Shot a whitetail this morning with handgun at 40ish yards in a field. Basically, everything went wrong with the scenario. He ran 90 yards, stopped and stared back for awhile. Slowly walked along the woods another 70 yards and then he went in the woods and I lost sight of him.
It's cold here, so I waited 4 hours to even look for blood. Found sparse blood from where he stopped to where he went in the woods. Lost blood at the woods. The trail in Y'd, and I went left about 30 yards. Deer jumped out of bed basically to the right of the Y and ran. He was buried in a couple downed trees. I was certainly within 20 yards of him and he let me walk by. I backed out and am now waiting until morning - so 24+ hours.
Blood was sparse but I'm hopeful that since he bedded as soon as he got into the woods, and I got that close to him that he's feeling too sick to go much farther. I would've preferred to wait even longer but snow was supposed to move in and I at least wanted to see if he was hit and get a direction of travel.
He'll likely be dead in this strip of woods that's now about 250 to the road in one direction. It's only about 90 wide but it's a deep ravine and a mess. Hopefully he didn't run miles. I'm considering trying to get in touch with a tracking dog. Been a long long time since I wounded and lost one and I hope it doesn't play out that way.
Blood from where he was bedded.
It's cold here, so I waited 4 hours to even look for blood. Found sparse blood from where he stopped to where he went in the woods. Lost blood at the woods. The trail in Y'd, and I went left about 30 yards. Deer jumped out of bed basically to the right of the Y and ran. He was buried in a couple downed trees. I was certainly within 20 yards of him and he let me walk by. I backed out and am now waiting until morning - so 24+ hours.
Blood was sparse but I'm hopeful that since he bedded as soon as he got into the woods, and I got that close to him that he's feeling too sick to go much farther. I would've preferred to wait even longer but snow was supposed to move in and I at least wanted to see if he was hit and get a direction of travel.
He'll likely be dead in this strip of woods that's now about 250 to the road in one direction. It's only about 90 wide but it's a deep ravine and a mess. Hopefully he didn't run miles. I'm considering trying to get in touch with a tracking dog. Been a long long time since I wounded and lost one and I hope it doesn't play out that way.
Blood from where he was bedded.
