UPSMAN wrote:I've seen the CRAP on TV where the guy comes back in the morning to search for the deer he shot at dusk the previous day. Folks,that aint going to work in S. Georgia. With all the coyotes we got, I would be lucky to find the antlers.
The come back next day strategy should only be used when you have strong reason to believe the deer was very poorly hit (e.g. gut, leg) or if you've totally exhausted all reasonable efforts to find your deer after hit. Unfortunately, too many decisions to come back the next day are based on maximizing the odds of recoverying antlers and not on maximizing the odds of recovering unspoiled meat. The blood trail gets a bit thin, so these idiots chicken out and then thump their chests about how they "wisely decided to back out and resume the search the next morning"
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My rules of thumb for waiting are:
-5-30 minutes if deer drops in sight. Depends on deer's behaviour & position. There are times when you know with 100% certainly that the deer has expired before your eyes. The 5 minutes is only needed to settle down your excitement to allow you to safely climb out of your stand.;
-30 minutes if deer runs out of sight on a 100% certain double-lung shot;
-1 hour if I connected but have doubts about placement. My findings (hair type, blood colour, blood pattern) and my flexibility to post-pone my search (e.g. will my job allow me to take time off tomorrow) will determine whether & how I press on or whether I back out and come back next day.
I suppose If I knew I hit a deer in the gut (has never happened to me and hopefully never will), I would wait 30-60 minutes before quietly climbing out of my stand then sneaking home. If it was a morning hunt I would come back in the later afternoon. If it was an evening hunt I would back back in the morning.