3 weeks ago tomorrow I was bowhunting in the evening and stuck a big doe, when I climbed down and looked at my arrow it was green and slimy from tip to stern, showing absolutely no sign of a good hit. I'm thinking a straight through gut shot, needless to say you can imagine how I felt. Well, I didn't even attempt to trail the deer, I just quietly left, planning on waiting a few hours and coming back. When I got home I called a friend with a dog to see if we could use the dog, we got to talking about it and he said the best thing to do was wait until in the morning because the deer would probably still be alive, I agreed because I'm thinking pure gutshot myself. The temps at night were around 50 degrees. At daylight the next morning I get the dog and go back, I really didn't expect to even find the deer, but we didn't go 75 yrds, and I looked up on the ridge and saw her laying, went to her and she was dead, but she was still warm under and around her flank area, the area where she was laying was tore up in about a 20-25 area, leading me to believe that she lay a good part of the night and had probably been dead only about 2 maybe 3 hours. The arrow went in right smack in the middle of the ribs a little high, and came out low in the last couple of ribs, so I must have gotten one lung a little bit, then probably the liver. I carried her home(only 300-400 yards away) and gutted her, I didn't skin her because the processor I use only charges 5 bucks extra to skin a field dressed animal. Anyway, I know that I did the only thing that I could do, there was absolutely no blood trail, and If I had tried that night I would have succeeded only in jumping her. That's not why I am writing this, the reason I am writing this is because my wife cooked me some chili the other day, and she said the meat stank when she cooked it, keep in mind she is paranoid of the fact that the deer was gutshot and layed out all night. But this was a very old doe, no little ones and no milk, I told her it was just like the big 200 .lb 8 point my brother killed a couple of years ago, he was real strong tasting also, and wasn't hardly fit to eat either. We rely heavily on deer meat in our family, I live in Louisiana where the limit is 6, and I try to get at least 4 per year, we don't buy much beef during the year, only an occasional ribeye to blacken! What do ya'll think about this meat, think it is because it's an old heifer. I'm thinking about taking the hamburger back and getting sausage made out of it, haven't tried the steaks yet. Oh well enough rambling, one point though don't never give up on a possible gutshot, as you can see things aren't always what they seem. Good luck to everyone the rest of the season
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