2012 buck
On December 21st, I was finally able to get in the woods with my TC Triumph loaded with a 250 grain shockwave (non-bonded yellow tip) with the factory supplied black sabot sitting over 2 pellets of 777 and 777 primers. The weather had finally turned colder and I was hoping the deer would be moving. Sitting in my blind, I noticed a doe and a couple fawns come in to the feeder. The kept looking behind them and as I looked through the brush, I saw a tall rack moving at a 45 degree angle. The deer was on the edge of being a shooter, but as I watched the animal, I noticed he was limping. That was all the excuse I needed. The buck made its way to the shooting lane and I leveled the Triumph. At 35 yards the deer stopped broadside, went into full alert and stared right at me. The crosshairs were solidly behind his shoulder and I pulled the trigger. Instantly I felt great about the shot, but in the smoke I did not see much. Actually the Ameristep blind was full of smoke and it must have been quite a sight to see me roll out of the blind with smoke billowing out!
Went to the spot of impact after reloading and found the tracks, a small bit of hair and pieces of bloody tissue. I followed the fresh tracks in the snow for 3 yards before picking up blood. There was a small bit of snow on the ground which aided in tracking. Blood trail was not heavy, but not tough to follow given a slow “trailing” walk. The buck made it 35 yards with the upper part of his heart destroyed on a complete pass-through. Wound channels on both sides of the buck were about the size of a quarter to a half-dollar.
When cleaning the deer, I cut my hand on something up in the lung cavity. Upon inspection, it was a broadhead and 3 inches of carbon arrow. Obviously, this was causing the buck to limp. Someone had taken a frontal shot at the buck and the broadhead ended up inside the lung cavity, but only clipped one lung. I could not find an entrance wound in the hide, but some of the neck muscles showed the entrance. There was a lot of inflammation around the broadhead and was lodged against the side of the rib cage. None of the meat was affected as I have already processed the deer. The broadhead was a Barnett 125 grain expandable made for crossbows. A group South of me earlier in the year said they hit a nice crab claw buck earlier in the year, but were unable to make a recovery. I am hoping to see them again to ask if they were shooting this type of mechanical and hopefully put that hunter’s mind to rest that the buck actually did make it through and was not just coyote bait.