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The buck bolted down the hill to the frozen river and upon hitting the ice he slipped and slammed down on his side.  He jumped back up and scrambled a short distance up and onto the river bank.  Then he slowly walked away giving me a good view of him for about 100 yards.  He never fell down and I couldn’t see blood or arrow on the entry side of his body.

A rush of emotions was running through me.  It was 7:30AM.   I just arrowed a nice whitetail buck and I didn’t know exactly where I hit him.  I slowly ratcheted down the tree. I ate a frozen Butterfinger and was replaying the event over and over trying to visualize where that arrow hit.

I then cautiously walked over to inspect the scene and did not find any blood.  Being careful not to walk on his tracks I followed them down to the river.  There was no blood and no arrow.  I walked up on the river bank and there found a bit of blood.  It was a frozen pellet about the size of a pencil eraser.  I continued on for about 50 or 60 yards finding a few frozen droplets here and there.  There was not much blood and I realized I was going to need some help.  Unsure of the hit, I also wanted to give the deer time to expire.

I walked back up to and past my stand to a south facing ridge overlooking the river bottom where Dale and Steve had gone.  Not sure if they would hear me I put my hands to my mouth making a cone and yelled, “WA-KU-WA.“

Years ago I was with a mentor of mine, Jerry Krauth, when I shot my first traditional buck. After a hundred yards of blood trailing we stood over the buck And Jerry startled me by yelling this crazy Indian word “WA-KU-WA”.  It was his tradition and I guess I have adopted it.

When I yelled down into the river I heard my voice echo off the hills on the other side. Again I yelled “WA-KU-WA”.  Then I heard Dale let out a “YEEEW”.  Dale and I have been hunting together for quite a while and I knew that he knew I had hit a deer and needed help.

I went back to wait at the truck and was happy when both Dale and Steve arrived.  I briefed them on what happened and we headed off to find my buck. I was still a bit rattled and was glad to have Dale’s and Steve’s clear heads.

Steve found fifteen inches of my arrow in a shrub just above the river and it was covered with good blood.  We followed the tracks and frozen blood up river.  The buck had crossed the river just beyond the place where I had seen him last.  I ran back to the truck to get my waders while Dale and Steve headed down river about a half mile to cross on a bridge.

Across river I picked up the buck’s trial again and had followed it a ways when Dale and Steve caught up to me. With all of us on the trail we worked as a team with Steve and me following tracks searching for blood and Dale methodically marking the trial behind us.

Blood trailing in the snow had always been easy.  This time it was so cold the blood would freeze instantly and not even resemble blood. Instead it would look like the end of a tiny stick or small bud off a tree.  Dark brown or even black in color, we had to pick up each small piece and hold it in our bare hand and blow hot air on it to see if it would melt and turn bright red to confirm it was blood.  These frozen droplets were sometimes twenty or thirty yards apart.  The trailing job was painstaking to say the least.  I was agonizing over not knowing where exactly I hit him and was worried about what the weather might bring.