HuntingNet.com Forums - My first bad shot - lost the blood trail

It was a tough night last night.

During the morning sit yesterday in Arkansas,all I saw was two spikes and a bunch of turkeys. During the evening sit I saw two more turkeys (no shot) and no deer until 6:45 pm. I heard the tell-tale "crunch..crunch...crunch" and I was expecting a buck. Nope, it was a mature doe. She seemed to be on a mission, because she wasn't being cautious at all. In fact, her pace never altered. She went behind small tree and I managed to get my bow,and I managed to get into shooting position before she made it to my two spots I had ranged. I decided I wasn't going to try to stop her. I was going to take this moving shot. It was 25 yards at both spots, and my top pin dialed in at 25 yards. Her head went behind a small bush, and I came to full draw. At the first opening, I couldn't get the pin settled. At the second opening, it settled almost by itself and I touched the release. In the dim light, it was easy to see those white wraps with white blazers streak to the deer. As soon as I saw the impact point, I knew I had made a mistake. I had totally forgotten to lead. She was slightly quartered away, and the entrance wound was about halfway between her front and hind leg. Perfect elevation, though.

When the arrow hit, she jumped WAY up in the air, double kicked (that was cool!) and took off up the hill. I heard her crash about 25 seconds later and I thought maybe I hadn't made such a bad shot. Then I heard another crash, then another, then brush breaking, then another. All of this noise was taking a route to the left. I figured that this wasn't a typical 30 minute wait situation, so about 45 minutes later, I climbed down as quietly as I could, eased over to find my arrow and examined it. It was covered in blood. I grabbed my little Knight & Hale beacon light and hung it right over the arrow and backed out of the woods. Went back to camp (my wife went with me) and told her that we'd need to give it at least two hours.

Two hours later, we head into the woods. We picked up the blood trail right away, but I was severely disappointed in this trail. For the first 60 yards, it was just little drops here and there. We found one spot that had some pretty sizeable spotches, but then it trickled out at 100 yards. We circled and searched. I called my brother who lives a half hour away. He couldn't make it over there right then, so I asked him what the temperature was supposed to be, and he said the low would be 56 degrees. I said thanks and hung up. I stood there thinking about giving up. It was 10:00 at night, I'm colorblind and my wife, while very supportive, is ready to give up.

Then I thought "what would the HNI gang say if I posted this story right now?" Here's what I'd hear: "Get back out there"."She's lying dead out there, go find her!""What are you doingon the computer? Go find her!" "Circle, circle, circle"I sighed, smiled andsaid to mywife "Well, it's going to be a late night." We started circling from the last blood, and my wife finally found a few pinpricks of blood about 25 yards from where we lost the trail, and we picked it up again for about 20 more yards, then lost it. I stood there in the middle of the woods and told myself "okay just stop in replay the events in your mind". Then I remembered that the crashing sounds had gone to the left, so we marked the last blood and cut left and found one more drop. I told my wife to "wait here" and I walked that direction. I was holding up a coleman lantern and wearing a head band flashlight, and I hadn't gone 40 yards from where the last drop of blood was until I saw her lying there.

The shot sliced through the liver and just got the edge of the right lung.

What a night. Anyway, thanks for the mental boost out there in the middle of the woods last night.;)