Shot bull. Having a hard time finding him.

[KenLee]

For general whitetail advice, probably

But elk, well I'm certainly rethinking that. They can, will, and do go uphill.

It also seems if the shot is less than ideal but still fatal, a straight line exit from the scene of the shot is often followed by a buttonhook, in any direction they feel like.

Elknut mentioned he's seen them go back to where they'd been before the shot. That resonates with me and I'll keep that in mind for the future.

About 15 years ago, I made a bad one lung, liver and gut shot with muzzy fixed 3 blade on a decent whitetail buck at the creek 600 yards behind my house.
Rascal ran down the creek then out of sight into thick 5 yr old cutover.
Found him 575 yards uphill in center of my backyard. He had ran a half circle. Guts had plugged exit hole and I'd lost blood. Almost tripped over him in the dark as I went home to get fresh flashlight batteries. I've never had another deer run that far using the old school muzzy heads. Worked out well, as I didn't have to drag him.

 

[Laramie]

It was through and through, pictured was the exit side of the first shot.



It defys anything I would believe.

Do you have a pic of the entry side?

 

[LostArra]

Things aren't always as they seem with archery hits...

This pretty much sums up all difficult archery recoveries and even some simple ones.

 

[Billy Goat]

Do you have a pic of the entry side?

No, I do not. It was at almost same spot.


I don't think this is at all a frequent occurrence, don't know what the chances are, I'd be guessing 1 in 100k? Likely more.


That should be a kill shot 100% of the time, nothing wrong with the broadhead, everything seemed normal, just deer wasn't found. I'd expect a field point to kill if the deer was hit where it was hit.


I have had livestock with pretty intense injuries recover without much treatment, things that aren't supposed to happen. Never a hole through the lungs, but throats ripped out, hams eaten off to include vulva and anus, ended up not only living, but continued as breeding stock.

Then had them die of the dumbest things.

Every animal is different, every animal reaction is different. Just because something is mortaly wounded doesn't mean it goes downhill, it seems more frequent for sure, but I have had elk run back up a mountain and crash infront of me after running down.

 

[Marble]

It was through and through, pictured was the exit side of the first shot.



It defys anything I would believe.

I never say never. There is just too much weird stuff that happens. I have read about stuff like above but never seen it. I wish there was a really good direction of the area where the arrow went through just to see what happened.

I have seen my own bullets do really weird things. Not my arrows though.

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

 

[WiscoHoundsman]

I shot a bull last year rifle hunting in Colorado 48 that had a broad head stuck above the shoulder into the back strap/neck area. Must have been there for a year or so as there was no muscle damage except for the puss ball around the broad head. No arrow shaft was present. He was also missing an eye. Tough life for a 3.5year old bull. Wish I would have taken some pictures of it.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

That’s archery hunting. I respect your decision to lay the bow down and get to searching. It’s the right thing to do.

 

[Kimber Tracks]

Neither of us have Facebook.


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