Lost First Deer

Dave_S

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Dec 17, 2022
Messages
133
It took me some time before I wanted to talk about this, but I also want to put this out there for others to learn from/commiserate with.
October 30th, I was hunting a small piece of property (about 10 acres) and shot a pretty nice 8 point. This deer wasn't going to break any records, but I was really psyched. This was the first deer I ever launched an arrow at and was also the first buck I have ever shot. This is my 3rd season hunting and my first hunting archery. I had an opportunity earlier in the season on a smallish 6, but couldn't get a clear shot. Other than that, I had seen lots of bucks too small to be legal. I spotted this guy 2 nights prior at last light and was hoping to see him again. Wind was between 5-10 mph from the west and so I was anticipating movement coming in from the east. Man was I shocked when I glanced westward to see this buck working with the wind 20 yards from me. I was able to calm myself and make my shot. He was pretty much exactly broadside, maybe slightly quartering towards. I don't know if it was excitement, or fading light coupled with unlit nocks, but I did not see the impact. I did hear a very satisfying twhack right before he ran off into the brush. After I settled myself down, I looked around the shot site and saw no blood and no arrow. I had a headlamp, but headed back to my truck for a handheld light which I suspected I was going to need.
An hour and a half later I headed back to start searching, joined by the property owner. After spending some time at the shot site without find anything, we headed towards where I last saw the deer. I was able to pick up blood within about 20 yards, and by 40 yards we found my arrow, covered front to back with blood. I imagine it passed nearly all the way through and hung up right at the nock end before catching on some brush and falling out. Roughly 100 yards from where the deer was shot, we came across a bed, filled with blood. I'm sure this tells many of you how the rest of the story plays out. We spent another 4 hours following an increasingly difficult trail, until it faded completely and we called it for the night. I truly felt we must have walked past this thing and just didn't see it in the dark. I was back in the morning to look more. After several fruitless hours, I began making phone calls to try to get a hound for assistance. A tracker and hound made it out that afternoon and after going over all the evidence, his opinion was that I had likely hit the liver, possibly 1 lung. We had hoped that they would pick up the track and head the direction the blood had been heading, into a really thick, brush area of the property. Unfortunately, the trail turned and ran another 150-200 yards, right into a property line we couldn't cross, into a huge field. We attempted to get permission, but nobody was home. The next morning, we were able to get ahold of the property owner who gave us the go-ahead to look for the deer. I spent another day zig-zagging through likely bedding areas, tree lines, and basically doing my best to trip over a dead deer.
I feel like, given what had happened up to that point, that I did everything I could to recover that deer.
I made several incredibly stupid mistakes:
The biggest mistake is that I did not wait long enough. Not even close. There was a small voice in the back of my head that told me to wait longer, but it had rained all day and the forecast had more going into the night, and I was terrified that I was going to lose sign. Having had the few doe I have shot in the past expire within eye sight, I didn't know how hard/easy blood tracking would be. I will never again go after a deer that quickly unless I see it fall, regardless of concerns about sign or predators. I will continue to be haunted by the fact that if I had merely waited until morning, I would likely have found that deer 100 yards from where he was hit, laying in that bed.
I did not make a good enough shot. I did calm myself, and didn't hammer the release or jerk the shot. But I knew that my peep was starting to twist and I just can't guarantee that I took that into account when I made the shot. If I didn't, it would have moved my point of impact farther back on the deer as this shot played out, possibly being the result of the less than ideal shot placement. I'm not blaming my gear, this is on me. I convinced myself that my concerns about my string condition and peep would be able to wait until after the season. I will never make that mistake again.

I'm pretty broken up about botching my first buck. And more than a little embarrassed about the failures on my part.
I hope somebody else is able to learn from my mistakes, I know I did.
 

Yoder

WKR
Joined
Jan 12, 2021
Messages
1,704
I don't think you made any terrible decisions. The deer was well in range. 1 1/2 hrs is a decent amount of time to wait, especially since you thought you made a good shot. You even got a tracking dog. Not much else you could have done.
 

Rich M

WKR
Joined
Jun 14, 2017
Messages
5,598
Location
Orlando
Pretty much.

You gotta shake it off, just know it will likely happen again.

Archery is a game where deer sometimes get away for no good reason.
 

birdman22

FNG
Joined
Oct 5, 2023
Messages
17
It happens, but it eats at a guy. I shot a buck Oct 1, waited 4 hours and bumped him from his bed. We recovered the following day only 100 yards from that bed, but I was mad at myself the day we bumped him. Learned a couple things:
I made a good shot and that deer still lived for over 4 hours. Have to learn to give them more time, especially on marginal or unsure shots.
Have to shoot so much before the season starts that it's automatic. Been hunting 15+ years and buck fever is still a real thing.
Not saying you made any of these mistakes, just take aways for myself. You'll get another chance.
 
Joined
Jun 3, 2018
Messages
875
Location
North Carolina
If it is legal in your state, check out drone deer recovery either on youtube or the web. We used them Sunday to recover a buck that had been shot in the stomach 14 hours before. You just have to see it to believe it. These drone have high end thermal and high end regular cameras. They found our buck in 15 minutes 500 yds away in the thickest of cutdowns.
 

Musky

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Dec 27, 2021
Messages
141
Location
Minnesnowta
Stinks, and it's no fun when it happens. Not sure you could've done anything differently to change the outcome. Having said that, we all replay these scenarios over and over on what we could've or should've done. Outcomes like this will probably happen again, just the nature of hunting. But we can also learn just as much from the bad outcomes as the good outcomes I feel.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2023
Messages
72
Hate that happened—tears you up to wound a deer. I botched my first opportunity at an archery buck this year also, but thankfully was a clean miss. Keep at it man!
 
Joined
Apr 4, 2019
Messages
622
Location
WI
about 13 years ago i had a similiar thing happen but had a happy ending. i had a nice big 10 pt come by at 15 yards. i pulled back and my peep was completely side ways. he was close enough that i thought i can still hit him well. i ended up liver shooting him. i saw the arrow impact further back then i liked. he bleed like crazy though and storms were coming in a few hours. so we pushed the issue and looked 30 mins later and ignored what the blood told us. 120 ish yards later he got up and took off. we fortunatly found him the next day but we definatly should have waited longer after clearyly knowing it was a liver shot. but you gotta learn some how.
 
Joined
Oct 14, 2023
Messages
1,517
Location
Houston (adjacent) TX
I feel like it happens to every bowhunter at least once. Like you said all you can do is learn from it and prepare for the next go around. For the record I didn’t read anything that could be considered a huge mistake. Keep your head up and keep after it.
 
OP
D

Dave_S

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Dec 17, 2022
Messages
133
If it is legal in your state, check out drone deer recovery either on youtube or the web. We used them Sunday to recover a buck that had been shot in the stomach 14 hours before. You just have to see it to believe it. These drone have high end thermal and high end regular cameras. They found our buck in 15 minutes 500 yds away in the thickest of cutdowns.
I'm not sure what the regs are around me, but I will definitely look into this for the future.
 
OP
D

Dave_S

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Dec 17, 2022
Messages
133
Thanks for the responses guys. I knew it was a possibility to lose an animal, but I would sure have liked to get a few successful shots before it happened. I'll be getting ready for rifle season and making sure my peep and string situation is squared away before late archery.
 
Joined
Mar 17, 2018
Messages
500
Location
Texas
You definitely put the time in looking for him. I hate that you didn't find him, but like already mentioned it eventually happens to us all. Sounds like you learned from it, and nothing goes to waste in nature.
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2015
Messages
6,339
Location
Lenexa, KS
I agree with @Rich M, you did what you could and and should have done. So much of hunting is outside our control that stuff like this happens despite our best efforts.
 
Joined
Aug 22, 2023
Messages
20
sounds like you did everything you could. I had a very similar situation happen to me a few years ago. you don't really ever get over it, but can always learn something from it
 

OXN939

WKR
Joined
Jun 28, 2018
Messages
1,885
Location
VA
It took me some time before I wanted to talk about this, but I also want to put this out there for others to learn from/commiserate with.
October 30th, I was hunting a small piece of property (about 10 acres) and shot a pretty nice 8 point. This deer wasn't going to break any records, but I was really psyched. This was the first deer I ever launched an arrow at and was also the first buck I have ever shot. This is my 3rd season hunting and my first hunting archery. I had an opportunity earlier in the season on a smallish 6, but couldn't get a clear shot. Other than that, I had seen lots of bucks too small to be legal. I spotted this guy 2 nights prior at last light and was hoping to see him again. Wind was between 5-10 mph from the west and so I was anticipating movement coming in from the east. Man was I shocked when I glanced westward to see this buck working with the wind 20 yards from me. I was able to calm myself and make my shot. He was pretty much exactly broadside, maybe slightly quartering towards. I don't know if it was excitement, or fading light coupled with unlit nocks, but I did not see the impact. I did hear a very satisfying twhack right before he ran off into the brush. After I settled myself down, I looked around the shot site and saw no blood and no arrow. I had a headlamp, but headed back to my truck for a handheld light which I suspected I was going to need.
An hour and a half later I headed back to start searching, joined by the property owner. After spending some time at the shot site without find anything, we headed towards where I last saw the deer. I was able to pick up blood within about 20 yards, and by 40 yards we found my arrow, covered front to back with blood. I imagine it passed nearly all the way through and hung up right at the nock end before catching on some brush and falling out. Roughly 100 yards from where the deer was shot, we came across a bed, filled with blood. I'm sure this tells many of you how the rest of the story plays out. We spent another 4 hours following an increasingly difficult trail, until it faded completely and we called it for the night. I truly felt we must have walked past this thing and just didn't see it in the dark. I was back in the morning to look more. After several fruitless hours, I began making phone calls to try to get a hound for assistance. A tracker and hound made it out that afternoon and after going over all the evidence, his opinion was that I had likely hit the liver, possibly 1 lung. We had hoped that they would pick up the track and head the direction the blood had been heading, into a really thick, brush area of the property. Unfortunately, the trail turned and ran another 150-200 yards, right into a property line we couldn't cross, into a huge field. We attempted to get permission, but nobody was home. The next morning, we were able to get ahold of the property owner who gave us the go-ahead to look for the deer. I spent another day zig-zagging through likely bedding areas, tree lines, and basically doing my best to trip over a dead deer.
I feel like, given what had happened up to that point, that I did everything I could to recover that deer.
I made several incredibly stupid mistakes:
The biggest mistake is that I did not wait long enough. Not even close. There was a small voice in the back of my head that told me to wait longer, but it had rained all day and the forecast had more going into the night, and I was terrified that I was going to lose sign. Having had the few doe I have shot in the past expire within eye sight, I didn't know how hard/easy blood tracking would be. I will never again go after a deer that quickly unless I see it fall, regardless of concerns about sign or predators. I will continue to be haunted by the fact that if I had merely waited until morning, I would likely have found that deer 100 yards from where he was hit, laying in that bed.
I did not make a good enough shot. I did calm myself, and didn't hammer the release or jerk the shot. But I knew that my peep was starting to twist and I just can't guarantee that I took that into account when I made the shot. If I didn't, it would have moved my point of impact farther back on the deer as this shot played out, possibly being the result of the less than ideal shot placement. I'm not blaming my gear, this is on me. I convinced myself that my concerns about my string condition and peep would be able to wait until after the season. I will never make that mistake again.

I'm pretty broken up about botching my first buck. And more than a little embarrassed about the failures on my part.
I hope somebody else is able to learn from my mistakes, I know I did.

Man I honestly wouldn't call anything you did wrong. You had a relatively close shot, waited before starting to track, found and followed a trail and ran it down over multiple days over multiple properties. That's the level of effort a careful and ethical outdoorsman puts into a recovery.

Archery is just tough sometimes. I'm out hunting a small property this week that's been in my family for generations, grew up here and know it like the back of my hand. Because the deer are almost like wild pets and I pretty much watch them grow up, I only hunt blackpowder season here to keep the number of unrecovered animals as low as possible. No shade on bowhunting by any means- the reality is just that stuff like your story comes with the territory sometimes, even if you do everything right.
 

SloppyJ

WKR
Joined
Feb 24, 2023
Messages
1,780
I had a chip shot at a really nice buck last year with my son sitting in my lap. Blood was everywhere and slowly trickled down to nothing. I called a dog and did everything I could. I still don't know what happened to that deer and it bothers me to this day.

Point is, if you hunt, this will happen to you. It's hard because it was early in your hunting journey. But rest assured, it's part of it and we all have had it happen.
 

Erev803

FNG
Joined
Nov 5, 2023
Messages
31
I lost a doe last year bow hunting. 25 yard shot. Aimed low on her and she didn’t drop down like I thought she would. Had blood for a while then lost it. She ran in some very thick brush. Me and my son looked for hours for her and never found her. Thats the only deer I ever lost and it’s heartbreaking and mess with you. Use it as a learning experience and try and not let it mess with you.
 

Honyock

WKR
Joined
Dec 21, 2019
Messages
987
Location
Edmond, OK
Unfortunately, if you hunt long enough you will lose one and it will make you sick. Sometimes you do everything right and it still happens. Deer are weird animals, some fall over immediately and some run until they have no blood left and then run some more. I tracked a heart shot deer for over 1.5 miles and the blood trail was ridiculous. All you can do is practice (a lot) and be proficient with whatever you are using and only take good shots. A lot of lost deer are the result of "I had a bad angle, but I thought it would work".
 
Joined
Feb 15, 2019
Messages
937
Couple things here, the OP did everything he could after the shot to recover the deer. Getting a dog within a day is about as much as you can do, and property lines make for some difficult tracks sometimes.

Couple of points to be made about the preshpt:

1. Shoot more doe. I went thru this with my brother and the excitement of a good buck makes us do things in the shot that lead to less than ideal shots. The only way to fix that is kill more animals. Kill more doe. It will get your confidence up and give you the calm you need to execute a good shot at a big animals.

2. 10 acres is really small to bow hunt on…i say that as i would he very hesitant to bow hunt on 10 acres. Heres why….even a double lunged buck can run off 2-300 yards before expiring. On a 10 acre plot, this puts any property line within reach of even a well hit deer, let alone one who was gut punched or liver shot and has to bleed out instead of suffocating to death. If you can, consider gun hunting, tho it may not be legal on such a small property.

I have done a lot of math on deer running for bursts of time, and a deer at 25 mph running with a double lung hit (like a high double lung where vessel damage is less likely), and based on typical deflation taking more than a few seconds and the loss of oxygenations ability over time, will lose oxygen supply to their brain in about 20-30 seconds before they drop At that speed a deer can cover nearly 300-350 yards, not accounting for running thru woods and following trails. Add in hemodynamic instability with a good blood vessel cut, and that time goes down, but even a full sprint for 8-10 seconds (if you completely and immediately remove oxygenation from the brain) is still 100-150 yards. Not that all deer run at full sorint, but the key word here is they COULD. Set yourself up for success, and hunting 10 acres is just not, in my opinion. In the best case scenario you can drop a deer within 70 yards, but that isnt happening every time. You will eventually have one that goes way longer, more than likely most will go longer
 
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