Lost one...for now
 

Well I've been hunting daily since the opening of early bow, Sept. 27th, and I've only seen one button buck and one doe that I couldn't get a shot at. Last night at around 5:30 a small spike but big body stepped out, I was hunting my meat location on state land so I really didn't care about the horns. I waited about 5-10 minutes until he gave me a slightly quartering away shot at 20 yards. I knew I hit low and a little back but I wanted to hit a little back being quartering away. My arrow didn't pass through, but it was dang close. Probably only 5-6 inches didn't penetrate. I'm thinking I must of hit his shoulder on the far side, that's why it didn't pass through. Waited about an hour and a half and me and two of my buddies went tracking. We found good blood and tracked it for about a hundred yards when we stopped and decided to back out until morning. It's a horrible feeling, so I guess i'm just venting a little and seeing what you guys may think about my shot. Lemme have it if ya have some criticism, just don't beat me down too much, I already feel like a big ol' pile of stinky dog poop. :(:(:(

Sounds like you did hit the offside leg or shoulder. This should be a dead deer with a liver/lung hit. A thorough search should find this deer. Don't give up if it starts to look bleak. The deer is usually just around the next bush (or the next one).

I am no expert but i know i would rather hit low instead of high on a quartering away shot, from what you explained, the deer might have just developed a blood clot after about the 100 yrd mark with the arrow still in him. If you hit the offside shoulder on a quartering shot it should be a dead deer. I wouldnt feel too bad just yet. Make sure to go through the whole area with a fine tooth comb and you will be fine. good luck.

well fellas it sure was a dead deer. He ran onto my neighbors property about 200 yards and expired. I didn't even hit as far back as I did. Right about mid body, right up through to the shoulder and actually out the other side of the shoulder. Took out the right lung completely. He ran a total of about 350 yards, couldn't believe it. These whitetails are such amazing animals. I know if I was shot like that i'd drop immediately screaming for help haha. But anyways, the deer was found! Woooo, only bad thing is the coyotes got to him first and of course went straight for the butt. How disgusting. Because of the yotes I won't be retrieving the hind quarters off this one, but the backstrap, tl, and one and a half front shoulders are still good to be taken. Thanks for the input fellas! I'll try taking some pics tomorrow

Thats some good news, nothing spells out "ethical" more than a hunter like you being in that situation and handling it like you did, congrats!!

When you described the hit and then said you had good blood, I figured you must have had an exit hole even though the arrow stayed in the deer. No exit hole would have really caused some tracking problems due to lack of blood on the ground. Glad you found him! I know how you feel about what the yotes did. Around here, foxes do that if you leave 'em overnight. Congrats on your harvest!

Good to see that you found your deer that must have been rough not being able to find it the first day but way to stick with it and find it.

But heck the foxes where my brother stuck 2 of his does last year was eating on her udder in under an hour. He stuck his first doe she ran off But instead of getting out after 30 minutes and going and getting her we stuck around since our mission was to help lower the does numbers so in about 30 minutes after he stuck the first one another small group came in and he smoked another one. We didnt bring anymore arrows so we gave the second doe 25 minutes and then got out of the blind after a total of about an hour after shooting the first doe. So we start tracking the first doe she runs about 35-40 yards and when we come up on her we spook a grey fox off of her. When we get up to her you could see where the fox had started to eat on her udder. We could not believe how quick that sucker was. And I have also read about stories where within 3 to 4 hours of coyotes stripping a deer down to bare bones. It is crazy how fast them varmints are at finding a dead deer.