A good blood trail points to success, reckons Ian Pelton
Deep in sambar country, the forests get so thick it is almost impossible to hunt effectively. You can’t be quiet. You can’t see far. Sometimes you can barely move. However, I have often found hidden wallows and small grassy clearings in the most impenetrable places, and on three occasions I’ve had success sitting over them.
If it wasn’t for blood on the leaves, I might have recovered only one of those deer. That’s the other thing about this almost impenetrable bush, it makes dead deer disappear. If they don’t drop where you shoot them, but run into the bush, you can lose them completely. A blood trail can be your only clue as to their final resting place.
That’s why I agree with the late Nick Harvey’s philosophy that it is best if the bullet travels right through the animal and leaves a large exit wound with heavy bleeding. I would rather recover the meat than the bullet.
The first sambar I hunted in this kind of bush was a hind and she went 50m before falling, but once I was onto her blood trail it only took five minutes to locate her. The most recent one I purposely shot in the neck to make sure it wouldn’t go anywhere.
The second one was the worst. A spiker, it ran into a huge stand of blackberries. I couldn’t believe how far in it went on imperceptible paths. Later, I paced it out to 61 steps, and it took three turns along the way. I had to cut my way in, constantly getting caught in the thorns, and I nearly gave up on it.
My clothes and skin took a hiding, but after an hour I found the deer — only because the blood on the leaves kept pointing me in the right direction.
I didn’t think much about it at the time — just enough to take this photo. However, when I looked at it at home, it was suddenly invested with as much meaning and memory as any trophy photo.
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