Big game wound/recovery ratio

[*zap*]

I would venture to say I am 95% or so on whitetail as far as shot at and in the cooler. Compound bow.
100% shot at and in the cooler with firearm.

 

[MNGrouser]

I cast my vote for lost 1 in 20 but my track record is better than that. I hunted into my 40's before I failed to recover anything I poked a hole in. Unfortunately I did wound a mule deer that I didn't recover when I first started hunting Montana. I was not prepared for the distances out west. I hated the feeling and endeavored to do my best to not add another to my list. I've had some lengthy white-tail tracking jobs. Once I draw blood, I owe it to the animal to put my tag on it.

I should add that I am a rifle only hunter. If I still hunted with a bow, I'm afraid my number would be higher...which is a big reason that I am NOT a bow hunter.

 

[Marbles]

Not counting hogs in Texas, I have had only one animal I pulled a rifle trigger on not be recovered. I and my hunting buddy that day who was watching my stalk from a boat both believe it was a clean miss. No blood following tracks in snow either.

In archery, I've had 2 animals with clean missis were I watched the arrow go under or over the animal. One of those my buddy arrowed a few hours later. I've not pulled the bow out this year, two clean misses told me I needed a lot more practice, and just did not make the time.

 

[Sadler]

Everyone here is better than me. I’ve completely lost five animals over the last 15 years. I lost one deer and two elk with my bow, one elk with my muzzleloader, and one bear with my rifle due to bad shot placement. Never recovered any of them. The worst was the mule deer since it was the first animal I shot with my how. I primarily hunt with a rifle now and haven’t lost an animal since that bear in 2018.

 

[Geewhiz]

Everyone here is better than me. I’ve completely lost five animals over the last 15 years. I lost one deer and two elk with my bow, one elk with my muzzleloader, and one bear with my rifle due to bad shot placement. Never recovered any of them. The worst was the mule deer since it was the first animal I shot with my how. I primarily hunt with a rifle now and haven’t lost an animal since that bear in 2018.

In all honesty, maybe not the "elites" of rokslide, but I think this is a far more accurate percentage, especially with archery hunters.


Guarantee there are guys on this forum that are either not being honest with themselves or not chiming in out of embarrassment.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

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.

The biggest deer I ever killed with my bow went right around 1/2 mile before laying down in picked corn. This was the late 90s, and my Browning compound was shooting around 200 fps. The shot was 29 yards broadside, and the NAP Thunderhead got about 10" of penetration into the near lung. I watched him run straighaway, jump a fence, cross the road, jump another fence, and continue running over a ridge out of sight. The arrow was stuck in him and was "waving" up and down as he ran away.

I gave that deer 3 hours and we found in laying down but very much alive in a picked field a 1/2 mile dogleg from where I shot him. When I approached with a nocked arrow he got up and charged me before falling over again. I shot him in the boiler room and nocked another arrow. He rolled around a couple times, breaking off both of the arrows in his vitals and attempted to get up at me again. I shot him a 3rd time through both lungs, and he finally layed down for good.

As somebody else said on here already, sometimes animals do not follow the script, and other times they are just tough SOBs.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I was so rattled by this experience that I actually forgot my bow and quiver in that field after we got him loaded. When I noticed it was gone later at home it was already dark. Fortunately I was able to pretty much drive right up to it in the morning without running it over. Craziest hunt I've ever had.

 

[Geewhiz]

Would be very interesting to see a similar thread but only for elk shot with archery equipment. Would rule out all the guys shooting deer in fields with rifles at 150 yds..

 

[RocketRob16]

In all honesty, maybe not the "elites" of rokslide, but I think this is a far more accurate percentage, especially with archery hunters.


Guarantee there are guys on this forum that are either not being honest with themselves or not chiming in out of embarrassment.

It was hard for me to be open with my numbers because prior to last season I was in the 1 in 10-20 range. Would’ve been a lot easier to click on one of those two options and forget about last year. There’s always going to be bias in polls like these but RS users in general are probably much higher in recovery rates than the average guy I would guess. I ended up on this forum for the exact reason of trying to become a better hunter.

 

[S.Clancy]

Would be very interesting to see a similar thread but only for elk shot with archery equipment. Would rule out all the guys shooting deer in fields with rifles at 150 yds..

I was literally just thinking this. I have lost 2 elk that I have high confidence died. 1 was quartered away through the guts and liver. No blood, gridded a square mile, never saw sign or him (open country). Another I think was single lung. Tracked blood over a mile and gridded for 3 days, never found him. I also never saw birds and it was pretty open, so who knows. I also shot a cow low in the brisket that bedded right away but spooked her and she just ran back and started feeding and bedded with the herd.

Others I have hit in the shoulder and recovered 25" of a 27" arrow. They lived. Based on the number of broadheads I have found in elk I shot I'm not the only one.

Overall, I am close to 1 in 15 or 20 (whole boat load of rifle kills). Rifle is just so much different than bow, especially with elk.

 

[ladogg411]

20% of you have shot more than 20 animals and never lost one? I find that hard to believe.

 

[180ls1]

Would be very interesting to see a similar thread but only for elk shot with archery equipment. Would rule out all the guys shooting deer in fields with rifles at 150 yds..

A guide at a major ranch told me the loss is around 50% with archery for pigs.

These are semi-guided hunts where a pig is a prize, not Texas style.

 

[Raghornklr]

20% of you have shot more than 20 animals and never lost one? I find that hard to believe.

It happens in over 50 big game animals, I lost one blacktail in a rain storm that ran downhill and head first into a swollen creek after the shot and was swept downstream. And 1 cow during late archery when it started snowing about 20min after the shot. So 2 in 34 years of hunting.

Remember them vividly and it's not a good feeling. Those were the only two.

 

[180ls1]

20% of you have shot more than 20 animals and never lost one? I find that hard to believe.

Agreed.

It's 1 in 4 now, or the 2nd most popular choice. Probably biased reporting. I don't see that holding in the general population.

I'd guess somewhere around 15-20% of animals are lost when looking across species and weapon types.

 

[ScreamingPotato]

20% of you have shot more than 20 animals and never lost one? I find that hard to believe.

Very possible it's only rifle/private land hunters. Not everybody chases crazy public land animals with a bow.

 

[Felix40]

In the last 10 years I think the only loss I’ve had has been a javelina I shot with a trad bow. That’s 1 in 50ish animals with a mix of trad, compound, muzzleloader, rifle.

Now, there’s been some rodeos and really close calls that I feel like only turned out good because of luck or unwillingness to quit looking. For the most part it’s, make a shot and watch them fall.

When I first started bow hunting I had an absolutely terrible track record. It took quite a while to get things figured out.

 

[MallardSX2]

I have only lost 2 big game animals in my 28 years of bowhunting that I am sure died.

1 was a bull Elk (never found him but he for sure didn't make it)
1 was a whitetail doe (found her the next day and the coyotes had stripped every piece of meat off of her)
Both were gut shot, and I am super sad that it happened as I am very particular with my shots.

The good news is that I have made a lot of great shots to make up for those 2 losses.

Pick your shots wisely and happy hunting to all of you!

 

[S.Clancy]

Rifle is 100% skewing my personal results. If I remove rifle(archery only) I'm prob 1 every 5 or 6 animals.

 

[TaperPin]

20% of you have shot more than 20 animals and never lost one? I find that hard to believe.

You make it sound easy - like we just pull out last year’s box of bullets, dust off a borrowed rifle, shoot once or twice and put the box back. lol

There’s a mindset with one shot hunters that’s not universal. From the time we could walk, the best hunters stressed the first shot - an entire lifetime spent focusing on the first shot makes it more important than it is to 95% of the other hunters. We teach kids how to do it and make fun of guys who can’t or don’t - every family get together my nephew’s girlfriend brings up how he fired a warning shot at his elk and we all chuckle. He’ll probably spray paint “Air Ball” on my truck the next time one of mine gets away.

I’m often at the range when 95% of the people are watching the game, or drinking hot chocolate. Rifle’s shoot better than 95% of what’s brought to the range and have for a couple of decades - I laugh when guys who have only had a gun for a year or two and claim it is more reliable than my Fudd rifle . I don’t have to prove a new bullet or cartridge - my stuff kills things with boring reliability. Despite the popular small caliber talk, bullet size does matter and I shoot as large a cartridge as I can accurately. Living in a windy state and shooting large volumes of ammo at varmints and rocks keeps a guy up to speed. I know within 25 yards or so what range is a no go for different positions and confirm it every month - practice the positions I don’t like more than favorite positions - I don’t see the other 95% spending as much time on positions they don’t like. My focus is getting into position to get the shot off fast, if there’s an extra few seconds all the better - the more people fiddle fuk around the more they have to rush a shot. Finally, me and my buddies shoot better than most that take animals 600+ yards, and limit ourselves to under that. The shot you pass up is as important as the poor shot that gets taken - having the good judgement to realize which is which helps.

 

[Macintosh]

I voted 1 in 20, which is closest to about 95% recovery. That's for me, my wife and my brother, who are the people I hunt with by far the most.
You know those people who say stuff like "there's two kinds of peole int his world..."? I love that. Well, I figure there's 2 kinds of people in this world.
1) The kind that either have a loss or a "could easily have been a loss", realize it's on them and make changes. Practice, dial back the shots they are willing to take, etc.
2) people who have a loss or a near loss and, out of hubris or ego or youth or peer pressure or whatever, dont change anything, or dont have the self-discipline to change anything consistently.

Bottom line, I think some of my ratio is just luck, becasue I have recovered some of the animals that could easily have been losses. Family or group culture certainly can play into this, as Taperpin says above^.

I bow hunted a lot as a kid. Not much success, but was really into it, shot 3d targets weekly from when I was about 10 after convincing my dad he "needed" to take me, etc. I stopped hunting for a few years during college and a few years after, and when I picked it up again in the late 90's I realized the area I live was better for bow hunting than gun. So I got out my dad's old 1970's Jennings bow, got a new set of arrows and the guy at the desk at Dick's sold me some 3-blade expandable broadheads. I shot a doe at 12 yards from a tree stand, and the arrow pretty much bounced out of the deer as it ran off, having penetrated less than 2" based on blood on the arrow. Tracked it with a dog tracker after I lost blood, never found it. That's on me for a likely poor shot (it's possible it hit a shoulder blade or larger bone although at the time I thought it was a good shot) and for having inappropriately mismatched equipment and not enough practice.

I replaced that bow with a modern compound and with both fixed and expandables have had good penetration since. However, I have been lucky...the next 2 deer I recovered, but I shot center mass (very rear of liver/guts, maybe 1 lung). 1 was an easy recover, it was down in 150 yards, but the hit was much farther back than I'd thought. The other we tracked alternating good and spotty blood for a long way, jumped it and found guts, left it. Came back early the next AM and it was dead 30 yards from where we jumped it. That one was a liver/gut shot, and again much farther back than I'd thought despite shooting it at 10 yards. I am counting both of those deer as recovered (both ate fine!), but the shots were both poor and could easily have been a loss if the dice landed just slightly differently. 2 points makes a line, right? Both of those experiences made me really analyze what I was doing, and on a firiends recommendation I switched to a single-pin sight which has helped a lot--I believe it was the multi-pins I was using that lead to me subconsciously having poor target focus when I was really amped-up, and ending up hitting center mass. Even though I could group well on targets, I was missing by miles even at much closer range. A concrete shot process might help too. But it really had me practicing a lot more and realizing that even though I was grooved on targets that is NOT the same as being grooved on deer. Looking back, this is a big part of why I think it's a good idea for a newer hunter to just shoot as many deer as they can, and forget about being picky about this buck or that buck until they have some experience shooting and killing numbers of animals under their belt.

A few years later I shot a deer that I hit in the spine, and lost it. It clearly heard the bow and ducked the string. That was just a hair over 30 yard shot, in practice I could put dozens of arrows in a row into a 4" circle at that range. Between that, and watching a bunch of slomo videos of whitetails jumping the string, I now limit my shots to 25 yards as a 100% hard rule, zero exceptions, because I just cant predict when they are going to jump and when they arent, so I've decided you just cannot expect your hit on a deer to land where you aim past 25 yards or so regardless of how good a shot you are, becasue it just takes too long for the arrow to get there. I have not lost an animal, and have been able to take at least one archery deer every year but one, since. I have also never lost a firearm deer or any other big game animal. Have had a couple poor shots that could have been lost that were a good wake-up call similar to above, but no actual losses.
My wife hit a ML deer in the brisket and leg, we tracked it with a dog for several miles until it jumped in a large river, and we could not pick up the track again.

That's all the losses and near-losses.

 

[9.1]

20% of you have shot more than 20 animals and never lost one? I find that hard to believe.

20% isn't a very large percentage. The OP's third paragraph says this is about groups and not individuals. This includes all big game seasons and species. Given all that, the poll results match my expectations.