Missed/non-recovered game

[doughnut]

Got into a discussion with coworkers about deer that they either missed, or they shot and were unable to recover. I understand if you hunt you are going to eventually miss/lose a few, but the numbers just seem high to me during our conversation. Some guys miss/lose more deer in a hunting season than I have in my entire hunting career. One guy was 1 for 4 in three weeks.

I have had many conversations with these guys about hunting over the years, and they do not strike me as the type of guys to just aim at hair and blast away hoping to get a kill, but I could be wrong.

Given I probably do not hunt as much as most. I average a couple hunts a week. Usually shoot a couple to put in the freezer every year and maybe a third if it is a good one. Guess I would have more opportunity to miss/lose more deer if I actually shot at more deer? I have always been super selective with my shots though.

I'm exclusively talking about rifle hunting at relatively short range (less than 100 yards 90% of the time) in this thread. I could understand a little more if it were bow hunting or long-range hunting. Although this thread is talking about deer hunting, I was wondering if this type of thing was common to all types of big game hunting. It just boggled my mind because I thought the number was alot higher than I expected from talking with others. Probably happens more than most admit.

 

[jimh406]

I hit one deer that I didn't recover in my life. I'm fairly certain it hit the shoulder blade and stopped. It bled for 1/2 mile or so. I don't know if another hunter got it, or it stopped bleeding. It may have just recovered. That was odd for a bow shot. In hind sight, I thought the broadhead blew up. It was a Satellite with removable blades. It was about 7 yards at ground level. I switched to Bear Razorheads after mainly for penetration.

I think if people don't recover regularly, they should quit hunting or gain skills. I still have never missed with a rifle, but I also grew up shooting squirrels with a .22, so any big game is relatively large in comparison.

 

[gabenzeke]

I've missed one deer and wounded two that weren't recovered. That covers the entirety of my hunting career which is almost 30 years now. One buck that wasn't recovered was due to a pheasant hunter hunting right through the area where my buck went to lay down, so I feel like that one wasn't my fault. But I am pretty selective about my shots. Still lose sleep over all three.

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[Rob5589]

Sad to say but, there are many that think they just need to get an arrow/bullet into something and it will die or at least slow down for another shot. I've hunted with guys like that.

 

[Pony Soldier]

Granted I hunt where few others do but I don't think I have lost but three in 59 years and that was after I tracked them for at least 4 miles and they quit bleeding. I can only think of one of someone elses that I found that had been shot and lost and that was when I was 12 or 13.

Of blood trails I crossed maybe two. One was a bull headed up with tracks of two folks hot on his heels. Another was a nice bull I encounted about 9 miles in. No man tracks in the area but after he would run he would cough and leave a red mist on the snow. I tracked him for another 4 miles but had to quit in the late afternoon in order to get back to camp before midnight. He never laid down or slowed down. I guessed he had been shot with an arrow or punctured in a fight. He was in an extremely remote area even for me.

 

[insanelupus]

Some folks are just more diligent than others it would seem.

 

[Mosby]

I've missed three deer in my life but never lost any after I shot. I can remember each one of them like it was yesterday. I've never missed or lost an elk.....yet.

 

[Yoder]

Out of around 30 deer, I've had three that I couldn't find with a rifle. Two were when I was about 14 with some junk reloads my dad made. One of his friends recommended bullet heads that were super accurate. Turns out the didn't expand at all. They punched holes like FMJ bullets. My dad had to shoot one buck 4x before it dropped using the same bullets. The third one I lost went on to private we weren't allowed to access or I might have recovered it. I've only ever missed one.

I think some guys get super excited and blow it. My one uncle would wound deer a lot and he was a pretty good shot. We eventually figured out he was so pumped up when he got the deer in the scope he would just shoot. Not even paying attention to the crosshairs. He didn't even realize he was dong it. He thought his scope was messed up.

 

[Fitzwho]

I have clean missed several animals. But animals that I know that I have hit and not recovered, is 2, ever. Both doe whitetails. I’ve killed 20+ whitetails over the years in Texas, and 11 animals out west over the last 6-7 years.

 

[ODB]

Sad to say but, there are many that think they just need to get an arrow/bullet into something and it will die or at least slow down for another shot. I've hunted with guys like that.

Yup. “Hit ‘em once, then I’ll follow up and finish them off.”

A recipe for disaster and unnecessary suffering.

 

[WV Mountaineer]

So many people think that rifle hunting is easy. Well, it might be setting over a food plot or out west where you can see. But, woods hunting is far different.


Deer don’t stand around posing for the shot. Deer don’t cooperate in anyway for the shot for that matter. So, adding in deer moving, in thick timber, and the success so many boast about, starts dropping rapidly.

I’m not taking up for the OP’s friends. And, their success rate seems pathetically low. But, you can’t base an assumption on a years worth of data. Or, what people say.


With that said, I’ve never lost a deer shot with a rifle. But, I’ve shot them multiple times with big rifles before killing them. And, as far as I can remember, I’ve only missed one. That was this year. About a 100 yards hard shot through a small window. And, then flat missed the same deer at 40 yards with nothing between us but air, after being startled and running close from the first shot.

I don’t know how many deer I’ve killed. I’ve traveled and hunted them a bunch. And, I’ve killed a bunch on crop damage too. The one thing I can say is a whitetail deer in thickly covered terrain, is a ghost at best. Put him at 50 yards moving through quick and you might shoot at him about 20% of the time. So, when you do get the opportunity, you shoot him where you can, when you can. Then do what’s called for.

That’s the rifle hunting I know. It’s a close range game with seconds to see, determine legality, then shoot. On every encounter. So, things ain’t always pretty.

FWIW, if you are hunting a couple times a week, you are hunting 90% more than average hunters get too. So, that might explain your better success this year.

 

[shader112]

I've killed probably 75 deer and lost 6 or 7. A couple bow shots in the shoulder, and a few shotgun hits that were bad. So call it 8-10%. It happens, 1 for 4 is pretty bad though especially if using a rifle.

 

[Marble]

There are a lot of people that do not take the time, or put in the effort, to learn and properly recover game. People are not patient, are inherently lazy and also lack knowledge.

Lots of guys are afraid the dark. Seriously... they really can't handle being in the woods after the sun is down.

In my life I can think of 1 my dad lost (scope was way off), 3 I have lost (2 rifle 1 archery) 1 my wife lost (atchery) and one bull my buddy lost but probably survived.

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[MallardSX2]

The buck I missed with my bow when I was 17 years old haunts me 21 years later….I’ve had nightmares of that deer to this day.


Hell fire, that was a big damn buck!

 

[MTPipeliner]

Ive personally never lost a deer, elk, or antelope that I hit, but I have missed several. About 30 years of hunting and probably 75ish animals killed. One doe i shot this year I never would have recovered if there wasn’t snow on the ground.

My wife lost a buck that was hit with a rifle about 10 years ago, she’s hunted about 20 years and maybe 30-40 animals.

My youngest son started hunting this year and made two picture perfect shots, one at 75 yards and one at 200. He hit another doe at 75 that we never found, just a tiny amount of blood with snow on the ground. He also hit a small buck early in the season, knocked it down and it jumped back up and took off, no snow, we found a couple spots of blood and spend the next day looking all over for it but never recovered it.

Buddy of mine has way higher non recovered numbers, I can think of three elk with a bow that he hit but never recovered .

One of the first elk I killed had been hit by someone else. I found three bullets from a small caliber rifle in his shoulder, none of them penetrated the rib cage, he was limping and had a pretty nasty infection in that leg but was still up and moving.

A lost animal can happen to anyone, but if you’re careful with your shots and persistent with tracking wounded animals you should be able to keep your numbers of lost animals pretty low. Snow also really helps with the ability to find blood so if your seasons are late I think you’ve got an advantage.

 

[303TrophyHusband]

I've passed on many really good animals over the years with my bow because a good shot opportunity didn't present itself, I've fancied myself to be pretty ethical, probably even a little sanctimonious about it, and judgmental of others to be honest...until the last couple years...I've had a bad string of what I thought were great shots and then ended up finding nothing, it's happened twice, first one I know I double lunged, had a pass through, found the arrow, deer didn't even really run away, just sort of walked off and out of sight, figured he'd lay down and die, waited him out for a couple hours and couldn't ever even find blood. This year I hit one, was certain it was a good hit, found what I thought to be good blood but couldn't find my arrow, tracked it for 5.5 hours and the trail finally petered out and then it started raining and I lost everything. Sometimes it just happens, and it sucks, and I try to get better

 

[Billy Goat]

I think 10% of elk hunters do 90% of the killing.


I also think 10% do 90% of the wounding.

Different 10%'ers.

 

[rayporter]

almost every year i find a dead deer that someone has not recovered. this year i found a 9 point that got stuck in a fence and died. the season is not over.

 

[Donny Land]

I've been deer hunting for almost 40 years, have only ever lost one deer with a rifle, I was 11yrs old, but like some one else posted, I squirrel hunted pretty much everyday that I could growing up with a .22, my dad was a stickler about shooting them in the head, so I became a pretty good shot. As an adult I've lost two deer with a bow, and shot the biggest deer of my life with a bow two years ago that I never recovered....makes me sick to this day, side note, I did get pics of said deer 2 months later alive and well, so not sure it counts.... still makes me sick though. LOL!!

1:4 ratio is pretty bad in my opinion, they need more time behind the trigger, or need to work on their "deer" fever! I know things happen, but we owe it to the animal as hunters to make the most ethical shot we can.

 

[TheHammer]

All 3 of the white tails I’ve lost were Boone and Crockett caliber deer. 2 were on the same day, in confusion of thinking the second was the first. That day will haunt me my entire life, while it educated me to the fullest extent and a lot of bad things occurred in the process. They went onto neighboring land off the public and were recovered by land owners. I was allowed to see the bucks, as they were in the back of the farmers truck. The same general area as that situation unfolded, 11 months later I single lung hit a booner with my bow. Which was later harvested in rifle season, chasing a doe like nothing was wrong. All 3 scenarios I blame myself, granted my arrow/broadhead combo changed as did my rifle and bullet opinions. Haven’t had any issues since. Some learning curves in life have to hit you so hard you’ll never repeat them, just unfortunately it’s at the expense of a living creature in this regard. We all have stories,,,, when I was 12 I encountered a guy who shot over 20 deer opening weekend, he never recovered any of them because “they didn’t fall over where he shot them so he thought he missed”, thought the old man was gonna make Jesus judge this man’s sole that day. My family was doing a deer drive and we found over 20 of them 200-250yds from where he shot them all. We tagged as many as we could, hauled them the 3 miles out. Contacted the warden. Not everyone walks around with a code of ethics, not everyone was shaped with a moral foundation.