Lost a nice buck..need help making sense of it
 

I'm in mourning. I thought I was an alright bow hunter, but maybe I've just been lucky in the past. I think I made a really dumb shot this past weekend.

This past Saturday I had just gotten my climber settled in when a doe followed by three bucks came trotting a q quick pace towards my tree. The doe went directly underneath me. The secon buck was real nice, a shooter for sure..and was coming at me at a quick pace.

just as the buck was about to enter my shooting lane, I grunted to stop him. He stopped too quickly and was mostly behind a tree looking right up at me, he was only about 10 yards from the base of my tree so I was confident I could place an exact shot at that range.

he was so close I was shooting down about 45 degrees, so I thought above the right shoulder and behind the shoulder blade would put it through both lungs. I let the arrow and fly and it hit exactly where I was aiming...here is a sketch of where I shot. The sketch makes it look a little too far back, the deer was probably even more quartering towards me. I felt like I was shooting down through the lungs kind of...


Make a long story short, I waited until next morning and after 6 hours across a quarter mile of tracking never found the buck. After we lost the trail amongst the forest floor coated with maple leaves. I took a break, then walked all the way to the lake another 1/4 mile looked in every thicket and grass in case he was laying there...nothing. I felt sick to my stomach.

Here are the clues to my mystery.
1) Arrow did NOT pass through, about 6-8 inches was sticking out and this broke off on a tree as the buck ran. This means 20 inches of arrow was inside the deer.
2) didn't find blood for first 70 yards. Then only small drips on the ground, never rubbed on anything off the ground. Even ran down rows of corn and never any blood on the stalks just dripped on the ground small drop every 10 feet. A few places blood was smeared on a corn stalk if he ran it over...but never on stalks when he was going down a row.
3) Some blood seemed dark, other seemed bright and watery..but could've mixed with melted morning frost.
4) Ran towards a lake.

I feel horrible, now I'm wondering what I was thinking taking this shot...it happened so fast, about 5 seconds from first seeing deer to shot. Now I'm 2nd guessing everything..and have since read the stupidity of a quartering towards shot. I just feel terrible.

Any hypothesis what I ended up hitting in the deer? Where was he bleeding from?

Feeling horrible in Wisconsin.
Nate

I feel your pain,had the shot set up,doe was going down,nicked an unseen limb and trailed her for eight hours never found her.The limb is no longer in my way and if I'd had a chain saw the tree wouldn't be standing.

sorry to hear that , Ive been there. from the angle you say he was at, a shot behind the shoulder would have given you a liver hit which is deadly but not ideal , they say the 1/4ering to shot is a no no but I quickly killed two deer this year w/ 1/4ering to shots but I hit them in front of the shoulder and i still only hit 1 lung.

You didn't say how high up you were, but I'm guessing at least 16 feet. With that said and considering the shot angle and short distance, you probably got one lung and the liver. Even though he was probably really sick, a rutting buck could go for miles like that. Hindsight is always 20/20, it happens to the best of us. As long as we learn from it...........it falls in the experiance catagory.

Thanks guys, it helps just to the tell the story and know people are listening. I'm struggling with not having any closure, I guess the best I'll get is to study the situation to learn as much as possible so it never happens again.

I think closure begins when you take one last look for the that buck. He's dead somewhere. I've taken several downward angled shots and have taken at least 10 quartering to shots and never had an arrow stick out; always getting full penetration.

Your problem is that you didn't make a bad shot, but there wasn't an exit hole. My toughest tracking jobs are almost always the ones where I shot on top of the deer and left no exit hole. When this happens, the blood flows in the body cavity and not out a hole.

From your description of where you said you hit it and not really where the X is at, sounds like you made a good shot. I say go take one last look just so you know inside you that you gave it every effort, then roll with the flow and keep on hunting!

Good luck to you.

iSnipe

The shot and angle you describe is a far lower percentange shot then broadside or 1/4 away. The best "sense" to take from this experiance is that lower percentage shots have a higher risk of failure - as you now personally know. Only you can decide what this means to yourself in future shot selections.

That's why I quit bow hunting. My 30-06 drops 'em every time.

If you are lucky a coyote will eat the broadhead.......I probably hear more hunters say that they "stuck one" rather than killed one. I also don't bow hunt anymore.

Could be that you hit higher than you think. You'll never really know until you locate that deer. I would continue looking if possible. Look near water, and also check less likely places like small patches of cover in open areas. Wounded deer will sometimes find a small bit of cover in an open field, so they can see if anything is approaching.