where did i hit him?

lightfoot52 · 11-09-2009, 02:02 PM

sat. monrning got into my stand,just getting ligtht.5 min. later a 4 pointer showed up,started scratching for acorns.no shot.after about 5 min. of watching him he suddley looked up,i looked over my left shoulder and there was a nice 6 pointer.i took careful aim and let it fly.i thought he would jump up and run but when the arrow hit him he hit the ground like a ton of bricks fell on him.kicking trying to get up.(dont know why i didnt shoot again)after about 3 min. he did get up and ran about 30 yards and fell again,he findly made it to his feet a hauled.we tracked him through a field and a woods,lost the blood trail.searched for 3 hrs. no luck.found half my arrow i the woods.when i hit him i thought it was a spine hit.but he wouldnt have gotten up.anyone have anything like this happen to them?dont know where i might have hit him to make him do that and still get up and run.

early in · 11-09-2009, 02:13 PM

You clipped his spine for sure. You should have put another arrow in him during that 3 mins that you watched him! I don't think you'll be finding very much blood at all. Do some kind of a grid search for him though!

lightfoot52 · 11-09-2009, 02:20 PM

ya i should have. dont know why i didnt take a second shot,it supprized me i guess.

rybohunter · 11-09-2009, 03:14 PM

You likely hit the spine enough, to knock him down, but not completely paralize him. I doubt you'll ever find him as he's probably not dead.
Next time. another arrow ASAP!

cwanty03 · 11-09-2009, 03:45 PM

man you HAVE to shoot again

bigpapa · 11-09-2009, 04:09 PM

Easy guys. He didn't know he hadn't put the kill shot on him. If I see a deer go down right off the hit, I'm not gonna expect him to jump up and run off after hitting the ground and kicking like that. I would have done the same thing. I would have watched for him die right there. Easy tracking job! It's just bad luck is all. I'm sure you killed him. If you did a proper search (which you said you did) then you did all you could do. Ethically speaking I think you did nothing wrong. Even pros have this happen. Last week I watched it happen on Bone Collector. They gut shot a deer and found it like a month later. Like I said just bad luck man. Sorry.

Hunt4Life23 · 11-09-2009, 04:34 PM

I had this happen to me one time with a muzzleloader. I shot at about 80 yards and dropped a big buck. I shot him in a large shooting lane and he went down and was flopping around and moved himself out of the lane. I waited about an hour, went over expecting him to be right below the lane and he was no where to be found. Searched all over and didnt find him. Sometimes you clip the spine and temporarily paralyze them but they get back to their feet and make it. Ever since this happened to me I make sure to get another shot in the deer if I can. Just gotta learn from experiences. good luck

bigwhitetailbuck · 11-09-2009, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigpapa

Easy guys. He didn't know he hadn't put the kill shot on him. If I see a deer go down right off the hit, I'm not gonna expect him to jump up and run off after hitting the ground and kicking like that. I would have done the same thing. I would have watched for him die right there. Easy tracking job! It's just bad luck is all. I'm sure you killed him. If you did a proper search (which you said you did) then you did all you could do. Ethically speaking I think you did nothing wrong. Even pros have this happen. Last week I watched it happen on Bone Collector. They gut shot a deer and found it like a month later. Like I said just bad luck man. Sorry.

Was that the bone collector with Miranda Lambert? lol. If it is, I watched that. Sorry to derail the thread.

Dont be so hard on yourself, it happens to the best of us.

takedownfreak123 · 11-09-2009, 06:22 PM

Yeah sounds like a spine shot. I shot a buck in the neck once with my muzzleloader and droped it then it got up. But a bow doesn't have the knock down power which makes me think a grazing spine shot. Get back in the stand you'll have a another chance at a buck don't give up hope!

Boogeyman24 · 11-09-2009, 06:51 PM

I've seen several instances where a neck shot with a gun drops them only for them to get up later unexpectedly and never found again. My uncle actually hit an 11pt in the neck with his bow one year, dropped him in his tracks. He put another arrow in it just to be sure, and hit the shoulder blade. He thought it was down for good until an hour later it jumped up, shook off and wasn't seen again. Luckily a couple weeks later he got a chance to finish him during gun season, the buck was alive but really hurting and wouldn't have made it through the season.