Shot Placement and Recovery
	With a razor sharp broadhead, shotgun slug, or rifle bullet and proper shot placement, a mortally hit whitetail will expire in a matter of seconds and leave an easy to follow bloodtrail. Even though a deer can travel a great distance very quickly, a tracking dog is normally not needed to follow up a hit from well placed arrow or bullet. Respecting your limitations, and knowledge of your equipment combined with shooting practice, will help you to consistently make ethical shots.
		Bowhunters and gunhunters alike should always strive to make well placed shots passing through the heart lung area of the chest cavity. The best shots are taken by hunters within their effective range, at broadside or slightly quartering away, relaxed, motionless animals. If you are shooting from a treestand, keep in mind that your shot angle changes as your elevation increases. Picture an entry and exit that will hit both lungs, and pick a spot carefully as you aim. Shoulder hits and angles that might hit only one lung should be avoided. Unfortunately, it's a fact of hunting that things don't always go as planned. In situations with less than ideal hits, access to a good tracking dog might spell the difference between success and failure; the competent hunter, however, should know how to handle difficult recoveries with or without a tracking dog. A couple of tracking rules of thumb to follow include: 1) After a deer is hit, stay in your stand for at least 1/2 hour before even thinking about climbing down to examine your arrow and the hit site. 2) A well placed arrow should be covered from broadhead to nock in bright blood with small visible bubbles. If you made a proper double lung or heart/lung shot with a pass through, your deer is down, and there should be a blood trail that can easily be followed. Wait at least an hour before tracking, however, unless precipitation threatens to wash away the trail altogether. If the deer is not recovered in the first couple of hundred yards back off for several more hours. 3) If you can't find your arrow, or if your arrow shows evidence of a gut shot (stomach matter on the shaft or strong odor), do NOT disturb the deer and wait six to eight hours before tracking. The biggest mistake hunters make is in not exercising patience. Getting on the trail too soon and pushing a wounded deer probably causes more deer to be lost than any other factor. A wounded deer charged with adrenilin can travel a long way, but if left undisturbed, a severely wounded deer will often bed down and expire with adequate time. Another common mistake is to step on the bloodtrail and contaminate your hunting boots with blood scent. After losing a visible blood track, hunters will often walk up and down trails looking for sign, inadvertantly contaimating the area with scent in the process. Thas can make it extremely difficult for a tracking dog to proceed beyond the point of loss. If you have access to a trained tracking dog and have any reason to doubt the lethality of a shot, call in the dog. Dogs are particularly useful on one lung hit deer six to eight hours after the hit and on gut shot deer. These deer might leave a solid trail blood trail that soon becomes invisible to the human eye. Dogs however can follow minute amounts of blood and hoof scent and often recover such animals that might otherwise be lost.
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