AK NIMROD

i was i NY earlier this year learning how to train dogs how to track wounded game. one of the guys we were helping related this story. early season 2004 arrowed a nice buck that he though he hit good ....never found it. at the end of the season a neighbor called him he had arrowed a nice buck and in field dressing discovered that it had a collapsed lung and there was his broadhead and 6" of arrow in it. it have heard similar story from elk hunters. i would guess that is what has happened. if tracling dogs are legal in your state contact people that do that to get them to helping the future......they don't find all deer but they wioll find some that you would never fine eye tracking.

RIStrutStopper

I hate to say it, but I lost one this week too. Shot a doe broadside at 20 yards, thought it was a good hit.It was a passthrough, blood on the fletchings... One fletching tore off, probably hit bone on the way through. I climbed down after 15 minutes, checked the arrow, then packed up my stuff and packed it out to my car. Grabbed my lantern and started searching about an hour after the shot. I found no blood, but I followed the trail she took off on hoping to find her piled up. No luck. I probably ended up pushing her. It was a 1.5 hour drive, so I rushed instead of waiting for the next day, but I ended up going back anyhow. The only blood I found the next morning was a small splatter on a leaf about 50 yards from where I shot her. No other blood to be found. I looked for 5 hours, then it started raining heavy and I called it a loss. I'm pretty sick about it, but learned a lesson.

fshafly2

Last year, I recovered an 8 ptr,one-lung hit after a 3500-yd tracking job.I am confident of the distance, as I reconciled our path witha high resolution map of the Navy Base where I hunt-the map hastwo-foot contour lines. The tracking job took ~5hours.
- At 7am, I made what I thought was an excellent pass-thru shot (see attached photo for the hit behind the shoulder) - my stand is at 20 feet, the deer was 18 ydsand in the process of turning away from me after approaching my doe decoy head-on. Iheard the deer crash in the woods after 40 yds, caught a glimpse ofhim running again, andthen heard (?)him crash again (I thought for good). I did not take up the trail other than to mark first blood at the hit.I went to getmy hunting partner and readiedmy truck for the deer.
- One hour after the shot, we took up the trail. At ~120 yds, we found two very bloody beds, and a fresh blood trail headed toward a swamp - we had pushed the deer out of the bed. The issue then was to wait or pursue. I haveover 100 tracking jobs under my belt (~40 yrs of bowhunting,and as a volunteer tracker on the Navy Base).We discussed the situation,and decidedto push -we had agood bloodtrail andhad already blown our opportunity of letting him die in the first bed(s).
- We had a steady drip - drip - drip for a long time, and no trouble tracking.Atone stage, the buck circled wide to double back onhis trail. So, no doubt that wewere pushing him, but hewaswalking, not running.One advantage to pushing was that when the deer climbed or descended any elevation, the wound would open up and increase the blood flow. We also had a fresh carpet of fallen oak leaves that helpedshowed the drips. We could not figure out how the deer could lose so much blood as we were trailing it, and were always expecting to find it just over the next hill. At the ~1.7 mile mark,the buck's trail started to wander off thedeer trails hehad been following, and I suspected he was looking to bed down.We slowed way down -my partner looking forthe next blood, me looking for deer. Just after 5 hours, and at 2+ miles, I spotted the deer on the ground. He wasbedded head-down in a dense laurel thicket, just 15 yds ahead of us. When Ishouted "there he is!", the buck lifted his head - what a bummer! There was just a small gap for a shot, I had to get low, butI managed to drive an arrow into his heart - at the shot, he rocketed out but collaspedafter 40 yds.
-No way of knowing "what if" had we waited 6 hours before taking up the trail. Imho, I do not think we'd recovered him without pushing him, but I do not think the deer would have survived.
- The necropsy showed I caught the back of one lung withthe arrow angling back andsharply down - I think it caught the spleen. The deer did not exhale any blood thru his nostrils, yet we found foamy blood up to the first bed.
-fsh

wis_bow_huntr

You know this seems to be going on all over the country. I lost two deer this year on perfectly good killing shots. My neighbor also lost one or two on perfect kill shots. Im not sure, but it seems to me that deer are getting tougher to kill. Not sure why, on a double lung shot there should be blood all over the woods correct? Well last thursday I shot another buck took out both lungs. Hardly any blood whatsoever then all of a sudden there was no blood at all. luckly I knew the general area where he went down and was able to walk right to him. He only ran about 60 yards before his last crash. When I cut him up, i fugured the fat was plugging up the wholes, nope there was harldy any fat on the deer, same with the doeI shot a week earlier. I guess deer are figuringus out, and are lifting weights or something. Must becomming bionic. Heres the 7 should have been 8 pointer that I shot last Thursday.

Pa Trophy Man

You pushed it...

Sylvan

Before I piss everyone off I want to say that I have hit and lost a few deer myself. I feel completely terrible when it happens and I have compasion for others when it happens to them but let's all be honest. A good hitthrough the boiler room will result in a dead deer in a manner of seconds not hours. Usually the deer won't get out of your sight or if you can't see very far you will likely hear the crash in the distance. If the deer is alivean hourafter you shoot it, you got a bad hit not a good one. You may indeed recover the deer but even if you do your arrow or bullet was defininely not placed as good as it could have or dare I say should have been. I wouldn't make an issue out of this but I think a lot of guys need to face up to the reality that they are not as good as they may think they are and it is the animal that suffers for it. I think when you get a bad hit you need to think about what you did wrong, accept it, andthen think abouthow to avoid it happening again. If we just try and justify our mistakes by calling bad hits good ones we don't improve. Just my 2 cents. Sorry if I offended anyone.

Mikey S.

Oldsmellhound - I have never, with almost 40 bow kills to my credit, seen a lung shot (single or double)deer "walk off" into a thicket or whatever within 100 yards of the shot. Even the single lung shot deer I have taken have bolted, ran, trotted etc. for some distance if they didn't expire right away. A deer that walks just after being shot is either dead on it's feet and doesn't know what happened, or it's hit in another area, such as the liver/diaphragm. Liver shot deer act funny, they'll walk slowly, often right after being shot, and head for a place to lay down...if they make it there. They often don't follow a deer trail. If a wounded deer get's on a deer trail, you're in trouble ifyou don't find it within 100 yards or so. I cannot for the life of me figure out liver shot deer. I've killed 12-15 of them with solid liver shots; some went 50-75 yards and collapsed after a couple minutes, some have gone 200-300 yards and I jumped them out of a bed nearly 2 hours after the shot. Liver blood has a distinct/almostoffensiveodor to it on the arrow, it will be dark red, and "splat" when it hits the leaves. It sounds to me that this is what happened to you. You tagged the liver, maybe caught one lung, just by your description of what the deer did after the shot. A rule of thumb for me personally: if I SEE an animal fall, and it doesn't so much as flinch for at least 15 minutes, I'll climb down. If he runs out of site, I don't care whatthe helI hear the deer do, I wait 30 to 60 minutes, look for my arrow, figure what kind of blood is on it and the ground, then decide what to do: persue or wait.

Wis bow hunter - you don't lose deer to "perfectlygoodkilling shots" unless someone gets to him before you. It's that simple. I'll dispute this with any one on the planet.....if you put a so called "perfectly good killing shot" on the deer and don't find it, you either A) didn't try hard enough, B) can't track worth a dam, or C) didnt' put as good as a shot on the deer as you think. Please understand, I'm not attacking you personally with this comment, I'm just using your quote as an example to follow up on what I've read from loads of hunters on here and in local bow shops with the same stories. It just doesn't work that way. There are no doctors in the woods, deer aren't any tougher, and they simply cannot live with holes in their lungs, liver or heart, which to me are "perfectly good killiing shots". I'm sorry you and anyone on here has lost deer, and I'm glad you were successful this past week,but I just don't believe in some of the phrases I'm reading here.

oldsmellhound

Sylvan, I agree that more often than not, a deer that is alive 30 minutes or 1 hour after being shot was hit poorly. I would say that 95% of non-recovered deer or deer recovered after a long tracking process were not hit ideally (i.e. 1-lung hit, liver, gut etc.). I agree that as hunters we need to be very proficient with whatever weapon we use in order to kill deer quickly and humanely. But, from my experience and from talking to many other hunters, there are always exceptions. Sometimes the arrow looks like it hit perfectly, but for some unknown reason, misses vital organs. I think we need to keep this in mind and not automatically assign blame to the hunter that doesn't recover a deer for being a poor shot. I think most of us have been there- losing or almost losing a deer, and I think if we are honest with ourselves, we can say whether it was our fault or not. I personally have lost 2 deer, and I can honestly say that both were my fault- poor shot placement which I have no excuse for. It makes me want to practice as much as possible to become a better shot, and then not take shots that are out of my comfort zone.

silentassassin

Sylvan, I shot one last week that I watched run off 60 yards and bed down. He layed there for 10 minutes before getting up and walking a few yards and standing there for 5 minutes. The deer made it another 75 yards from there so I feel safe in saying the deer was alive for at least 20 minutes. I found the deer the nexy morning and the "autopsy" confirmed that I caught the back of both lungs. The shot wasn't perfect. It was a little far back but it did get both lungs and the deer lived for 15 minutes that I can absolutely attest to and probably longer.

I have actually shot a few that didn't run off after the shot. I shot one a couple of years back and hit him irhgt behind the shoulders with a perfect double lung shot. He took a couple of steps and then looked back to see what "stung" him and I could see where I had hit him so I just hung my bow up. The deer stood there for a minute or so looking and then turned to walk off. As he turned to walk off I could see that he was bleeding a stream the literally looked like someone running a water hose. That deer walked about 10 yards and laid down. He layed there with his head up for about 10 minutes before expiring and that was one of if not the best shots that I have ever made on a deer.

Also, in hunting camp last week I saw pictures of a deer that had been killed that had been shot the day before in the shoulder and the arrow just hit the shoulder blade or bone and turned and went down his leg. Well the next day the guys buddy shot the deer while he was chasing does. He made a double lung shot (which I saw pictures of and talked to the landowners son who confirmed this when gutting). The guys watied 30 mintues or so and started tracking and jumped the deer and the deer wound up making it several hundred yards and living for another hour or so where the landowners son and the 2 guys found him dead. Now I wasn't there, I only say the pics but the landowners son is a pretty quiet and straight up guy and I have never had any reason to question anything that he has told me but I have to admit that I was a little skeptical until 2 days later when my deer pulled a similar feat after taking and arrow through both lungs.


PS - I have seen deer go a long long long long..........ways on a one lung shot and I tend to believe that some of them survive them as well.

Sylvan

If it misses vital organs then it didn't hit perfectly. It may have "looked" like it did but by definition it didn't.
I'm not blaming anyone here. I just think we should take responsibility when an animal suffers and accept that we didn't do it right. IMO it's ALWAYS our fault when an animal suffers because of our action. Who else is responsible?A huntermay have done everything to the best ofhisability butthehunter is still responsible. I would use a golf analogy. The golfer strives for par which is always in reach if he does it right. In deer hunting, par is a dead deer seconds after you shoot. If you are playing bogie golf you accept that you are not as good as you could be and youwork atgetting better. Should be the same in hunting but I think a lot of times we make excuses rather than face our short comings.