woodyw333

So yesterday I was hunting in my back yard and a doe stepped out 23 yards from me broadside, so I draw back and take the shot. Feeling good about the shot I waited 30min and went and got my arrow. To my horror it had the pink and brownish color blood/goop on it typical of a gut shot. I looked around for a blood trail and saw the red carpet treatment for about 30ft then it just completely stopped. As im sitting on the ground in utter amazement as to how the trail just stopped I looked up and 40 yards in front of me on the hill side stood my doe licking her wounds. I could see entrance wound right behind her shoulder, then she turned and walked the other way and I also saw the exit wound way far back and high. I was letting her go and gonna try and track her after I woke up a few hrs later (i work 3rd shift).

So I wake up about 7 hrs later get my boy going on his homework then walk outside to go track her and there she is again! She looked up saw me and gave me the white tail wave and ran off. I know it was her cause I saw the spot where I shot her and the white hair on her belly was kinda red. I have been bowhunting for 4 years and never heard of or seen this before. Especially when the arrow reaked of intestinal nastyness!! Will this deer heal up and live or is she pretty much done?

V8Ranger

IMO, A gut shot will be a slow death. Eventually she will die from infection and intestinal stuff going where it shouldn't. It might take a week, but IMO, she will die. What are you using for a BH? How wide does it cut???

woodyw333

using a Muzzy 3 blade 100gr... cant remember the width

OklaBowhunter

Hole can actually seal it way up if no vitals were hit. Most likely she will die eventually.
DB

V8Ranger

If you ended up with intestinal goop on your arrow, she will die from the intestines being cut. It may take several days, but she will end up dieing from it. All that stuff will end up inside her causing an infection. Keep an eye out for the crows and buzzards, they will most likely find her first... Gut shot deer are hard to recover in my opinion, only because it take several days before they die. And who knows where they will travel in those days

ILhunter59

she will die eventually, but if i were you i would try to find her and finish her off. look along water sources, deer tend to wash there wounds out when they are injured.

UncleNorby

Richard Smith wrote a book about recovering deer. He cited a study that quantified a percentage of deer harvested that showed some sign of previous injury. Of those past injuries attributed to hunting, a fairly high percentage were healed gut shots. So I will disagree that all gut shot deer die within a few days. Most probably do though.

Sounds like the arrow took a strange path through that deer. Entry wound where it should be, yet exit wound back and high. I would guess the diaphram is punctured, probably one lung hit to some degree, and obvioulsy some gut as well.

I'd track it as far as possible, then grid search. Always check sources of water with gut shots. Be ready to shoot if you see the deer again. It will probably be weakened and allow you to get fairly close.

hunter440

I was gutting a deer and found a half disolved broadhead near the heart, also found a knock near a bucks spine. Those deer are tuff.

woodyw333

Thanks for all the input guys... always enjoy learning new things about these ever so amazing animals!!

MISwampDog

And that's why I stopped using Muzzy's. I know alot of ppl love em (and if they work for you then keep using them) but I had a similar situation happen to me. From reading your post I am assuming that you are hunting from a tree stand. I was hunting 13 ft up in a stand and shot a doe at about 15 yards right behind the shoulder. When I found her, the entrance was perfect and the exit was about 8-10 inches back and higher than the entrance. That deer was broadside or darn close. To me it didn't make sense how the exit could be higher than the entrance when shot from an elevated stand. I chaulked it up to a flook. A few weeks later I shot another doe from the same stand at about the same distance. When I found her the entrance was perfect and the exit was just in front of the hind leg. Again, that deer was broadside or darn close. Both shots deflected in the body real bad. That was the last time I used muzzy's.