucks waiting. Especially if you have to try to sleep over night.