There are likely two types of hunters—those who have tracked a wounded deer and those who haven’t…yet. Sometimes, even a well-placed shot won’t drop a big buck immediately, so having some basic tracking skills and the right tool in your hand could mean the difference between going home empty-handed or going home with fresh backstraps. That’s why onX Hunt is a must-have when you’re on a blood trail.

The first critical steps happen before you’ll even know if you have to track the deer you hit, and that’s watching its body language when you’ve made impact and watching the direction in which it ran. A few notable behaviors that correlate with where your shot landed include tail tucked and running low, which typically signals a hit to the vitals. A hard and fast sprint with long strides and a low belly is commonly associated with a double-lung shot. If the deer hunches and staggers or stops, it’s likely a liver or gut shot. If it runs favoring a leg or leg hanging limp, then it was most likely a shoulder, hind-quarter, or low-leg shot.

Knowing where your shot landed will give you an idea of where a deer might be headed. If it’s been gut-shot, a deer will try to locate a water source to replenish lost fluids. If it was a marginal hit or one that connected with major vitals, that deer is likely heading toward thick cover or a known bedding area. Under no circumstance should you assume you’ve missed the deer completely without checking out the point of impact. Even deer that have been double-lunged, especially if it was a high lung shot, can run up to 200 yards before expiring.

Before you begin tracking a wounded deer, there are two things to do with your onX Hunt App. Mark the location where the deer was hit with a Waypoint and then turn on the Tracker feature. The Waypoint will mark “ground zero,” and the Tracker will start marking every step you take while you’re tracking the animal.

Adding a Waypoint is as simple as pressing on your location until the Waypoint card pops up. There, you can name it, choose an icon (like “Shot”), and customize the icon color, or attach a photo. Another popular way to mark a Waypoint for the exact location you’re standing is to select Tools at the bottom of the screen and then Mark My Location. That will place it exactly inside the crosshairs of your current location.

To turn on the Tracker feature, select Tracker at the bottom of the map. Then press the green Start button. Your Tracker will record steps in a dotted blue line, recording the time, distance, speed, and elevation gain of your track. You can literally see your steps as you move through the woods. When you’re done, go back to Tracker and select Stop. Then name and save the track.

With the Tracker turned on and your first Waypoint set, look for blood. If the blood is bright red and frothy with bubbles, you’ve likely made a lung or double-lung shot. Dark red blood indicates a liver shot. If the blood has brown or green material in it and perhaps a strong, foul smell, that’s a gut shot. If you were bowhunting and the arrow passed through, inspect it because it can clue you in on your shot, too.

It's best practice to mark at least the first three (if there are that many) blood signs you see when you start tracking. This will be your strongest reference for the direction the deer ran. After that, it’s up to you how often you want to mark Waypoints. Remember, you can mark virtually an unlimited number of Waypoints with your subscription, so don’t be shy about marking them.

If the blood trails start to peter out, most hunters will mark blood every 50 to 100 yards. Why? Because you’ll never know if the last blood you saw was the last drop you’ll see, and if that happens, you can draw a line between the last two blood spots to visualize the general direction the deer was moving.

With onX Hunt, you can quickly draw a line between two points by pressing two fingers on the map at the same time. When you do, a red line with the distance appears. Or, you can click on Tools and choose the Line Distance tool to select the beginning point and end point of a line, name it, and save it.

There’s a good rule of thumb to follow if you’ve lost the blood trail or get stumped: When in doubt, back out. The last thing you want to do is bump a wounded deer and have it run another few hundred yards in thick cover.

If you have to back out or call it a night, you can always pull onX Hunt up at home on your desktop and theorize where the deer was headed. Your Waypoints, Lines, and Tracks are synced automatically.

Was it following a contour line? You can pick the trail back up the next day along the same line. Or is there a water source nearby? Was it on its way to a bedding area you’ve marked on a previous scout?

Maybe you just need to call in reinforcements. As we know, the more eyes the better. With onX Hunt, you can easily create a Folder with all the Waypoints, Lines, and the Track you saved, and share that Folder with others.

No one intends to make a bad shot on a deer, but if it happens, or that monster buck happens to be full of vigor, at least you know that you have the right tool and a few needed skills to make a valiant effort in recovering a wounded deer.