trailing wounded deer, I write in favor of brightly coloredarrows. Bright arrows no doubt would handicap the stalkerand, to a lesser degree, the runway watcher, but very little thearcher positioned on a drive. If I can find my arrow or a pieceof it I can determine whether I have made a hit, and from abloody piece I can quite often learn something of the natureof the hit. I would rather run some chance of not getting ashot because the deer saw the flash of my arrow than to loseone that I had hit because I could not find the arrow or piecethereof.
We in Wisconsin have found that the ladies should not beoverlooked when it comes to trailing a wounded deer. It iswell known that they have better color perception than men,and they generally have more patience on a task of this nature.It was during the first or second season when the bow huntershad that bow hunters' paradise, the Necedah Refuge, that aman and his wife were hunting together on the refuge whenthe husband hit a deer. They started to trail it. The trail wasfaint and he decided to go for a pal whose experience as atrailer was greater than his own. The wife kept on hour afterhour and he had not come back. At times she nearly gave up.Once the deer crossed one of the deep old drainage ditches,but she got across on a beaver dam farther down and pickedup the trail again. Again she nearly lost it across a dry haymarsh with nearly waist high hay, brush and weeds. Here shegot down on hands and knees, and specks of blood markingthe shoulders of her tan hunting shirt proved she had not lostthe trail. Finally she came upon the deer lying down, and putanother arrow into it as it scrambled to its feet. She was busycleaning the deer when hubby and pal finally found her. Thehusband showed up with an expert, but he had a sprainedback and could not help transport the deer to the car.
