Deer hunting ethics

[HairyScandinavian]

I think i hit him behind the lungs but before the guts based on blood and how the deer reacted. Everytime i have hit an animal with this combo it doesnt go more than 50 yards with better blood than i had in this instance.

Which way was the wind blowing and how confident are you in the wind call? Between that spot should be liver and he'd be dead by now, it doesn't stop bleeding. A little high and you went above the spine and backstrapped him.

 

[NVUplandHunter]

I think i hit him behind the lungs but before the guts based on blood and how the deer reacted. Everytime i have hit an animal with this combo it doesnt go more than 50 yards with better blood than i had in this instance.

so a real solid liver shot then? Man i dont know.. but like others have said, in the end its your tag and your gut you gotta live with. That sounds like a lethal shot to me, but it also sounds like you did a hell of a lot of work to try and find it.

at this point im guessing aliens took your buck haha

 

[blacktailcentral]

Wind was sub 2mph and at my back. Deer was quartering to me. Looking downhill, i was shooting across the canyon, him being uphill of me

 

[blacktailcentral]

Also we did find a piece of bone fragment, on the blood trail, we figured it was rib

 

[HairyScandinavian]

Wind was sub 2mph and at my back. Deer was quartering to me. Looking downhill, i was shooting across the canyon, him being uphill of me

Also we did find a piece of bone fragment, on the blood trail, we figured it was rib

He fall at the shot and get up? If what you're saying about the tracking job is true I can't imagine not finding him with a liver hit. Nothing brown or gross in the blood, all bright red? Angling down it would be possible to hit high in the straps and chip some bone off that upper spine but I can't imagine he wouldn't hit the ground for a bit with the shock on the spine.

 

[Chris in TN]

Also we did find a piece of bone fragment, on the blood trail, we figured it was rib

I'd say that finding any sort of bone fragment on a quartering-to shot would be unlikely, at least from a rib. I'm sure it could happen, just not likely. A leg bone fragment from a lower hit would be more likely. I've seen leg-hit deer bleed like that before - it's been 20+ years now but I trailed one the better part of a mile like that once. He was seen later, still alive.

A deer hit anywhere in the chest cavity at an angle the way you described, that gets into one lung and the liver - well, really, any shot that gets into the liver at all - will result in a dead animal, and usually within a couple hundred yards. It's hard to imagine finding an actual rib fragment and the animal not dying fairly soon.

It sounds to me like you hit a leg. Obviously I wasn't there and don't know, nor do I know what I'd do in your shoes, but I suspect I'd keep hunting.

 

[blacktailcentral]

He kicked and ran right away, doe nearby didn’t move.