I will confess a secret, I’m color blind. As luck would have it 90% of the animals I stick fall within sight but for the others a blood trail is a terrifying nightmare. After loosing a super nice boar last summer I purchased a space age piece of gadgetry called a Bow Bug.
In theory this setup should be the answer to my biggest fear, not finding an animal after the shot. The Unit consists of a tiny radio transmitter and a directional antenna.
For nearly a year I had been attaching the two pronged transmitters to my arrows but as luck would have it everything I shot fell within sight. Thanks mostly to heavy arrows and super sized broadheads. My latest Hog setup is a 190 grain Sasquash broadhead attached to a Grizzly stick Safari arrow for a combined weight of 778 grains.
Climbing down and finding no sign of my arrow I had to assume it was in the hog but if there was any blood I couldn’t find it. As it already 10:00pm and not knowing where I had hit the pig leaving it until morning seemed to be the thing to do.
The next morning found me standing with the new fangled antenna over my head hoping for a beep. It was like someone had let all the air out of me as I slowly turned the unit only to hear nothing but static. Starting down the hill on a well used trail I was suddenly surprise to pick up a faint ping. It was too good to be true gadgets like this never work in the real world but the ping was there what else could it be but my pig. With every step the signal grew stronger until it was banging all eight bars. Kneeling down to peer under the brush I knew I had to be right on top of him. Sure enough the hog was not 10 steps from me buried up in the leaves.
He had only travel 200 yards but I do not believe I would have ever found him without the Bow Bug as the blood trail was poor and even if I had searched the area around him I would have had to almost step on him to find him in the brush.
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