Big game wound/recovery ratio

[Fatcamp]

My team has killed about 20 big game animals since we started this journey. Lost the first archery deer I ever shot at and it has crippled my ability to shoot at deer with a bow.

Found it the next spring and it is hanging in my garage.

Other than that they have all come home.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

I am a rifle hunter and am pretty picky about my shot selection. I also practice a lot. I have never not recovered an animal I shot. I have made bad shots and had to track them down and finish them, but never lost one. I am probably just lucky…

 

[Billy Goat]

Enough to keep me humble, but not what I'd view as unethical.

 

[sierracharlie338]

Ive lost one doe with a bow. Arrow was high and too far forward never found blood. One other deer bounced an arrow off his back and had some hair come off but no blood. Those are the only two non recoveries for me in 30 years and hundreds of deer taken.

 

[RocketRob16]

Looking at the poll results compared to my own really makes me evaluate what’s going on with my own situation. First thought is that pure excitement has led to most of my non-recoveries. Not all of them but most. For you guys that are on the other end of the spectrum, are you fighting nerves/excitement before the shot? Are you going through a process to calm yourself prior to killing the trigger?

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

4 Archery whitetails in 27 years of hunting them with a bow. Every one of them hurt and made me sick thinking about them suffering. Thats out of roughly 70 does/bucks during that timeframe.

I don’t recall ever losing one with a gun, but helped out on some long and unsuccessful tracking jobs with buddies.

 

[Wheels]

I think with social media we are hearing about a lot more unrecovered animals, but bad shots have been happening forever.

 

[Boarmaster]

I have been hunting deer and hogs in areas with long seasons and liberal bag limits since 1986. I have shot well over 120 deer and several hundred hogs. I can recall losing only three deer and two hogs that I could positively identify as wounded that I failed to recover. My hunting has been mostly closer shooting and long range for me is anything over 200 yards. So that probably makes a big difference. Plus I’m a lazy bastard and don't like missing happy hour back at camp because I’m stumbling around in the woods after dark looking for my deer. So I make sure I anchor them good and shoot them with enough gun. I aint a trick shooter. Not really even that great of a shot. In fact I’m probably sorry bushwhacker and a marginal hunter. I eat pretty good tho…….

 

[Boarmaster]

A tangent from this thread last year. It popped into my mind when I was in WY last weekend and came across a few fres pronghorn carcasses. https://rokslide.com/forums/threads/how-often-do-you-find-unrecovered-animals.334329/

Also to continue on the current wounded animals threads. I am a bit surprised by the attitudes expressed by some, especially with how they contrast with what is expressed in the thread about Australian buffalo bow hunting.

For you AND your immediate hunting group/family/friends how many animals are you wounding per recovery? Big game animals only.

Do you think hunters should/can do better?

Most deer wounded and not recovered on our lease are from a few of our guys that bow hunt. I’m not against bow hunting just I notice as a percentage there are more not recovered in bow season. At least that the guys are admitting to.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Looking at the poll results compared to my own really makes me evaluate what’s going on with my own situation. First thought is that pure excitement has led to most of my non-recoveries. Not all of them but most. For you guys that are on the other end of the spectrum, are you fighting nerves/excitement before the shot? Are you going through a process to calm yourself prior to killing the trigger?

There are always nerves/excitement for me. If there wasn't I wouldn't be doing it. For archery it comes down to shooting as many arrows in the off season as possible at a 3d target from my stand. I vary distance and target presentation from broadside to quartering away/to, etc... The more you practice in real world scenarios on a realistic target, the better prepared you will be at the moment of truth. I also don't obsess over horns, and if its a mature buck with a big body, swollen neck, and representative rack, I will shoot him. This makes the decision easier, and allows me to focus on the shot and not the horns.

Gun hunting is usually from a blind, stand, or ambush spot. In these situations there is more distance and time usually, and once the decision to shoot is made, the offseason practice/process kicks in...

 

[sndmn11]

Looking at the poll results compared to my own really makes me evaluate what’s going on with my own situation. First thought is that pure excitement has led to most of my non-recoveries. Not all of them but most. For you guys that are on the other end of the spectrum, are you fighting nerves/excitement before the shot? Are you going through a process to calm yourself prior to killing the trigger?

This is exactly why I started this poll, and I am really happy to see someone openly wanting to discuss improving. Thanks!

 

[TaperPin]

I’m naturally a very nervous shooter because of putting so much time and effort into preparing for those few seconds right before the trigger pull - so much that my brain goes to mush and however I train is exactly what I do - it helps that I have over focus issues and shoot often imagining it’s at game. In my teens there were a number of crappy shots - clean misses and gut shots, luckily most were recovered. As an adult I’ve focused on eliminating bad shots by practicing enough to have a good feel for max range with different positions/conditions and have missed 1 out of 30, and I’m ok with that.

Anyone can adjust personally induced limits to increase or decrease their averages - but it’s not linear, and the closer someone gets to perfect, the number of animals actually taken goes way way down.

We make fun of whale huggers, but we’re no different - we value cleanly taking a 380 point elk and if it’s not recovered or poached it feels personal as if that person was killing whales, but few of us loose sleep over a whitetail doe in over crowded conditions that isn’t recovered or Billy Bob’s great grand pops shoots it in the head with a .22 lr from the front porch in a questionable legal gray area. A trophy buck shouldn’t be any more deserving of a peaceful end than a prairie dog, but we’ll blast at a varmint 10 times, blow it’s legs off and not think twice if it crawls back in the hole. Most whale huggers have mouse traps. I prepare to feel 99% confident at the shot of a big game animal, with 1/30 miss rate, because it seems to produce the best odds of actually recovering it. If lobbing 10 bullets poorly aimed bullets was more effective I’d probably do that, but it’s not more effective. Every shooter that brags about having to spot their shots and walk them in, will be full of stories of non recovered animals - they are simply fooling themselves. If a stationary animal can’t be hit square, the odds of a moving animal being hit on the second shot go way way way down - most guys have no clue how far to lead an animal at distance and the ones that try never seem to tell those stories, because they don’t turn out well.

More than anything this post reminds me why I don’t care to hunt with slob hunters or whale huggers.

 

[9.1]

I shot a buck with my bow last year that ran over 1/4 mile and went into private property that I was denied permission to access. There was a ton of blood all the way to the property line. I keep thinking it must have been a poor shot for it to run that far.

 

[Coveyleader]

Big difference between archery and rifle for the most part for obvious reasons.

 

[Beendare]

I've been hunting mostly with a recurve...and the only critter I "Lost" with that bow in over a dozen years hunting was a pig I drilled center mass and it dragged himself 70y into a 2 acre poison oak patch on my buddies ranch.

I have no doubt the hog was dead on his feet. The shot was quartering away slightly so the arrow pounded the off side shoulder with the arrow staying in him...which pushed him just enough. He was literally bleeding like a stuck pig. I know I could have recovered that pig...but I would have suffered greatly crawling through that poison oak- so I left him.

I have had an elk moved on a long 70y shot-shoulder- I lost about 20 years ago...and a bear about 15 y ago that turned toward me on the shot-35y- and the arrow caught him on the tip of the shoulder with 3" of penetration and literally bounced out.

In the many decades, I have (mostly-grin) learned shot locations, when to shoot, when to pass and practiced diligently with my weapon and it has made all the difference.

 

[Geewhiz]

I'm gonna catch a ration of shit for this I'm sure but its the truth. I've lost 4 bulls over 19 years of archery hunting. I found 3 of them, all several days later, and the other I have zero Idea what happened to him.

Of the 3 that I recovered, all were 10 ring double lung shots, and that I am 100% certain. One went 1.25 miles up and over 3 ridges and died. One went 750 yards up hill, and died not too far down the other side of the ridge, and one went 600 yards up hill and died in a thicket. All shots that I would have though would have resulted in a dizzy wobbly elk within 50 yards. All different broadheads for anyone wondering. I really don't know what conclusion to draw from these events, other than elk are insanely tough animals and sometimes they don't follow the script.

I have made seemingly worse shots several times that have resulted in elk that died immediately. There is nothing I would have done differently in any of those events leading up to those shots and I put the arrows where I wanted them. Very, very frustrating when you do everything right and you know you have a dead bull laying somewhere but you just cant find them.


The one that I never found was a frontal that went right where I wanted it, with great penetration. Found no blood, no evidence anywhere, and never saw any sign of him again after looking for several days. I will never attempt that shot again.

 

[ScreamingPotato]

Looking at the poll results compared to my own really makes me evaluate what’s going on with my own situation. First thought is that pure excitement has led to most of my non-recoveries. Not all of them but most. For you guys that are on the other end of the spectrum, are you fighting nerves/excitement before the shot? Are you going through a process to calm yourself prior to killing the trigger?

Yes, when an animal is approaching and seems a shot is imminent I start repeating to myself inside my head "all business" "all business" and for some reason that keeps my wits about me, then I can lose my shit after the shot. I have no idea why it works but it does.

 

[intunegp]

I voted "1 in about 20" because by my best guess I've killed between 20 and 40 animals and have lost one. I'm hoping the 1 in 5 and even 1 in 10 guys are voting based on a smaller number of animals taken, not a lifetime of 80 or 90% recovery rates.

Due to the places I hunt and the way I go about it, opportunities are often very short lived. There's generally not a ton of time to sit and stare at an animal, evaluate the situation over and over and over in my head, think about all the little details that could go wrong, etc. The lack of time to get nervous helps a lot...from the time I spot an animal until I pull the trigger it's all business. Identify the animal, decide I'm going to shoot it, get setup, get a range if needed, bang.

Occasionally the opposite happens and I have all the time in the world. That is when it's really important for me to remind myself that I've shot thousands of rounds in my life, I am a good shot, I know what I need to do to get it done, and I can be excited when I'm standing by a dead animal because it's not done yet. Both my last elk and deer gave me probably 15-20 minutes of watching them, deciding whether or not they were a shooter, picking the spot or spots I potentially wanted to shoot them in and what my position might be for each shot, and waiting for them to walk to one of them.

 

[rayporter]

nearly every year i find at least one animal someone else did not recover.

 

[Yotekiller]

I couldn't even guess how many animals I've harvested. I've wounded and never recovered exactly 3 white tails. All of them were many years ago when I was a kid using archery equipment experimenting with deeper penetration broadheads. I think I have become much better at getting a second shot and finishing off animals over time. Never shot an animal with a rifle that wasn't recovered.

The last few years I have hunted with a few guys that easily wounded several animals for each one recovered. They showed a lack of respect for the animals and lobbed one at anything they seen and never bothered looking for blood. I stopped hunting with them. After voicing my opinion about what they were doing. They would always call me the asshole.