Harvest and Blood

[Johnm1]

I mentioned to my wife that the hunting shows always seem to show very clean kills on the animals they harvest. I never see blood on the animal. She thinks, and maybe right, that they clean the animals up before they show them on the ground so the visual isn't as gruesome as it might be. That may or may not be true. But I also noticed that a lot of pictures here on this form show animals with no blood. I assume no one here cleans up their animals for photographs. It just takes too much time for no good reason.

All of my rifle and pistol kills here were bloody. The only exception was my daughter's first javalina where she put the bullet above one ear and it exited below the other. That was mostly bloodless.

In general, are your kills full of blood or bloodless?

 

[Jeff Flannery]

i agree with you. Mine are almost always bloody

 

[bikerdoc]

At 71 every one of mine were bloody

 

[Duster340]

The ones I've bagged (double lung) with 12 ga foster slugs always left very generous amounts of blood on the deer. Most of the ones bagged with my 303 Brit were clean. That said, I'm now hunting our small 14 acre property and often take high shoulder shots with the No4mk1 to ensure a DRT stop. Don't want to risk one running across the road or into the surrounding properties. Usually a barely discernable entry wound and slightly more noticeable exit. Body pretty much no blood. One exception this past season was a quartering shot on a button buck that entered through the rib cage and exited the chest. Blew out the heart resulting in a lot of blood on the chest upon exiting, and ground and tree the deer ran into. Probably be a R rating on tv lol.

 

[WestKentucky]

I have had very few bloody kills. Even my bow kills have been fairly clean. A lung hit makes a mess, but an artery or heart hit dumps blood at a faster pace and for some reason it seems to drip off of the hair better. The bloody kills have been the shots that were only lung hits or were poor hits where there was a longer time for the animal to realize it was dead.

 

[Patocazador]

Pass-through shots in the neck leave very little blood because the animal doesn't live more than a second or two. Therefore, no blood pumps out. Other locations provide more blood thereby assisting the hunter by leaving a blood trail.

 

[LoonWulf]

Can't say many of my ungulate kills have been particularly bloody, mostly just a puddle under the body. But then most don't make it too far after the hit.
Pigs seem to bleed a lot, couple of the bigger ones I've shot got roped and drug out of the blood puddle before I'd touch them.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I have read that they do clean them up and stick the tongue back in it's mouth before they put it on camera.
Makes sense.

 

[Armored farmer]

Most killing is messy business, but I try to clean up, tongue in, camera angle, cover blood with leaves etc, to have a decent photographic keepsake of the hunt. I dont want to appear unethical or inhumane....it only takes a few minutes to pose. After all , the hunt is over at that point generally. Why not have a good picture.

From 2019 season

 

[whughett]

I’ve subscribed to and read just about every magazine on the hunting, loading and shooting subjects in the past fifty years. Can’t really recall any with a bloody kill picture or an animal with its tongue hanging out. I find this is as much about respect for the animal as it is for a squeamish reader.
I skim past the photos of dead animals in the hunting forum.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Here are the two I shot this last year. Both double lunges at around 20-30 yds.



The other sides of these animals, which actually happened to be the entrance wound side, are very bloody and I posed the pictures this way to minimize the blood showing.

You can see blood at the mouth and under the mouth of both of them and a few other blood puddles around elsewhere in the pictures.

Both of these pics were taken after I had transported the animal about half a mile in either an ATV or a tractor. They were still bleeding 30-45 minutes later. As can be seen, these deer have not been field dressed yet.

Shot with a Marlin 1894SS 44 mag factory loaded Hornady 300 gr XTP. As a side note, this is further reason I can not recommend XTPs to anyone as there is little to no blood on the exit wound indicating no expansion even at elevated rifle velocities. The bullet did not fragment. (the old bullet failure but still dead critter scenario)I only used these because I was crunched for time, they shot the best groups in my rifle between a few other factory loadings, and I had killed deer in the past (with similar seemingly poor bullet performance) in the past.

 

[wankerjake]

I don’t mind the blood but I usually stick the tongue back in and prop the animal for a good picture. I’ll wipe off some blood sometimes depending on the situation to have a nice picture. It’s not to deny there’s blood, it’s just to get a nice shot.

I like bloody shots too sometimes though. They imply success. People who get bloody know what a bloody pic signifies. I took all these specifically with blood in mind

 

[Dibbs]

Let's face it, if you were doing a TV show, you wouldn't want to gross out families watching the show.
OTOH, while I've had some bloody kills, quite some few were comparitively bloodless.

 

[Armored farmer]

I don’t mind the blood but I usually stick the tongue back in and prop the animal for a good picture. I’ll wipe off some blood sometimes depending on the situation to have a nice picture. It’s not to deny there’s blood, it’s just to get a nice shot.

I like bloody shots too sometimes though. They imply success. People who get bloody know what a bloody pic signifies. I took all these specifically with blood in mind
View attachment 883774

View attachment 883775


View attachment 883776

Sometimes a picture can prove that you can walk the walk....

 

[Johnm1]

I considered not posting the picture of the heart in the "Hunting Picture" thread. But there was a discussion point there. Otherwise I would not have posted it.

I suspect that some of the bloodless (or less blood) pictures on forums come from the actual shot placement. A higher up shot will leave a larger volume to fill with blood before coming out. But they should all bleed out of the side that hits the ground when they fall. My last two deer showed blood on the side that didn't hit the ground when they fell. Both of those were the entry side and bled while the animal was still standing. They were both fairly low in the chest cavity though.

 

[wankerjake]

@Armored farmer

Yep

 

[stillquietvoice]

My last one didn't show a lot of blood. I had no trail no exit wound. It fell wound side up. I could see the bills comming from the entrance wound. The shot was high shoulder nearly facing head on.

Field dressing revealed a chest cavity filled with blood.

 

[Bfh_auto]

Sometimes a picture can prove that you can walk the walk....View attachment 883777

That's a pretty bullet sitting there.

 

[Bfh_auto]

I considered not posting the picture of the heart in the "Hunting Picture" thread. But there was a discussion point there. Otherwise I would not have posted it.

I suspect that some of the bloodless (or less blood) pictures on forums come from the actual shot placement. A higher up shot will leave a larger volume to fill with blood before coming out. But they should all bleed out of the side that hits the ground when they fall. My last two deer showed blood on the side that didn't hit the ground when they fell. Both of those were the entry side and bled while the animal was still standing. They were both fairly low in the chest cavity though.

I agree. If you punch a hole with a bullet that won't exit the chest cavity there is little blood until you cut the diaphragm.
I take game pictures like a girl takes selfies...
What side and angle makes it look the best?

 

[earlthegoat2]

That's a pretty bullet sitting there.

@Armored farmer can chime in but I believe that to be a 20ga slug.

 

[Armored farmer]

@Armored farmer can chime in but I believe that to be a 20ga slug.

That was a 12 ga Winchester sabot.

 

[1976B.L.Johns.]

stick the tongue back in it's mouth before they put it on camera.

Yup, learned that too many years ago. If not done, the picture looked too "cartoonish"......... makes sense.

 

[LoonWulf]

I just spent an hour or so looking thru what pictures are on my Google photos album and only ran across maybe 1/2 dozen bloody animal pictures. All goats and pigs.

 

[buck460XVR]

Watched a hunting show just last week where they waited till the next day to go look for the big buck shot right a sunset. It was obvious to me as they walked up to it after first spotting it the next day that the coyotes had found it first, as there were intestines pulled out thru the backside. Clearly, throughout the rest of the photo sequence, that area was hid or avoided, or no mention at all was made that the best meat was wrecked, only that '''wow'' what a great hunter I am!" Has been obvious in the past, when similar scenes are shot that the deer was already found and posed, sometimes with a mass of human boot tracks and drag marks, surrounding the animal in the snow, to where it had been posed for the realistic portrayal. Most of those shows don't show you the mess fro their gutshot animals either........

 

[Patocazador]

I won a trip to Westervelt Lodge about 30 years ago. A writer for Field & Stream was there and shot a button buck way after dark. When the article appeared in print, the button buck turned into another hunter's 9-pointer.

Don't trust anything you see on commercial TV or in magazines. They "fudge" all the time.