Multiple lights for blood tracking?

[fwafwow]

Yesterday I shot a doe and we failed to recover her, so the topic is painfully fresh in mind. I'm not blaming the lights for the failure, but I've been thinking about them.

My buddy and I worked the trail together with 2 lights. Mine was the Zebra H600c Mk IV at about 4000K. My buddy had an "old Surefire" (not sure of the model) but it was handheld and a cooler light. The color of my light (IMHO) may have been better in not washing out the color of the blood, but his cooler light might have been better in picking up the reflection of the blood. Neither one was very good at throwing light out at a distance when we lost the blood trail and were looking for the deer itself.

Does anyone use multiple lights for tracking? I'm leaning towards starting to carry another - probably a handheld paired w/ my Zebra, ideally (a) with cooler light, (b) better throw capabilities, and (c) small enough to not be a pain to lug around. I've looked at a Zebra side clicky as an option, but they don't seem to quote throw info. I'd prefer to stick with the same battery (18650) or one relatively easy to come by (as opposed to the 21700 in the SC - although I'm guessing that's pretty nice light).

 

[Panhandler80]

I’ve noticed that some lights definitely show blood better than others. Just keep messing around with different ones. I’ve noticed that non LED tend to do a little better, and you definitely don’t want too much intensity.

That being said I do most of my trailing with a coast LED head lamp with a rheostat dimmer and adjustable beam width. I have used small spot lights for reaching out and looking for deer itself. But it stays in truck so on some hunts it’s not with me at Time of kill.

I’ve also had great success with GPS if you can stay on trail once deer is on a straight ish run. You can mark known blood and then see overall trend and compare that to satellite imagery and start taking educated guesses on where deer likely went. Path of last resistance and common sense will often get you real damn close even without blood.

GPS also helps work a grid if you need to. Especially at night.

one other thing I like to do is get a bearing on where deer last seen or heard from tree stand. Run that bearing out 200 yards on GPS and mark that spot. If all else fails you can work figure 8s about that line out to 200. I’ve found a Couole deer that way.