Recovery mission for hit buck

[Nickofthewoods]

 

[ThinkLeicaBuck]

Last night I had a nice broad side shot at a bruiser buck a mere 38 yards away and downhill. After releasing the arrow I gave the buck 5-7 minutes to curl up and die before I started to look for him. I felt pretty confident in the shot so I thought my wait was long enough. The terrain here is nasty brushy for most part and we had a late heavy snow that downed a ton of trees last winter which made things even worse. Anyways, I searched for this buck for a while without seeing any blood trail, only going off of where I saw him run until he left my line of sight. After a bit of a search, I find the back 6” of my arrow covered in blood but nothing else. I searched for an an hour past dark and only found 1 more small drop of blood about 40 yards from the broken arrow. I started the search again this morning and spent 5 hours smashing through brush with my dad and we still didn’t find the buck. We did find one more small drop of blood about another 40 yards from the other drop but thats it. I am completely baffled. At this point I am frustrated to have wasted an animal but I am also trying to figure out what could have happened.

The shot was certainly in the front half of the body because the back half of him was blocked by an oak tree. I am using ramcat broad heads which have never allowed a buck to travel more than 100 yards after being hit. The my arrow is covered in blood which leads me to believe it was a good hit. I have been fortunate and have never needed to be a great blood tracker so I am willing to take any pointers your have. Here is a photo of the arrow and the size of the blood droplets. I just want to recover the buck at this point.

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Man.. I’m sorry your going through this. I’ve been there and luckily found the deer. I had to drop my top secret mentality and get a big group of strong hikers to recover my buck. There were 7 of us and we found him.

 

[MJB]

This is why I got a Jagdterrier!

 

[Badseed]

My dad and I tracked everything within a half mile and no buck. At this point aliens may have abducted him. More likely is that the hit wasn’t fatal and he got away only to be found by this a bear who recently showed up. After seeing the bear on camera I went back and retracked the search area slightly optimistic to cross a drag trail I could follow. Unfortunately still no luck.

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[MattB]

Steep downhill shot, perhaps it lodged low in the opposite shoulder leg with no exit. So high entry and no exit wound could result in a fatal shot with little blood. I would try to get a dog on it as soon as you can.

I killed a whitetail last year where I got full penetration (arrow stuck in the dirt) and only found a little bit of blood on the ground over the ~150 yard trail. The exit was through the back of the leg and, as the deer was running apparently the hole from the chest cavity and the exit did not line up, so very little blood hit the ground. Maybe just a table spoon or two over that distance.

 

[Cant hit em]

Were you using fixed or mechanicals ? I ask because mechanicals not opening could be the issue , a clean pass through in no mans land. Last year i found this in a buck i shot during rifle season.

 

[Badseed]

I was using a ramcat broadhead so it was certainly open. Ive had great experiences with them for years so if it was a non fatal shot it was my fault not the equipment.


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[Scoot]

Yep, as others have said.... waiting 5-7 minutes very likely cost you a beautiful buck. Doing it foolishly in the past (and getting away with it) doesn't defend a bad decision here. It's a major bummer for sure. Learn and move on is about all you can do.

 

[Wellsdw]

Were you using fixed or mechanicals ? I ask because mechanicals not opening could be the issue , a clean pass through in no mans land. Last year i found this in a buck i shot during rifle season.

I should post this on my tracking dog flyer……

 

[Wellsdw]

Piece of advice….store the number of a tracking dog handler now, before you need them. Also calll them before “grid searching “ (Hail Mary) with all your buddies.

 

[Badseed]

The buck is still alive somehow. Even though the hit was a high and a little forward, I would think the lungs would have been hit. The season doesn’t open again until next weekend so there is hope that I can get him and put him out of his likely discomfort of having an arrow stuck in him.

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[Banded_spooney]

The buck is still alive somehow. Even though the hit was a high and a little forward, I would think the lungs would have been hit. The season doesn’t open again until next weekend so there is hope that I can get him and put him out of his likely discomfort of having an arrow stuck in him.

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D zone buck? That’s a good one if so. Good luck on turning him up with a rifle next weekend

 

[Badseed]

Yep D zone


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[Firestone]

Man. Like you said just a couple inches high and forward but that should have been a dead deer. That's crazy that thing is still walking around. Good luck with the rest of season

 

[Blowdowner]

Holy moly

 

[TFrank]

This was a great murder mystery thread. Enjoyed everyone’s input top notch. Sorry op you had to go through all that craziness.

 

[Travis907]

Glad to see he’s still alive but hope you can get him killed to redeem yourself. Crazy what a deer can live through. If that was anyone of us we would of curled up and died! Deer are so resilient!

 

[BAKPAKR]

Are these even the same deer?

 

[Rob5589]

Hopefully you get the chance to put him down. Will be interesting to see if you're able to figure out what happened.

 

[Rich M]

Cant believe the deer survived that. Incredible.

Agree, 2 diff deer.