Deer Are So Tough
12-19-2011, 05:40 AM
#11
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Colorado
Posts: 9,557
How the deer reacts to the shot can often tell you where your bullet hit. Deer hit in the heart will often jump straight up in the air and then take off running at a sprint. Animals that are hit too far back in the guts will typically “hump up” or arch their back just like a person with a stomach ache does. If you see this happen, you should immediately try to get another shot into the vitals of the deer. If you make a good shot into the shoulder, the deer may simply drop on the spot. This is more of an exception than a rule, so don’t expect it. If you shoot the deer through the vitals behind the shoulder, the only reaction may be to simply run away. Pay attention to the deer’s legs. If it limps or picks up one leg, you know that you hit either that leg or shoulder. Sometimes, the deer will run away and you won’t know whether you hit it or not. This is when your ears can help as the sound of a bullet striking an animal makes a very distinct sound. It is best described as a wet “thwop” sound. You can hear it for yourself at the range, by shooting gallon milk jugs filled with water. The sound is exactly the same. If you hear that sound, you know you have hit your deer. Unfortunately though, the sound provides no indication if your hit was good, as it is the same pretty much anywhere your bullet hits. You may hear a loud “crack” which will indicate that you have hit bone. Even if the deer does drop to the shot, you should prepare for a follow-up shot and watch for several minutes to confirm that the animal stays down. It is possible for your bullet to hit the spine without breaking it, or hit close enough to the spine to stun the animal so hard that it falls as though it is dead even though there is no fatal wound. Deer that have been stunned like this will regain their senses after a few moments and run off. If you aren’t prepared to take another shot, or are too busy celebrating, you may never see that deer again.
You can learn a lot about how game animals react to being shot by watching hunting shows on television. Pay close attention to where the bullet hits the animal and how it reacts. You will soon be able to recognize common reactions to various bullet placements. If you have the option on your television, watch the shot in slow motion, as you will be able to see the bullet impact more clearly and watch the animal’s reaction. Just keep in mind the fact that shows are edited, and the recovery might not have been as quick and easy in real life as it appears in the show.
Due to recoil, it can be difficult to keep your eyes on your deer well enough to see the bullet impact. If you are hunting with a partner, it is nice to have them watch through binoculars or their scope so that they can see where you hit. Watching closely, you may be able to see blood begin to flow from the wound indicating where you hit. A solid vital hit will often result in large amounts of blood spraying out of the bullet wound. This is a sure indication of a good hit, and a short tracking job.
Prepare to Follow Up
After firing your rifle, you should immediately chamber another round and prepare to take another shot. You may need to get another bullet into the animal, and it won’t be standing around for long waiting for you to do so. When you shoot an animal, you sign a contract making you responsible for ending its life as quickly as possible. Even though hunters strive to take their animals with one good shot, things do go wrong and mistakes happen. Making a mistake is alright, if you are prepared to deal with it. If your shot doesn’t land in the vitals, you must then do everything you can to get another bullet into the animal. Once an animal is wounded, the rules about shot placement have gone out the window, take any safe shot that is presented. If you know you have hit the deer, and the only shot you have is its hindquarters sticking out from behind a tree, take it. The worst thing you can do is let a wounded animal escape, and a wounded deer can cover enough ground to get away much more quickly than you may think. The more holes you are able to poke in the deer, the more it will bleed and the more it bleeds, the quicker it will die. Even if you make a good shot, if the deer is still standing up, don’t wait for more than a few moments to place a follow up shot. By the time you get another round chambered and your sights back on target, if the deer isn’t down, it is time to fire again. There is no such thing as too dead, and while you don’t want to waste meat with unnecessary shots, you also don’t want to lose a wounded animal. If you take your time, get close enough, get steady, and wait for a good shot angle, you will rarely need more than one shot to harvest your game, but you need to be prepared to follow up with subsequent shots if necessary.
Be very careful when taking follow-up shots to be sure that you are still shooting at the same deer. Too many hunters have found themselves in a sticky situation by following up on “their” deer only to inadvertently kill two. This becomes particularly difficult when the deer is in a group. When in doubt, hold your shot as a wounded animal will quickly become separated from the rest of the herd.
Sit Tight
After you shoot your deer, you should sit tight and wait for several minutes. Provided you don’t need to move to take follow-up shots, you should remain in the exact spot from which you fired. From the point where you shot, look at the place the deer was standing and take note of any landmarks or distinguishing features near that place. Also, listen for the sound of your deer running away or thrashing in the brush. Often, you can hear the animal running until you hear a loud crash as it piles up dead. Even if you can’t see or hear anything, take a few minutes to calm down and experience the moment. Replay the shot in your head and discuss it with your partners you may be hunting with. Think about everything you just saw and decide whether or not you made a good shot. Once you have calmed down a little and noted the place that the deer was standing at the shot, it is time to go find first blood.
Find Sign
Finding first blood refers to finding the spot where the deer was standing when you shot it and then finding the first drops of blood. The first drops of blood are the beginning of the trail that you will follow to find your deer. The easiest way to find the exact place your deer was standing is with a partner. While you remain sitting in the place you shot from, guide your partner to the exact spot the deer was when you shot it. Once your partner gets to the location, have them look around for blood or other sign. Stay put until they find sign as they may be ten or twenty yards off either way, even though they look like they are in the right spot. Once they find blood or other sign, you can go meet up with them at that spot.
If you are hunting by yourself, you will have to pick out landmarks or features that will allow you to recognize the spot once you get close. Something as simple as “between the gray stump and the freshly downed tree” will usually get you close enough. If you suspect that you may have some trouble locating the spot, mark the place where you fired from with flagging tape or a visible article of clothing. That way, you can always return to the same location and start over if necessary. Be careful when you are looking for sign to watch where you place your feet. You don’t want to step on sign and obliterate it. Stand motionless and look intently all around you before taking a step and then repeat the process. Once you have found the first blood or sign, you are standing at the beginning of your blood trail.
Now you may be thinking, “what if there isn’t any blood?” Misses happen all the time, even to the most experienced hunters, but before you write off your shot as a miss, you need to verify that the miss was clean and the animal is indeed unwounded. Maybe at the shot, you didn’t hear a “thwop” and the deer didn’t seem to react other than running away. Or, you think you did here a hit, but still the deer ran off without a reaction. In both instances, you could have missed completely and the deer got away. Or, it is just as possible that you did hit the deer well and it is laying dead sixty yards away, out of your sight. By going to check for first blood and looking for sign, you can confirm that you either made a hit or a clean miss.
The first thing to look for is blood. Even a marginally hit deer should leave some blood. If you can’t find blood, look for tracks and hair. The tracks left by a running deer are usually deep and easy to find depending on how hard the ground is. If you find tracks, follow them while continuing to look for blood. If you find any amount of blood, even one drop, you know that you made a hit. If you can’t find any blood, continue to follow the tracks. At this point, there are no hard and fast rules. You will have to evaluate all the information you have to decide if you think you missed or not. If you think you missed, you didn’t hear the bullet hit, the deer showed no reaction, and you don’t find any hair or blood at the site where you shot, nor do you find any after following the tracks for fifty to one hundred yards, you can be sure that you missed. If you really think you hit your deer, continue to follow the tracks until you find blood, see the deer again, or are satisfied that you did indeed make a clean miss.
The sign that you find where the deer was standing can provide many clues to where your bullet hit if you are unsure. If you find large amounts of bright red blood, and you can see a trail going away that looks like someone was dumping out a bucket while walking, you made a great shot and won’t have far to track. Sometimes though, even well hit deer leave only a little blood at first. If your bullet hit high in the lungs, there may not be large amounts of blood on the ground as the blood is pooling inside the chest cavity rather than spilling out. Also, look to see if there is blood to either side of the deer’s tracks, if so, you know that your bullet passed all the way through the deer. Looking closely at the blood itself will tell you a lot. If it is bright red, you have most likely hit the heart or an artery, both of which are good. If the blood is bright pink and frothy with bubbles, you know that you hit the lungs, which is also good. Often, you will find pieces of bone, meat, or organ that were removed by the bullet passing through. These are good things to find as you know that your bullet did lots of damage and passed all the way through. If you think you hit the deer a little far back to the rear, but there is still a good amount of very dark red blood, you may have hit the liver. What you don’t want to find is any rumen contents or any yellow or green fluid. Rumen contents look like wet grass clippings, and they are an indication of a paunch (stomach) hit. Yellow or green fluid is an indication that you hit the stomach or intestines. If you find these things, you know you have made a bad hit and you are going to have to wait several hours to allow the deer to stiffen up or die before tracking. Here it is important to consider the shot angle. If the deer was broadside when you shot, and you only find rumen contents, you know you have only hit guts. If the deer was quartering to or away from you and you find rumen contents and a lot of blood, you may have just hit the paunch before or after your bullet passed through the vitals and you don’t have anything to worry about except for a messy field dressing job.
Occasionally, the amount of blood you find can be deceptive. It is possible for muscle wounds, such as in the neck or legs, to bleed profusely at first, making you think your shot was better than it was. This is where you need to think about where your bullet hit and how the deer reacted, to see if your observations match what the blood sign is telling you. If you find lots of blood initially, but the trail quickly runs out, you will need to re-evaluate and perhaps wait longer before taking up the trail again.
Evaluate
Once you have found first blood, you need to stop and wait again. This is the point where you have to put together all of the information that you have to make a decision about how soon to start blood trailing your deer. Obviously, if you saw the deer fall, or you can see it lying dead several yards away, confirm that it is totally dead and collect your trophy. If you didn’t see the deer fall, and you can’t see it from the point where you found first blood, you need to decide how long to wait. Bullets rarely kill instantly, and even a deer hit through the vitals will take a few moments to succumb to its wounds. A less lethal hit, say through only one lung, or in the liver may take much longer for the deer to bleed out. A more marginal hit in the guts or a leg may not be fatal by itself, but it will result in enough blood loss that the deer will be unable to run away if given time to “stiffen up.” A wounded deer that doesn’t die right away, will quickly find a place to lie down if it isn’t pressured. Just think about when you are really sick or injured all you want to do is lay down in bed or on the couch. If no one bothers you, you will lie there all day. The same thing happens with a wounded deer. If a deer lays down wounded, it will usually stay in its bed and continue to bleed until it either dies or becomes too incapacitated to move. This is your best hope of recovering the animal if you know you have made a marginal hit. You must allow time to work for you. If you immediately follow the trail, you will spook the deer into running further away, usually without leaving much of a blood trail, making it that much more difficult to find. If left undisturbed, for several hours, the marginally hit deer will usually be recoverable. If you shoot a deer in the morning, and suspect that you have made a marginal hit, wait until the afternoon to start tracking. If you make a marginal hit in the afternoon, or evening, you will need to wait until the next morning to start following the blood trail. Worrying that you may have lost a wounded animal is always nerve wracking, but only by being patient and diligent in your tracking, can you recover your deer.
Finally getting a chance to shoot a deer is the culmination of much hard work. It will surely be an exciting moment filled with emotion. If you do everything right and you have practiced well, your shot should fly true and your deer will go down quickly. Sometimes things go wrong though, even if you do practice hard and wait for a good shot. How you react when things don’t go perfectly makes the difference between success and utter failure. By watching closely for the deer’s reaction, being prepared both mentally and physically to take follow up shots, and being patient in your tracking and recovery, you can ensure yourself success in taking game animals consistently throughout your hunting career.
You can learn a lot about how game animals react to being shot by watching hunting shows on television. Pay close attention to where the bullet hits the animal and how it reacts. You will soon be able to recognize common reactions to various bullet placements. If you have the option on your television, watch the shot in slow motion, as you will be able to see the bullet impact more clearly and watch the animal’s reaction. Just keep in mind the fact that shows are edited, and the recovery might not have been as quick and easy in real life as it appears in the show.
Due to recoil, it can be difficult to keep your eyes on your deer well enough to see the bullet impact. If you are hunting with a partner, it is nice to have them watch through binoculars or their scope so that they can see where you hit. Watching closely, you may be able to see blood begin to flow from the wound indicating where you hit. A solid vital hit will often result in large amounts of blood spraying out of the bullet wound. This is a sure indication of a good hit, and a short tracking job.
Prepare to Follow Up
After firing your rifle, you should immediately chamber another round and prepare to take another shot. You may need to get another bullet into the animal, and it won’t be standing around for long waiting for you to do so. When you shoot an animal, you sign a contract making you responsible for ending its life as quickly as possible. Even though hunters strive to take their animals with one good shot, things do go wrong and mistakes happen. Making a mistake is alright, if you are prepared to deal with it. If your shot doesn’t land in the vitals, you must then do everything you can to get another bullet into the animal. Once an animal is wounded, the rules about shot placement have gone out the window, take any safe shot that is presented. If you know you have hit the deer, and the only shot you have is its hindquarters sticking out from behind a tree, take it. The worst thing you can do is let a wounded animal escape, and a wounded deer can cover enough ground to get away much more quickly than you may think. The more holes you are able to poke in the deer, the more it will bleed and the more it bleeds, the quicker it will die. Even if you make a good shot, if the deer is still standing up, don’t wait for more than a few moments to place a follow up shot. By the time you get another round chambered and your sights back on target, if the deer isn’t down, it is time to fire again. There is no such thing as too dead, and while you don’t want to waste meat with unnecessary shots, you also don’t want to lose a wounded animal. If you take your time, get close enough, get steady, and wait for a good shot angle, you will rarely need more than one shot to harvest your game, but you need to be prepared to follow up with subsequent shots if necessary.
Be very careful when taking follow-up shots to be sure that you are still shooting at the same deer. Too many hunters have found themselves in a sticky situation by following up on “their” deer only to inadvertently kill two. This becomes particularly difficult when the deer is in a group. When in doubt, hold your shot as a wounded animal will quickly become separated from the rest of the herd.
Sit Tight
After you shoot your deer, you should sit tight and wait for several minutes. Provided you don’t need to move to take follow-up shots, you should remain in the exact spot from which you fired. From the point where you shot, look at the place the deer was standing and take note of any landmarks or distinguishing features near that place. Also, listen for the sound of your deer running away or thrashing in the brush. Often, you can hear the animal running until you hear a loud crash as it piles up dead. Even if you can’t see or hear anything, take a few minutes to calm down and experience the moment. Replay the shot in your head and discuss it with your partners you may be hunting with. Think about everything you just saw and decide whether or not you made a good shot. Once you have calmed down a little and noted the place that the deer was standing at the shot, it is time to go find first blood.
Find Sign
Finding first blood refers to finding the spot where the deer was standing when you shot it and then finding the first drops of blood. The first drops of blood are the beginning of the trail that you will follow to find your deer. The easiest way to find the exact place your deer was standing is with a partner. While you remain sitting in the place you shot from, guide your partner to the exact spot the deer was when you shot it. Once your partner gets to the location, have them look around for blood or other sign. Stay put until they find sign as they may be ten or twenty yards off either way, even though they look like they are in the right spot. Once they find blood or other sign, you can go meet up with them at that spot.
If you are hunting by yourself, you will have to pick out landmarks or features that will allow you to recognize the spot once you get close. Something as simple as “between the gray stump and the freshly downed tree” will usually get you close enough. If you suspect that you may have some trouble locating the spot, mark the place where you fired from with flagging tape or a visible article of clothing. That way, you can always return to the same location and start over if necessary. Be careful when you are looking for sign to watch where you place your feet. You don’t want to step on sign and obliterate it. Stand motionless and look intently all around you before taking a step and then repeat the process. Once you have found the first blood or sign, you are standing at the beginning of your blood trail.
Now you may be thinking, “what if there isn’t any blood?” Misses happen all the time, even to the most experienced hunters, but before you write off your shot as a miss, you need to verify that the miss was clean and the animal is indeed unwounded. Maybe at the shot, you didn’t hear a “thwop” and the deer didn’t seem to react other than running away. Or, you think you did here a hit, but still the deer ran off without a reaction. In both instances, you could have missed completely and the deer got away. Or, it is just as possible that you did hit the deer well and it is laying dead sixty yards away, out of your sight. By going to check for first blood and looking for sign, you can confirm that you either made a hit or a clean miss.
The first thing to look for is blood. Even a marginally hit deer should leave some blood. If you can’t find blood, look for tracks and hair. The tracks left by a running deer are usually deep and easy to find depending on how hard the ground is. If you find tracks, follow them while continuing to look for blood. If you find any amount of blood, even one drop, you know that you made a hit. If you can’t find any blood, continue to follow the tracks. At this point, there are no hard and fast rules. You will have to evaluate all the information you have to decide if you think you missed or not. If you think you missed, you didn’t hear the bullet hit, the deer showed no reaction, and you don’t find any hair or blood at the site where you shot, nor do you find any after following the tracks for fifty to one hundred yards, you can be sure that you missed. If you really think you hit your deer, continue to follow the tracks until you find blood, see the deer again, or are satisfied that you did indeed make a clean miss.
The sign that you find where the deer was standing can provide many clues to where your bullet hit if you are unsure. If you find large amounts of bright red blood, and you can see a trail going away that looks like someone was dumping out a bucket while walking, you made a great shot and won’t have far to track. Sometimes though, even well hit deer leave only a little blood at first. If your bullet hit high in the lungs, there may not be large amounts of blood on the ground as the blood is pooling inside the chest cavity rather than spilling out. Also, look to see if there is blood to either side of the deer’s tracks, if so, you know that your bullet passed all the way through the deer. Looking closely at the blood itself will tell you a lot. If it is bright red, you have most likely hit the heart or an artery, both of which are good. If the blood is bright pink and frothy with bubbles, you know that you hit the lungs, which is also good. Often, you will find pieces of bone, meat, or organ that were removed by the bullet passing through. These are good things to find as you know that your bullet did lots of damage and passed all the way through. If you think you hit the deer a little far back to the rear, but there is still a good amount of very dark red blood, you may have hit the liver. What you don’t want to find is any rumen contents or any yellow or green fluid. Rumen contents look like wet grass clippings, and they are an indication of a paunch (stomach) hit. Yellow or green fluid is an indication that you hit the stomach or intestines. If you find these things, you know you have made a bad hit and you are going to have to wait several hours to allow the deer to stiffen up or die before tracking. Here it is important to consider the shot angle. If the deer was broadside when you shot, and you only find rumen contents, you know you have only hit guts. If the deer was quartering to or away from you and you find rumen contents and a lot of blood, you may have just hit the paunch before or after your bullet passed through the vitals and you don’t have anything to worry about except for a messy field dressing job.
Occasionally, the amount of blood you find can be deceptive. It is possible for muscle wounds, such as in the neck or legs, to bleed profusely at first, making you think your shot was better than it was. This is where you need to think about where your bullet hit and how the deer reacted, to see if your observations match what the blood sign is telling you. If you find lots of blood initially, but the trail quickly runs out, you will need to re-evaluate and perhaps wait longer before taking up the trail again.
Evaluate
Once you have found first blood, you need to stop and wait again. This is the point where you have to put together all of the information that you have to make a decision about how soon to start blood trailing your deer. Obviously, if you saw the deer fall, or you can see it lying dead several yards away, confirm that it is totally dead and collect your trophy. If you didn’t see the deer fall, and you can’t see it from the point where you found first blood, you need to decide how long to wait. Bullets rarely kill instantly, and even a deer hit through the vitals will take a few moments to succumb to its wounds. A less lethal hit, say through only one lung, or in the liver may take much longer for the deer to bleed out. A more marginal hit in the guts or a leg may not be fatal by itself, but it will result in enough blood loss that the deer will be unable to run away if given time to “stiffen up.” A wounded deer that doesn’t die right away, will quickly find a place to lie down if it isn’t pressured. Just think about when you are really sick or injured all you want to do is lay down in bed or on the couch. If no one bothers you, you will lie there all day. The same thing happens with a wounded deer. If a deer lays down wounded, it will usually stay in its bed and continue to bleed until it either dies or becomes too incapacitated to move. This is your best hope of recovering the animal if you know you have made a marginal hit. You must allow time to work for you. If you immediately follow the trail, you will spook the deer into running further away, usually without leaving much of a blood trail, making it that much more difficult to find. If left undisturbed, for several hours, the marginally hit deer will usually be recoverable. If you shoot a deer in the morning, and suspect that you have made a marginal hit, wait until the afternoon to start tracking. If you make a marginal hit in the afternoon, or evening, you will need to wait until the next morning to start following the blood trail. Worrying that you may have lost a wounded animal is always nerve wracking, but only by being patient and diligent in your tracking, can you recover your deer.
Finally getting a chance to shoot a deer is the culmination of much hard work. It will surely be an exciting moment filled with emotion. If you do everything right and you have practiced well, your shot should fly true and your deer will go down quickly. Sometimes things go wrong though, even if you do practice hard and wait for a good shot. How you react when things don’t go perfectly makes the difference between success and utter failure. By watching closely for the deer’s reaction, being prepared both mentally and physically to take follow up shots, and being patient in your tracking and recovery, you can ensure yourself success in taking game animals consistently throughout your hunting career.
12-19-2011, 02:51 PM
#14
Fork Horn
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: MN
Posts: 254
I got a doe today. Shot her at 75 yards with 100g of BH 209 and Barns Tez 250g all copper.
As soon as the smoke cleared I could see she had her head down as she ran. I could see blood coming out her side but she kept going. She went about 60 yards then she flipped end over end.
Then she thrashed for about a minute. After getting down I could see The blood trail from a helicopter. It was 2 feet wide leading up to her.
As soon as I got to her I could see that it was a good shot. There was a small entrance hole and a small exit hole dead in the honey hole. So I figured must be lungs only?
Well after field dressing her I could see her heart was blown in half (like a v sign).
How in the world can a deer still run that far with half a heart and two blown lungs? No human could take that.
It makes me feel uneasy about hunting them. First, they are hard to get close to. Then you have to shoot them almost perfectly. And its tough to be super accurate when your blood is pumping.
I was so glad I moved my stand wayyyy away from a neighbors property. He started blocking me off with shooters so that deer would not make it to our woods. So I went deep in the woods for two reasons.
1) I did not want to be shooting at each other (within 60 yards of fence line) face to face.
2) If I did pop a deer good and it managed to go 60 yards it could cross property lines and become theirs.
The move paned out.
But again, I am still in awe of how tough deer are.
D
As soon as the smoke cleared I could see she had her head down as she ran. I could see blood coming out her side but she kept going. She went about 60 yards then she flipped end over end.
Then she thrashed for about a minute. After getting down I could see The blood trail from a helicopter. It was 2 feet wide leading up to her.
As soon as I got to her I could see that it was a good shot. There was a small entrance hole and a small exit hole dead in the honey hole. So I figured must be lungs only?
Well after field dressing her I could see her heart was blown in half (like a v sign).
How in the world can a deer still run that far with half a heart and two blown lungs? No human could take that.
It makes me feel uneasy about hunting them. First, they are hard to get close to. Then you have to shoot them almost perfectly. And its tough to be super accurate when your blood is pumping.
I was so glad I moved my stand wayyyy away from a neighbors property. He started blocking me off with shooters so that deer would not make it to our woods. So I went deep in the woods for two reasons.
1) I did not want to be shooting at each other (within 60 yards of fence line) face to face.
2) If I did pop a deer good and it managed to go 60 yards it could cross property lines and become theirs.
The move paned out.
But again, I am still in awe of how tough deer are.
D
12-19-2011, 03:07 PM
#15
Fork Horn
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 491
I shot a spike 3 years ago. Smacked it right it the heart with a 30-06 150gr bullet. It walked about 30 yards and just stood there. I put a second shot into it and I bet it stood there another 45 seconds before it fell. There was no heart left,just mush. I had about 50 acres of good hunting land one time. Another hunting club leased the land totally around mine which contained a soybean field in the center. They built stands around my land and deer never could make it thru to the soybeans. Sure was a lousy season. Congrats on your doe,
12-19-2011, 03:23 PM
#16
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 2,037
Muley, you really ought to name the source when you copy and paste.
http://www.nosler.com/articles/2011/...fter-the-shot/
http://www.nosler.com/articles/2011/...fter-the-shot/
12-19-2011, 06:01 PM
#17
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Ohio
Posts: 166
I shot a spike 3 years ago. Smacked it right it the heart with a 30-06 150gr bullet. It walked about 30 yards and just stood there. I put a second shot into it and I bet it stood there another 45 seconds before it fell. There was no heart left,just mush. I had about 50 acres of good hunting land one time. Another hunting club leased the land totally around mine which contained a soybean field in the center. They built stands around my land and deer never could make it thru to the soybeans. Sure was a lousy season. Congrats on your doe,
D
