RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I shot a few that started flopping around like a fish OUT of water!;):D:D:D

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Magic this is a very interesting post indeed. I have no reason to doubt any members that have had different experiences than I. However, I have hunted a lot right next to a lake and every deer that I have shot and went any distance at all have not went in the water. They could have vey well done so but did not. My father hunts on another big lake in another state and has never had one go in the water as well. Most every deer that I have had to track for a ways was found in a low spot, in a gulley, in a thicked, or next to a log.

Ed

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Yes, Dr. Whiteman is an expert in amphibians, but as the head of Murray State's Dept. of Biological Sciences, he also knows a great deal about mamals as well.

And yes, the study did show that rats that went into hypovolmic went to a water bottle 99% of the time within a minute of shock. In Biology, theres always a margin for error as you know. Im not going to tell you that deer would perform the same test at 99% accuracy, but I would think it would be over 60%.

Charlie Alsheimer actually did test thisat a whitetail preserve in Michigan and wrote about it in Deer and Deer Hunting magazine. I cant exactly remember his results, I will try to find it tonight.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Charlie Alsheimer actually did test thisat a whitetail preserve in Michigan and wrote about it in Deer and Deer Hunting magazine. I cant exactly remember his results, I will try to find it tonight.


[/quote]

Is this a joke?
I get it - Charlie Alzheimer.... I can't exactly remember

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I've had two gut shot deer go for water, not many others have.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

HHMMMM. Good question actually.
I have heard this tossed around before. I know that mortally wounded deer always go down hill. Is it coincidence that a creek is at the bottom? I don't know for sure. None of them have made it to the water.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Now that I think about this most of mine don't make it that far.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

A gutshot deer or elk tend to head downhill and to water. Following creek beds until they hit a fence will often turn up that hard to find corpse.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Every deer i have shot has heaeded right for the river or to the pond in our woods.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I arrowed a nice 8pt two years ago andcouldn't find any sigh after 200yds. Didn't get full penatration and hit him high. I ended up finding him close to a half mile away laying in a thicket next to one of our big ponds. My arrow was still in him and I felt terrible that he had to go through that. It is the only deer that I have lost and hopefully will never happen again.[&o]

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

There was this one time me and a buddy of mine were hunting a bluff on my farm that over looks the Mohican River. There is a large white oak stand right on top of the bluff and when the iwnd is right it blows your scent off the bluff and out over the river. Well the wind was right one night so we trekked up the bluff in the Mid-afternoon and climbed into the stands that we had set prior to season. At about 5 o'clock a young 1.5 year old doe came into our set-up and with video camera rolling my buddy smoked the doe and she took four big leaps and off the bluff she went!!! We couldn't believe our eyes!!! She went right off over a rock face for about a 150 ft. fall to the river. We took the canoe down the river that night but we nver found her.

Yeah I would say deer want water badly after they have been shot!!!;):D

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I have found that if the deer has been gutshot and there is water near they will find it. however I have never had a deer that was shot heart or lungs that went to water.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

With all of this talk about research and biology books and Dr.'s names being droppedI'm beginning to get a inferiority complex.;)

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Last November I shot my deer on some river bottom land and he headed straight to the river, swam across, and stumbled his way into the next property. Since the people I hunt with aren't on good terms with the neighbors we could not get my deer. I was pissed. I learned they later found it fifteen yards from the tree line across the river. Its ashame but it fed the coyotes.


Adam Bowman
Southwest Ohio

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Crossing a river to escape isn't exactly going to water. I personnally have never had a deer die in water other than one that ran down hill 75 yards and piled up in a little stream he had to cross to get a way. He made it across but couldn't climb the hill. I watched it all from my stand.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Ya'll are missing the point...There are multiple wounds and arrow can inflict on an animal. An animal hit through both lungs will surely die from a combination of pneumothorax (collapsed lungs/can't breathe) and hemorrhage. In the case of major hemorrhaging...*The animal usually will not have time to make it to water, nor will it find the need to (Its not sick, its dead on its feet and it knows it)* Now, lets say you made a gut shot...This is more likely to cause hypovolemic shock, thus stimulating the deer's survival mode, and causing it to head towards water. Hypovolemia can take hours to kill, whereas exanguination (bleeding out) might only take seconds...with a heart hit, for example. See what Im saying? In one case the animal has time to go to water, and in the other it doesnt have time to think (*in my opinion - the animal's heart cannot pump enough blood to the brain to fully function...*when there is a hole in it*). For bear hunter's, you have seen this first hand when the bear makes a "death moan"; this is the noise that comes from "end stage" vocalization by a semi-conscious bear that can't inflate his lungs fully.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Again, many times, I have seen deer that have been gut shot that had ample opportunity to make their way to nearby ponds, creeks, and/or river and never go to water.

I would never rule out looking there if I was searching for a wounded animal but it is not automatic by any means in my opinion.

As I stated before way more often than not, they didn't head to water. I found one that was alive more than twenty-four hours later and he didn't go to water when all he had to do was continue down hill for about a half mile.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I can honestly say, I've never gut shot a deer with a bow. I've hit shoulder blades and skinned the brisket behind the leg, but I never had a green arrow. Maybe I'm just lucky. But with over 80 bow kills I think all this running to water talk is a like saying, "Suppose Cameron Diaz ask you out".

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Magic MANNN...

Bears love water too....I pulled a Quebc bruin out of water that my father-in law shot....must be a sooth the wound instinct...

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

exactly. . .the wound burns, the water cools

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I gut shot a deer in the rain one time, it ran in circles trying to find which way to go.Guess since water was all around she got confused........hee hee.

I think they head for rivers creeks ect. for saftey. How many never made it out of the creek bed or up the river bank on the other side? I supose they run till they are to week to run any more. In the deer woods ive seen, water is not far away.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Over the years I've tracked allot of deer. In allot of the cases where the shots that weren't so good the deer allot of the times headed to a big source of water if it was available. I've found a good share of deer in rivers, small lakes and ponds.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Found more than one in the Water!

If there not dead when you see them, you can just grab ahold of their Antlers and drown them;)

Dan

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Dang you folks have a lot tracking jobs. Most deer should be dead within 75 yards. Sounds like some of you have a tough tracking job after every arrow.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

IMO, deer do not run towards water as a primary defense. Their first instinct when shot is to run towards heavy cover. Afterall, they do not know what has happened to them, they just know something is wrong and they are seeking security. A deer that is shot in the lungs or heart fortunately should never make it there, often dieing seconds from impact.
A gut shot deer is a different story, but has similiar tendancies. Just likea heart or lung shot deer, a gutshot deer knows somthing is wrong and will immediately seek cover. Since it normally takes hours to up to a full day in some cases for a gutshot to die, once the deer reaches cover and gains its composure, they then try to take care of themselves. Like it was mentioned before, if you got punched in the stomach, are you going to immediately run to grab a glass of water? No you are going to want to sit down and regroup. This is why when you track a gutshot, you will find a bed or beds where they have laid down to rest and regain strength. After a while of being gutshot, the bile and bacteria in the stomach and intestines of the deer will start to infect the area around the wound and the deer will gain a fever. To stay cool, the deer will seek out water to lay in. So in short, a gutshot deer will seek out water, but only if it doesnt die in one if its beds first.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

A heart or lung shot deer usually doesn't have much time to think, at least the ones I've shot. Most of the gut shot ones will lie down with in 75 yards in my experience,I've shot two and tracked around five others for friends. Found most of them right on a trail.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

What do you want anyone to say here? Ok, everyone who has ever made a bad shot on an animal stand up and apologize to David.;)80+ deer and not one gut shot is an amazing feat. I hope it continues forever for you.

For everyone who does screw up and gut shoot one, yes they tend to head for water thanks to an unquenchable thirst that develops. Read your war history. It happens to humans too. http://www.civilwarhome.com/Kirkland.htm
EDIT: BTW, that was just the first link that came up, it isn't the greatest version of that story, but it gets the point across.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I didn't ask anyone to say anything. I simply made a statement. Read the replies. All these people finding deer in water and long tracking jobs. Realize too that there is only a couple handfuls of people on here with more than single digit bow kills. And yes, I've missed but I never gut shot a deer with a bow. I've had some tracking jobs, but only a handful. It astounds me that so many people have "Found their deer in Water". A decent shot with a bow will put a deer down too quickly for him to think about going to water.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I never said it was a long tracking job[8D]When you hunt River bottoms the water is always close, and yes the Deer do use crossing the river as a defense against danger:D

I doubt they were looking for a drink when they hit the River!;)

Dan

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

x2!

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Some will and some won't. If they are hit so they don't die immediately they will have a physiologic induced thirst. As the blood volume drops the body starts to pull fluid into the vascular system to try to restore voulume and pressure, this fluid shift causes dehydration and hence thirst.

The deer may or may not act on the urge but it will be there. Some may be too sick/weak to get up and try to get to water. Some may think hiding and staying put are in their best interest.

Some go to water some don't. There is a physiological mechanism to send them there. They like most creatures with higher level brain function can overridel it.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

x3 I guess...and just to set the record strait, I personally have had to track many many more deer hit by people I know, that required tracking, than those I myself made a bad shot on . After following 6-12 a season for others it gets easier to tell where deer are going in any particular instance....most of the time. Still, never whitnessed deer going to water only because they were thirsty

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Everyone has a right to their own opinion. I can respect that. I can only relate the experiences I have had and makereasonable conclusionsfrom thoseevents.

A friend of mine owned some land that had an old railroad bridge on it. Yearsago he was hunting with a rifle and shot at a buck standing on the bridge. To his surprise at the shotthe buck jumped over the side of the bridge into the water below. When he got up to where the deer was standing, he looked over the edge of the bridgeand sure enough on the river bank lay his dead buck. He thought he made a good shot. When he skinned that deer out there wasn't a bullet hole to be found, but the deer did have a broken neck. Using the same reasoning I see in some of the posts on this thread I would conclude this deer was seeking water after he was shot if I didn't know the truth behind the story.

Again if one looks at it objectively in most cases, good cover is often in areas that arein near proximity tocreeks or rivers. The fact that water is close by in my experience is more coincidental than it is a factor in deer recovery.

My experiences, all be it not as many, also include elk. If any animal loves water it is an elk. They definitely seek water to cool themselves. A few years ago I hit a decent 5x5 too far back. Don't believe for a minute that fatally wounded animals won't go up hill. He went up the mountain side before going down in a valley (where there were creeks and ponds), then up the side of the adjacent mountain almost to the topwhere he expired. He was approximately a mile from where I shot him; not really close to any water although there was plenty of water to be had.

While we are on the subject of fever I will give one more example. I do believe that septic shock from a wound in an animal causes their body temperature to go up. A few years back I had a horse that for no good reason went terminally ill with a "twisted gut". Try as we might we did everything over the course of four days to try and save her. She was feverish AND badly dehydrated. You could not get that horse to drink a drop. I realize it is not a deer but the principle is still the same; feverish, dehydrated, and still wouldn't drink or seek out water.

I think as a human we often times are held captive by our powers of reason (if that makes any sense). We create a paradigm that keeps us from accepting an idea that is unreasonable to our way of thinking.

Our strengths for the most part are intellectual in comparison to the rest of theanimal kingdom. Deer on the other hand don't reason things out, they survive on their instincts; almost agalaxy away from our thought process. It is obvious to us that when we get dehydrated we drink to replentish lost fluids; that is sensible, logical, and we know it is medically correct. As illustratedin the above example with the horse, animals don't respond the same way we do.

Would they purposefully seek out water when wounded? My feelings are it iscertainly a reasonable place to check if you have lost the blood trail but my experience has been that cover plays a bigger role than water.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

So there's two that really didn't GO TO WATER because they were wounded. They were just like the chicken, trying to get to the other side. My point is made. The water was just there.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I havent read hardly any of this thread, but i can say my uncle shot a decent sized 8-pointer a few years ago, deer went to the river, and he never found it.... BUT i was found a few days later by someone he knows(small town) at the rivers Dam. I thought that was pretty wild.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I can think of 5 different deer that I did not shoot but I was with on the tracking jobs that ended up in small lakes or sloughs when we found them. All 5 were gut shots just like we figured and in each case we let them go till morning. They had all the land around the lake or slough to run but instead they choose the body of water. They do it for a reason I believe. My dads Canada Moose he shot died in 10' of water. That moose could of stayed in the huge woods but instead tried swimming across the lake. They don't do it by accident I don't think.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

The reason I started this thread is I have been told this all my hunting life. I personally have had mixed results. I was interested what others have seen. I gut shot a buck that crossed thru a lot of knee deep water and died on a piece of high ground. He didnt die quick so he had options. I had one go in a stream he was still alive but unable to get out on his own. So did he want to be there? was he just crossing and got stuck? I shot another buck a little far back and let him go over night. it rained. we searched the swamps for 1/2 day. everyone gave up but me. I ended up finding him in one of the dryest parts of the woods. I guess my answer is they seem to have a tendency to go to water but why I still dont know. I think it might be part medical and part the cover that wet areas tend to offer. maybe it has something to do with the cooling effects of water. thanks for all the input. I never expected so many replies.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

I believe this is a big reason. My very first buck that I got Died in a small little creek with about 6" of water in it. He was also gut shot and I can guarantee he didn't get hung up in there. I should of mentioned this in my last post, I totally forgot about this one! A few bear that I've gut shot have always picked out low wet area's to lay down in. I think the reason was to cool down, I really believe that.

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

Dang that's a lot of gut shooting. Don't these people ever just plain miss?

RE: do deer really go to water when they are wounded?
 

It's hard to say how many Deer I've tracked and helped track in 40 years of Bowhunting.

Guys never call me if it's a great shot and a short easy trail to a dead deer.[8D]I get the hard ones. The first thing I tell them is let's Wait a while because I already know it's not a great shot. It's funny when you ask them where the deer was hit most of the time it was a near perfect shot, but we must be finding someone else's deer because most of those hard Tracks are quite a bit less than perfect;)

I could tell you some stories that would give you a good laugh.

Dan