frontier gander

Last night i was watching jim shockey and this lady, shoots a big buck with an encore and more than likely a shockwave, deer was probably a little over 100 yards away. Anyways she gets up to where the deer was and finds some blood and shes all like, oh yeah! GREAT blood trail! After i was done laughing i went and got the camera and paused the tv to take a pic of this great blood trail. This was the only "heavy" amount of blood shown the entire 100+ yards they tracked the deer. There was only a drop here and there until jim spotted the downed deer.

Lucky they had snow on the ground or else this would have been a really hard tracking job to go by the little blood that was coming out.

After all theses shows, im not impressed at all with shockwaves.



The ladys husband also shot a deer and they didnt show the blood trail. The guy said it was a heart shot due to the way it "Jumped and kicked back its legs" IMO that sounds more like a gut shot than anything else.

TNHagies

I suppose the phrase "good blood trail" is a highly subjective phrase. To some, yes that'sa great trail and to others they would not be happy.

My terms follow:
Amazing Trail = looks like blood was poured out of a bucket
Great trail = drops and puddles almost constantly
Good trail = a few drops every foot or so
Bad = a drop every few yards

That being said, I wouldn't be unhappy w/those results.

frontier gander

And if there was no snow to make tracking 10x easier, How happy would you be? You can see at the top of the pic where it just goes to small dot every few feet.

nchawkeye

First...You don't really know what bullet she was using...

Second...A heart shot deer does kick up it's back feet...A gut shot deer usually hunches up its back...

Third...Blood trails can be scarce with any bullet or rifle combo...One of the sparcest blood trails I tracked this year was from my brother's .270...

All muzzleloading bullets have advantages and disadvantages...The Shockwaves advantage is it is flat shooting...If shots are within 100 yards a hollow point type bullet will usually give better expansion...

I've killed or tracked deer hit with round balls, PowerBelts, the 250 and 300gr Hornady XTPs, the 250 and 300 Barnes MZ and the 260 and 300 Knight lead
bullets...Blood trails really are dependent on range, amount of powder used, where the bullet hit the animal, how high up on the animal the hit was, how low the bullet exited and even if you had an exit wound...There are many variables as to how much blood ends up on the ground...

If you don't want blood trails, put it through both shoulder blades.

cayugad

In defence of the Television program.. you're looking at a screen. What was actually viewed out in the field and what was captured with the camera and lighting conditions could be all very different. Perhaps there was a "good blood trail." Perhaps six feet a head of that camera shot was a puddle and they figured in the editing room since they mentioned a good blood trail there was no use wasting footage of blood (which by the way many sponsors do not want them showing for fear of turning off some of the viewing population) and instead concentrate on the thrill of the track and hunt. The main thing is they had blood, and they were able to track a deer to the conclusion of the hunt. While a lot of the hunting experiences depicted on these professional hunting programs do not impress me, they seem to always find the animal they were shooting at.

I would hesitate to start judging the quality of a projectile and how well it works based on the thirty second air time of a television program. I would much rather listen to field reports from forum members. A good example is many people bad talked powerbelts. Yet Frontier Gander was able to show photographs of blood wounds, and also in the field experiences. So in that respect Frontier Gander was able to teach many members a better way to use and hunt with Shockwaves. This would be the same as I expect with Shockwaves. While some people have bad experiences with them, too many deer have fallen to them in the field. They have to be a good projectile or would not have the popularity they have.

frontier gander

The last mule deer i shot was a heart shot and it hunched up. And it was far from being a gut shot. Deer that have been lung shots hop straight up in the air. Gut shot deer ive seen kick their back legs up straight up in the air and take off. You'll see that a lot on the bow hunting shows and the hunting shows where they let 8-9 year olds shoot a deer.

Jim Shockey wasnt to happy with the "heart" shot the guy took, they never even mentioned the heart shot or even pictured any blood.

Ive yet to see shocky shoot a nosler he advertises. Its always the 250g shockway hes using on hunts.

cayugad

I watched Shockley hunting Mountain Goat somewhere.. Alaska I think. And he shot a nice Billy. When the guide asked him the kind of bullet he was shooting he said.. Nosler Partition. It was out of his Encore/Pro Hunter.

Also here again, I hate to guess location of a hit by the way the animal reacted. I have shot deer right through the boiler room that never even flinched, took a couple steps and fell over. Others I have shot and they almost did a back flip. Too many variables. I do put some credence in the kind of blood and material I find at the scene. Hair color, bubbles in blood, chunks in blood, color of blood, but I stopped guessing deer a long time ago on how they reacted from the shot in regards to shot placement.

TNHagies

I too don't put a lot of faith in how a deer reacts as to how well it was hit. I've seen deer react in the complete opposite fashion that they should have. One example would be a little 8 I shot one year w/a .280 that took out the top of the heart and both lungs and left a hole the size of a baseball on the opposite side. When I shot that deer it bounded off with its tail up like it winded me or something. Ran 40 yrds and fell over.

Reaction is ONE meathod to determine how well an animal was hit but I don't even feel like it's the BEST meathod. One must remember deer are wild animals and react wildly-rarely do they make sense.

rockyshamrock

i have to agree with that deer react different and is hard to tell where they are hit. my first deer this year was with my ml. i hit the deer in the front shoulders and it dropped right there dead. the second deer was with my 270. the shot was 150 yards and i thought i missed because it walked away as if nothing was wrong. i couldn't get a second shot off because of the weeds and trees she walked into. well i went over to wear it was standing when i shot at itblood was every wear. 40 yards later there was the deer dead. when i cleaned it both lungs where hamburger. it was a pass threw and left a 2 inch exit wound.