Woodsman88

I shot my first archery deer yesterday and drilled a 30 yard slight quartering away shot. I heard the arrow smack the deer and what sounded like a rib crack. The deer ran off with my arrow hanging out and I waited a good 30-40 minutes before climbing down to look for blood. Upon arrival I found not one drop of blood ANYWHERE! I returned with some help later and after about 3-4 hours of looking for blood and my arrow we came up empty! I feel terrible but I know I made a good shot and I believe the broadhead was the cause of poor penetration and lack of blood. Anyone else have this happen? I'm done with mechanical heads, not worth it to me or the deer.

NebBuckHunter

Hmm,.....sounds like the entry hole may be plugged up. What broad head are you shooting? How many lbs/how fast is your bow?

I use the rage 2 blade, never had a problem. They flew through a rib and made a full pass through on my deer. At close range, I'm pretty confident I would have decent penetration even if they didnt open up.....

indiana deer hunter

Yah im interested to hear what you shoot I also shoot rage two blade and smoked a doe from almost 40 yds the other night quartering to and completely passed through

Woodsman88

I'm shooting carbon express predator II 6075 arrows at 70 lbs. I choreographed my bow last year at around 230 ft/sec even with the heavy arrows. Never had a problem getting pass throughs on tough hogs with the muzzys. I wanted to try the rage 2 blades but after not finding one drop of blood I just can't push myself to use them again. Not to mention losing a deer.

timmyzimmy

Just to throw a lil different angle at this....

Not every shot is going to be a past thru, even some good shots. Especially, if it quartering away. I've had a heart shot, quarter away and hit the opposite shoulders and stopped a slick trick (and if it doesn't go thru, nothing will, imho) Almost no blood trail. Both my last 2 kills have been hearts shots and both ran 90 yds.

Also, over the years I've stopped shooting for the top 1/3 or the boiler room. I used to shoot there for the guaranteed double lunger. And it was a guarantee but COULD make for a very difficult track.... the chest cavity has to fill with blood to get to either entrance or exit wound. And as long as the chest takes to fill up with blood, you'll have little to no blood trail.

2 weeks ago I heart shot a doe, in the rain. I had 2 spots of blood in 90 yards. All I can say is I was starting to feel sick because I knew I hurt her bad and I didn't think we were going to find her. My new rule off thumb is a 90 yards circle from the hit if I can't track it with blood. I don't know why but 2 hearts shots in a row fell at 90 yards.

Finally, a month ago my uncle shot a 3 blade rage and 2 blades didn't open. No blood, no deer. I've used them and didn't have a problem but I don't use them anymore.

It can be a frustrating sport but the journey is wonderful.

early in

Anytime you take anything other than a broadside shot you run the risk of deflection (usually shoulder), I don't care what the broadhead is. I use Muzzy 3 blade and love what they do. I have more confidence in a fixed broadhead when deflection comes in to play.

ManofTheFall

It sounds like to me the shotmay not have been where you think it was. I shot a deer one time and it made a loud crack like that and it maybe got 2 inches of penetration. The way you described it, it sounds like a direct hit to the humeral head of the shoulder. Ninety nine percent of the time when that happens, that deer will live to see another day.

Woodsman88

It definitely wasn't a shoulder hit but I did think to myself that the arrow did not penetrate far. What is crazy to me is that if it didn't get good penetration then why did I not find the arrow because the area had plenty of small brush to knock the arrow out.

deerslyer11

Sorry to hear that. Sometimes deer just bleed inside. My first buck i shot with my rifle i blew the heart up. Had only a few drops that you could barely see and that was it!. Deer was laying 70 yards away.

LittleChief

I believe that would be the norm for a good heart shot with a gun. I shot two bucks with my ML last year and blew the heart to pieces on both. Very little blood as far as a trail goes, but I'm sure that's because there's nothing left to pump the blood to create a blood trail.

In those cases it didn't matter as neither of them went farther than 40 yards.

To the OP: I seriously doubt it was a faulty broadhead. I've shot deer myself and was convinced that I'd made a perfect hit only to find that once I found the deer after a tough trail that it wasn't nearly as "perfect" as I thought. Both of those instances happened because either the deer were quartered more than I thought they were or they spun a lot more than I thought before the arrow made it there. That stuff happens to everyone, but it doesn't make it any easier to take.