HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - Tracking buck, found nockturnal but no arrow!

12-21-2011, 11:57 AM

#15

Champlain Islander

Dominant Buck

Join Date: Dec 2004

Location: On an Island in Vermont

Posts: 22,605

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terasec

not to sideline the thread,
but i would disagree with that
i personally think many dont wait long enough and are pushing many of the lost deer.
recommended waiting period used to be 1 hr for well placed shots and 4 hrs for bad shots.(for bow)
have seen quite a few posts where people stated they waited 15-20 minutes to track,

I have to agree terasec, it rarely hurts to wait unless you see the deer go down and stay down. I have killed a whole bunch of deer with a bow and lost a few too. Through trial and error I have finally figured out it is better for me to wait especially if I am not sure of how well I hit it. Deer can be very tough and even a well hit deer can go a long ways on the adrenalin. Without a shock value a bow struck deer needs to bleed out to die or become incapacitated. I have found that a bow struck deer if it is not a heart or double lung shot will run off and bed after only a few hundred yards. Going right after them usually results in a deer that gets pushed and often doesn’t stop for a while. On the other hand if you are in an area heavy with coyotes then there is that issue to weigh into the equation. If there are a lot of yotes then IMO there is probably a better chance of getting the deer if you go right after it. By the next morning it will probably be easy to find but all the meat will be gone. This scenario is probably what scribe based his opinion on.

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