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My rule of thumb is if I don't see the deer fall or hear an audible crash after what I felt was a good shot I immediately back out. Grab the arrow if possible but definitely back out. Unfortunately I have had a few poor shots (4) in the past 6 years (probably need to practice more but excitement probably also played a role). I recovered all 4 deer but gave each one a minimum of 14hours and slipped out as quietly as possible. For learning purposes I will describe each scenario as to help others who may experience it in the future. Deer #1 was hit in stomach. Gave deer 14 hours (cold night). Tracked him the next day and thankfully had snow. Found him in the 13th bed but about 200yds from the initial shot after backing out immediately. Deer #2 I thought I hit back after looking at video evidence. My brother who was with me agreed and we gave the deer about 14hrs again. Found the deer 80yds from the shot. Deer was hit in one lung and was likely not dead right away but I could have tracked him sooner than I did but I wasn't sure and as was said in an earlier post a deer that is dead now will be dead in the morning still. The deer was dead in his first bed. Deer #3. Felt deer was slightly quartered to even after looking at video. Shot looked like it possibly hit lung. Went in about 3 hrs later and found arrow with dark blood on it. Should have known to back out then but rain was supposed to be coming and I wanted to get a sense of travel direction. Tracked deer about 70yds and found a bed. Was searching with binoculars when I saw the deer bedded in thick stuff by a creek/drainage. Observed him for 45 min and watched him slowly walk off. Returned the next AM after backing out the previous night and found him 300yds from the initial shot. Deer was shot in liver and did not appear to be dead for more than 4-5hrs (deer found approximately 26hrs later on a freezing night). Deer #4. Could not tell where deer was hit but thought it was a good shot but deer ran about 60yds and did not fall over. She bedded and had 3 bucks come in and try to get her up to no avail. Waited 45 min and slowly climbed down and backed out. Returned the next AM (15hrs) and found the doe about 80yds from the bed the previous night in the water. She was quartered away more than I thought and I hit guts and one lung. Deer had ice on her so I assume she had died after about 4hrs. Bonus Deer #5 My brother shot but felt the shot was high. Despite not wanting to go after him my Dad and his friend thought he should. Ended up jumping the deer and the deer ran another 100-130yds before expiring. Deer was hit in only one lung (no guts) but was almost not found due to rushing the recovery. The key take aways I've learned is when in doubt back out and give the deer plenty of time. Be quiet when taking up the blood trail and don't bring a huge group unless its a body search and no more blood could be found. All the deer I found that were liver/guts went towards some sort of water and were in very thick cover (they avoided open hillsides). A deer shot in the guts is a dead deer but you must give it plenty of time to die. Usually they won't be more than 200-300yds if you don't bump them. Finally, often with excitement we think a shot is often better than it was. A lung/heart shot deer isn't going far and you will likely hear or see it crash. If not I would start to question if the hit is really as good as you thought and at least give it a little time before taking up the trail. Hopefully others can learn from my experiences although I hope to not have to experience them very often.
 
My rule of thumb is if I don't see the deer fall or hear an audible crash after what I felt was a good shot I immediately back out. Grab the arrow if possible but definitely back out. Unfortunately I have had a few poor shots (4) in the past 6 years (probably need to practice more but excitement probably also played a role).

Excellent write ups and thanks for sharing. Can you give us some sense of how long it took to find the deer once you started tracking again? Minutes? Hours? Half day? All day?

Thanks again.
 
Excellent write ups and thanks for sharing. Can you give us some sense of how long it took to find the deer once you started tracking again? Minutes? Hours? Half day? All day?

Thanks again.

Sorry for not responding right away Fishbonker. I don't visit this site all the time like I used to now that I'm more busy with work. For Deer #1 I searched by myself and had snow which helped a lot. I found him after looking for about 30 min. Deer #2: I had help from my brother and we found him in about 45 min. Should have found him right away but walked in the wrong direction initially. Deer #3: Again had help from my brother. I knew a general sense of direction the deer went since following the blood trail and watching him the night before. We knew it would be more of a grid search since the blood was washed away by the rain but knew he'd be dead. My only worries was coyotes pushing him. Found the deer after about 1.5 hrs looking. Planned on hitting the thickest cover and water souces first and just so happened to find him in thick cover near a creek (similar to deer #1). Deer #4: Searched again by myself and found her in about 30 min. Deer #5 (my brothers deer) was found about 1 hr after being jumped from his first bed so he was very close to dying when they jumped him and had they waited another 30-45min the deer would have been expired in his first bed. I should also say these were all archery deer. For a gun deer I would take up the trail much more quickly so other hunters don't push the deer but still take if very slow and take plenty of time to search ahead for the bedded deer. All of these deer mentioned bedded within the first 100 yds and thats why it is so crucial not to even follow the blood trail for 40-50yds on a marginally shot deer. I know as well as anyone it's very easy to get excited after shooting a deer but that deer isn't yours until you've got your hands on it. If you don't see if fall or hear it fall after making what you thought was a great shot I would say assume the shot was worse than you thought. Make sure you pay attention to direction of travel and take photos of landmarks in the tree if enough light remains. As far as people being concerned about coyotes I share that concern but if you jump a bedded deer you are greatly reducing your chances of finding the deer and it will be eaten by coyotes regardless. If it's a buck I think its better to be able to salvage something rather than push it to God knows where and never recover it. I think a bigger problem is more people including myself need to be doing more to help reduce coyote numbers and shooting a few with a bow from a stand isn't probably enough. A gut shot deer is always a dead deer but if you get impatient and go after it too soon you may make a difficult task of tracking darn near impossible.
 
Go for lots of hikes after ur elbow surgery if u can walk & have “sick time”. My buddy shot one in liver last week. We waited until next mid morning..... good blood for 150 yards & completely stopped. 4 guys & we started poking around. Hour Later I did not have a good feeling. We started doing some grid searching & covering every drop of ground. 2 hours in we found him. I had walked by him by 40-50 yards. He went about 400 yards & there was no blood by him at all. Had I tried to find my buddies deer on my own- I wouldn’t have as I came so close & missed him. Need to cover every drop. That deer is dead and u will find him if u cover every drop IMO.
 
Keep at it. I hit a buck on the morning of the 5th. Initially I thought good hit but maybe a little low. I watched him walk about 10 yards after the hit and stand for 5 min with tail tucked and then just walk off without another shot opportunity. I got down and backed out.

Gave him 8 hours and headed out to look. We found the arrow about 10 yards from impact and it didn’t look good. Appeared to only get about 6” of penetration. Deer was quartering away so now I’m thinking the dreaded one lung shot. We had decent blood and started to follow it. After about 400 yards we found a bed then noticed he had bedded 4 times within about 30 yards.

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Decided to back out and try again the following morning. That evening I sat out on the ridge listening for a pack of excited coyotes that had maybe found him but nothing.

The next morning we went to last blood and continued to track but only made it about another 50 yards and lost blood completely. After all hope for finding more blood had faded we started grid searching.

We looked high and low with no sign. About 3 hours in my brother called and said he had just bumped a buck on his way back to the truck about 100 yards from where we had lost blood. We went to the spot where the buck jumped up and found another bloody bed. At this point the deer was running out of options for cover and from the sign I assumed he was hurt bad enough he wasn’t going to break it so we made the decision to back out again and let him die. With the cold temps coming that night I assumed if he wasn’t dead the following morning he would at least be weak enough that we could locate and get another arrow him.

I was wrong. The following morning we found 1 drop of blood 75 yards from the last bed and that was it. We grid searched the small ditch and pocket we assumed he wouldn’t leave for around 4 hours and left empty handed. Again that evening I went and listened for coyotes but nothing.

The following morning I was out on the ridge at daylight watching and listening for crows in a last ditch effort to figure something out but to my disappointment not a crow was spotted. At this point I’ll I could hope was that he survived it. That evening we left for Montana for a week. Upon returning from Montana we pulled cards from trail cams and to my relief he was working a scrape on the night of the 8th. He appeared to be unharmed. No visible sign of injury.

At that point I was ready to get back in the treestand. Unfortunately due to my error I used most of my rutcation searching for the deer and pouting so I would have to wait for the following weekend for redemption, or so I thought.

I was at work on the 21st when I got a phone call from my brother that he had found the deer while walking in for his afternoon hunt. After a couple “are you sure it’s him?” I was on my way to check things out. Upon arrival my first thought was that he had died within 100 yards of where we last lost blood. Obviously he wasn’t laying there when we grid searched because we have video of him alive and what we thought was well on the 8th.

My next observation was that he died basically on the side hill of an open timber pocket. He never went to cover or water to die. Basically looked like he just fell over dead. Originally we assumed he’d only been dead 1-2 days max. Unfortunately it was long enough that the meat was rancid. Typically on this farm if you have to leave a deer overnight the following morning all you find is a full body euro mount due to coyotes but this buck was basically untouched.

Upon inspection we found that the arrow went in back and low belly at a hard quartering away angle and exited low chest below the sternum. I assume he must have taken a step before the arrow got there. I pulled back the hide to check the meat and soon realized that he had died of infection. He was full of it from the base of his chin to his back quarters. Probably why the coyotes didn’t eat him.

I’m not proud of how this all happened and kind of feel like I won by default but I am thankful that he was found by pure chance and intact so that we could figure out why it happened. I will do better next time.

Good luck in your search!




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