let me start with saying i had 2 solid weeks to hunt since im home from Utah with mono. after feeling better i spent every day that the weather would let me in the stand, minus 2 hours a day to warm up.
2nd to last saturday i one lunged a nice buck but followed to soon. 14 man hours looking for it and it was lost.
all of last week sucked until friday. had 5 buck incounters and saw ~20 doe. let a nice 1.5 year 8 point walk and saw a nice buck out in the distance.
went to same stand sat. and saw 2 bucks at day break. let my bow down at 11am and looked up to see a nice buck crossing 80 yards in front of me. couldnt get it in. came back at 1 to have turkey hunters in area. didnt see anything until right when shooting light was gone. a NICE buck followed a doe 50 yards in front of me.
5 buck came up the ridge in the same spot including the two big ones, but i havent checked out why tho.
last day only seen 1BB, friday i saw 1 shooter buck but he didn't give a shot, thursday saw a buck chasing a doe out of range from me, only saw glimpses of the antlers, and saw another buck as far as i could see threw the pines, sat my girlfriend there on sat and she saw a Ybuck and 2 coyotes.
my last 3 days of the season were good compared to the rest of the season saw 14 deer total, hunted atleast 4 hours every morning except 4 days i missed.
this is by far the worst year in 20 years of archery hunting. and i tried everywhere, hi low. middle, feilds, and even posted ground. and never took a shot all season.
I haven't hunted since opening day. I got a nice 6-point and saw four doe. However, my dad was out for a couple of hours and saw nothing. While he was out, I watched a big 6-point and a whopper 7-point* feeding through the back yard.
* (would be a 130" class 8-pointer but he was missing a brow tine).
First, let me say that a deer shot thru one lung should live. Think of it this way, we have people walking around with only one lung so way should a deer be different. There is a great book" Trailing Whitetails" written by John Trout Jr. and in it he says that he has only recovered 1 deer that was one lung shot in all of his years trailing whitetails. we have been hunting whitetails for 25 yrs and there isn't too many a seasons that we dont go to it for information. I strong recommend the book!
Now with that said................
On the last day at 7:55am I hit a doe at 20 yds. I had to lean a little to my left to shoot because of some pine branchs in my way. I put my pin just behind the shoulder and let it fly. The deer took one leap and was behind a large pine tree that blocked my view of her as she fled. I saw the arrow impact the deer and as she turn to leap I saw the arrow 3/4 way in her. I was sure it hit the front shoulder and would probably get lungs. I waited 1 hour to get down and look for her. There was blood spray right where she was standing and the blood trail was easy with the snow on the ground. The blood continued to be that of a spray but small drops not large like lung hits. I tracked her for 75 yds and found a large pool where she bed down but no deer. I tracked her another 150 yds out into a big field where I got off the trail at 10:30 and went back to the cabin.
Got back on the trail at 12:15 and followed it about 100 yds to a thicket we we jumped her and found 4 beds full of blood. We watcher her walk off and wobble a little. We stopped trailing her again and left to come back at 3pm to find her about 75 yds from where we last saw her.
I was confused why the deer had not gone down earlier becuase the blood trail was one of sparying like lungs but it couldn't have been with the distance the deer traveled. We decided that the hit must be an artery. When we found her we found that the hit was in the hind quarter and hit the femoral artery.
Don't ask me how I hit her in the hind. she was stomping and knew something was up when I drew on her. May be she started to go as I shot who knows...........but the end result with the proper tracking is she is in the frezzer now.
While back at the cabin we were reading about every type of hit and what sign it leaves and amount of time to wait to start tracking. BOY DID IT HELP!
sorry for such a long post.
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Those people probably had medical attention to stop the bleeding and give transfusions. The deer can breath with one lung just like the person mentioned above, but the blood loss would probably kill it.
It was fantastic; It was spent changing diapers and giving bottles. That's okay, it was well worth it! I just kept thinking about the good times ahead when my son and daughter get old enough to go hunting with dear'ol Dad.
Joe D. - That sounds like my deer season last year. While you were sitting in my treestand, I was at the hospital in the maternity ward. Oh well - I probably got better food at the hospital than you got at the White Oak Lodge.
so PA, how was your last day?
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