Late last season I hit a deer high with a too hard cast HP, so had a bit of a tracking job in front of me. I didn’t have anything to mark the specks of blood a few feet apart, and found myself having a hard time determining his direction of travel. After a bit of frustrated circling, I came across a scattering of weathered deer bones. I scooped up what I could find and used them to mark blood spots. I was amazed at how I could look back with my flashlight and they lit up and marked the line, even as soiled as they were. I eventually recovered the deer using a handful of the marking bones, and have since added a few weathered and cleaned up bones to the pile. I took a grinder to the ones that weren’t already sharp enough to shove into the ground and I’m not sure I’ve found a better tool for marking and leapfrogging along a blood trail. I’ve used tape and toilet paper but hate to leave that stuff in the field, which seems to frequently happen. Once cleaned up they are hard to miss with a light on them.

Interesting.

Very ingenious idea.

Sounds like it worked well. Hope those bones aren't from anthrax country.

How long will anthrax live in those old bones? Indefinitely?

“They can live in them for up to 50 years, and in the bones of animals killed by anthrax for as long as two centuries, reported the Government of Western Australia. The spores can activate when they enter the body.”

Nice idea and recycling at its finest.

I have always used orange “tape”

👍

A roll of toilet paper is in my pack anyway. It's a whole lot lighter to tote around than 20 bones. In Runnels County it is the only white on the ground, and it is biodegradable in a very short time. The man that taught me that was 63 at the time, and I've been doing it that way for going on 11 years now.

TP is the great multitasker.
And way better to wipe with than dry deer bones.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Yessir. Put it in a big Zip lock bad, and mine is in a side pouch if my backpack, just the right size for it.

It has been used for blood trailing more than its' intended use.

We have trailed more deer after sundown than in the morning. Sure is nice to be able to look back at single squares of TP, with a headlamp, and see the trail the deer took. It tells us where to focus our further efforts. We are undefeated, just stick with it, and you'll find the deer. It's amazing how you can be eight feet from the deer and not see it. Stick with the blood drops! God knew what he was doing when he made their hide color!

Nice adaptation when needed. In my neck of the woods, which is typically wooded and sometimes dense with undergrowth, I have found that wounded deer almost always follow a trail. So a tip I have taught my grandkids is that if you loose the blood trail (or do not have a blood trail) track down the trails (even though they may be faint) in the vicinity the deer was traveling. This has worked countless times for me. I will share another tip, via a short story. I once clipped one lung and the liver on a nice buck with a muzzleloader and while he left a good blood trail, it suddenly stopped. I followed the trail he was on and it came to a small opening with 5 trails leaving that opening on the far side. I did not see any obvious blood on any of the trails and although there were the occasional tracks, I could not discern that any one set was more fresh than the others. There had been a dew that morning and I had a hard time telling whether the wet spots on the brown leaves were dew or blood. Luckily I had some white paper towel on me, and on each of the 5 trails I would take that paper towel and blot the wet spot on several leaves. As it turned out on one of those trails the paper towel had a pink hue. That was the trail I followed, and sure enough a couple hundred yards down it I found a pool of blood where the deer stood for what appeared to be a good while. I slowly eased further down that trail and found him another couple hundred yards laying down with his head up looking around. A quick dispatch with a round ball to the head was enough to secure my trophy. Moral of that story, stay adaptive and carry a while paper towel (or TP), it might come in handy.

cool story & idea.
you do know early caveman didn't have flash lights?

My earliest one was stick matches rolled around toilet paper roll.
(Had posted pic few years back in different thread.)

agree with many other posts, used the biodegradable toilet paper for years.
Always carried it for whin mother nature calls.

again, cool idea .

Two years later, they found my Astros hat that I had marked a blood trail with.

I don't always carry toilet paper but have cut the top off of a sock a couple of times in my life.

Pro tip - never pick up a bandana you stumble across in the pasture.

Cavemen had flashlights ?

Holy crap!!!

Toothpicks and toilet paper. Great tracking tools.

Yessr.

When I was about 6 years old I was hunting with my Dad on a COLD evening hunt in Duval County....Dad shot a deer right at dark and didn't drop him, every deer Dad shot dropped right there before so I was confused....I remember it being really cold and following my Dad and then he started taking his clothes off. Started with his jacket, and then his flannel shirt, and then T-shirt, and then long john shirt, marking the blood trail as we crept through thick S Texas brush country. I'll never forget he was necked in that cold from the waist up, then he put his hand on my chest and said "Son, stay here and don't move from this spot. I hear the deer right past those trees, I'm gonna finish him off and get you on the way back to the road". So I stayed in my spot as instructed, then heard a 22 mag Derringer sound. A few minutes later here comes my big Dad dragging a buck and said "Son, grab the other side of the rack". I sucked for help but tried hard to help him pull that deer. We would stop to grab Dad's clothes so that he could put them back on. I said "Dad, aren't you cold Dad"? He looked at me and said "Yes Son, I am very cold right now".

He should have had some toilet paper. Sure miss hunting with him.

I've used toilet paper- I think there is a bio-degradable type. Marshmallows are white and show up well and something will eventually eat them.
My experience is that most wounded game runs straight. If it turns around and runs back the way it came you might have missed it. There is often only ONE TURN and then straight again after that one turn. Seldom have I encountered a zig-zig situation.
A whole book could be written on tracking wounded game. If there is any humidity around, a kicked over branch or stone with show a dark, damp spot where it had just been resting on the ground.
Blood, as an animal goes through underbrush the branches often get turned upside down so that the blood is on the undersides of leaves. Look there.
On occasion you have to track dry 50 yards before a good blood trail starts to show up.
If you are in a stand, stare at the exact spot where the animal disappeared and after a wait, walk right to that spot and mark it. That creates a line from where the animal was when you shot it and where it disappeared. Take a compass line. It gives you something to work with.
BE READY for a wounded deer to jump and run. Look ahead very closely as you proceed.
If you are in the bush county, or dense country and totally lost the track, AS A LAST RESORT, fire a round into the earth and LISTEN. If the animal is still wounded the sound may cause it to try to move and you might hear it, you are probably very close at that point, wounded deer, etc. often crawl into thickets to hide, etc.

I will have to remember that if needed, I always carry a large wad of tp in my pants just in case.