What to do?

[mikedeer]

Yesterday at about 3:30 in the afternoon my friend shot at a great 10 point buck. He ended up over estimating the distance the deer was and we are not sure if the deer was even hit. We looked just for the arrow thinking it was a complete pass through and we never found it yet, so now he thinks he might have hit it high and a little far back. We checked the trail he was on for probably 20 yards and we found nothing. I really don't want this buck to be dead somewhere so should we just start fanning out over the area and hope that we find blood or the deer. Has anyone else wxperienced this before?

 

[jkratz5]

Sounds like a miss to me, I would fan the area a bit or walk the direction he went for a couple hundred yards to see if you cant find some blood or some tracks that give an indication the buck was running injured.

 

[Nebraska_hunter]

A couple years ago when i was in the stand rifle hunting i truned around and my gun slid alittle and hit a nail on the edge of the stand! The scope had a paint chip were the nail hit. But i just set it back up and waited. Had a small 7 point walk out infront of me at about 50 yards. He looked awefull so i decided to take him out. Well i wasnt sure were i was on the scope! I shot and hit him right ontop of the tail.

I had just cliped him but i knew he wouldn't die so i wasnt really worried. But that year i found him dead when i was looking for sheds. Guess the yots got him because he was so sick he coulnt move! But if i was you i would look around! Just to make sure he didnt hit him!

 

[boacephus]

My experience, high shots usually take awhile before you can find blood. I would search further out the trail then 20 yds. Hope you had luck finding him with the chance of rain tonight. I'm sure you did but don't forget to check the taller weeds for blood rubbed on the m also.

 

[master_bowhunter]

Sounds like you prolly hit him in the "no zone" area. My advice would be to watch for the crows later in the year. He may die of infection later in the year. I wish you luck on finding him.

 

[koba]

USE DOGS TO HELP YOU SMELL DEATH!!!

 

[mikedeer]

Just got back and we found nothing. We searched about 200 yards around where he had last seen the deer. There is still plenty of ground to cover and we looked also for the arrow and were unable to find it. This has really got me stumped. We are going out tommorrow also, we will probably keep looking until we either find the arrow telling whether it was hit or not or until I feel that we have really searched the area. The area that it is in is very thick with trails going everywhere, so there is a possibility that we might walked very near to him. On a positive note as we were walking to the area that the buck was shot we noticed a huge droptine buck standing right underneath the stand I was in yesterday.