GlouGlou

All,

Not much anyone can do, but had to vent a bit.
I shot a doe last night, just before sunset. She was at most at 40ft and I had a perfect shot. I found the arrow full of blood. After she was hit, she darted off to the woods where I was expecting to find her very quickly.

After 7h of searching we have found nothing. At one point there were 5 of us looking. Bad thing it was raining so no blood trail.

This is my 1st shot ever at a live animal so feel kind of blue. Does this happen often? I have replayed the scene a thousand times and know my shot was good and hit the vitals (if not it was a narrow miss which I now have to think is what happened); I was stable and have taken many practice shots with my Excalibur.

That is all!

M.

7danny

Don't beat yourself up. It can happen.

Even the best shots can make a bad hit at times and not recover.

ksharvester

sorry to hear that. the coyotes will be eating good tonight

375LVR

All you can do is, pick your head up and keep hunting. Shooting at game is always different than shooting at targets. If you took a high probability shot, feel you did everthing correctly and something went wrong, then just try move on. NONE of us like to wound a deer and not recover it. In the excitement, it is easy to make mistakes. Believe me, I have shot and not seen the small tree right in front of me. It happens to everyone. Good luck and safe hunting.

Jeffro_17

You did all that you could to recover that deer, so don't be too hard on yourself. Anyone that has bow hunted very long, more than likely has had that happen at least once. Good luck the rest of the year and I hope that you get one soon.

Bob H in NH

I personally won't bow hunt in the rain for this very reason. Others do, I decided I won't. When you make a picture perfect shot, the deer is down quick, but that doesn't always happen.

Rick C.

I have had the same thing happen more than I would like to admit. Don't beat yourself up, it happens sometimes, learn from the experience.

Sheridan

It's all part of hunting, and just another lesson to be learned in life...........that is, if you hunt.


So, consider yourself lucky - non hunters never get to experience the close "relationship" we were originally intended to play in the balance of nature.

It's how you conducted yourself after the shot that really counts..............

I think you can sleep well my friend.

Enjoy your time in the great outdoors.......................it's what life is really all about !

dirtyd

I hit my first buck last year with a perfect shot. He was hit right thru the heart and it was a clean pass thru. Now, that deer ran off 150 yards and maybe more. We followed the trail and deer had no ounce of blood in him. So just because its a perfect shot doesn't mean a deer goes down quick. Their adrenalin is a crazy thing.

My main question is how soon after did you go look for her? If you moved in quickly she could have jumped up an ran off.

UPHunter08

I've had it happen once (first time bow hunting), and that's all it took to for me to learn that it's not worth the risk. I'll hunt if it's a brief shower, but I'll never hunt if it's a steady rain for this very reason. If something happens with the shot, you're immediately reduced to a body search rather than a tracking exercise.

Question for the OP: How long did you wait before searching for the deer? It's possible that you didn't wait long enough and bumped it. See the bow hunting forum for a sticky-thread on tracking (what to do after the shot)...some great advice in that thread.

As others have said, this does happen occasionally, but you owe it to yourself - and the animal - to learn as much from this incident so that it doesn't happen again if at all possible. Tough luck...best of luck to you the next time you get a shot.