Valkyrie pass thru with pic - dead, but almost no blood trail

[go_deep]

Shot looks fine to kill, but it does appear a little high which would lead to the blood gathering in the chest cavity instead of bleeding out.

 

[fwafwow]

Shoot looks fine to kill, but it does appear a little high which would lead to the blood gathering in the chest cavity intake of bleeding out.

View attachment 452361

I have achieved a milestone and checked off a bucket list item - one of my posts in my own thread generated a meme.

 

[fwafwow]

Blood trails can very greatly. I've shot deer and they literally spewed blood everywhere like they were dragging a hose. I've also shot them and all the blood stayed inside of them, but died within 75 yards.

Small hole = less chance of blood spillage
Big hole = great chance

I would personally shoot a much larger head at whitetails, they are easy to kill. IW Wide would be an excellent choice. If you like 3 blade BHs, QAD Exodus is a 1.25" cutting diameter 3 blade, leaves nasty holes - probably my favorite head of all time, checks all the boxes.

Thanks!

Now I’m adding to my analysis is how many Valkyrie BHs I have in my hunting closet to see how much I’ve got invested….

 

[Drenalin]

It’s not gone. It’s in the gut bucket in the walk-in fridge and I’ve asked my buddies (who are still there) to retrieve it and send a picture.

This is not a criticism, I'm genuinely curious - you're keeping all the guts? Or just the tasty bits? If the former, what is your intended use? Catfish bait?

 

[Billy Goat]

This is not a criticism, I'm genuinely curious - you're keeping all the guts? Or just the tasty bits? If the former, what is your intended use? Catfish bait?

In the south it's not uncommon to haul the deer out whole. Many take to the processor without so much as gutting.

I frequently don't gut immediately, I take them to a compost pile or something to gut, or just go ahead and do a gutless method on a tailgate.

 

[Laramie]

I bet if you go back to the trail, you could find blood splatters 6-12 feet on either side of the path she ran or several feet high on trees/vegetation she ran by. Nothing wrong with that shot at all. Guessing she sprinted at the shot. Lungs working hard expel blood splatters quite a ways.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

In the south it's not uncommon to haul the deer out whole. Many take to the processor without so much as gutting.

I frequently don't gut immediately, I take them to a compost pile or something to gut, or just go ahead and do a gutless method on a tailgate.

Very interesting, I had no idea. We've always gutted them on the spot pretty much unless it's super cold out and want to get out of the wind in my machine shed. Typically always keep the hearts unless shot to heck and some guys fight over the livers.

 

[Drenalin]

In the south it's not uncommon to haul the deer out whole. Many take to the processor without so much as gutting.

I frequently don't gut immediately, I take them to a compost pile or something to gut, or just go ahead and do a gutless method on a tailgate.

I'm a hair south of you. Only time I ever carried off the guts was when I took a couple does off a local dairy farm. He wanted to toss them in the truck whole and gut them back at one of his barns. I assumed he just didn't want to attract coyotes. Otherwise, I've always left the guts wherever the deer falls. I can see the convenience of doing it with the deer hanging now that you've pointed out the obvious though.

 

[Sccritterkiller]

In the south it's not uncommon to haul the deer out whole. Many take to the processor without so much as gutting.

I frequently don't gut immediately, I take them to a compost pile or something to gut, or just go ahead and do a gutless method on a tailgate.

This...the private land I hunt here the farmer doesn't want gut piles left he says it draws in hogs and yotes...so we pull them out hole..the local processor has a trough with a winch set up...they have big set of vice grips with a washer welded to them..throw them in there cut the hide around the neck get a wad of it in the vice grips...hook up the winch hit the button...its actually faster than this video.

 

[fwafwow]

I bet if you go back to the trail, you could find blood splatters 6-12 feet on either side of the path she ran or several feet high on trees/vegetation she ran by. Nothing wrong with that shot at all. Guessing she sprinted at the shot. Lungs working hard expel blood splatters quite a ways.

We could have missed something, but the blood spots were so few and far between that we had to fan out after almost every one to determine the direction in which she was headed. At one point I would stand at the last drop and my buddy would be walking in about a 270 degree arc from me, often going 10-20 feet aways. Then we would trade places. Yes, she sprinted when shot, and she was angled so that I thought she was going to do a face plant. The arrow went through, but I think when it hit the dirt the tail end must have still been in her, as it ended up breaking off at the front of the shaft.

As for the gutting, yes, at least in the part of GA where we are, the processors are happy to gut the deer for you, for a nominal extra charge. The place I'm hunting is pretty accessible by pickup truck, so after a drag, it's easy to throw the deer into the truck bed and take it to the processor - IF you kill and recover early enough to get there on time.

My buddy got tired of racing the clock to meet the processor (especially because he gets up around 2am to go to work pretty much every day) so he installed a walk-in fridge. Now we throw the deer in the truck, take it back to the house and hang it by the back legs and gut it (not nearly as quickly as the guy in that video). The gut bucket is used because we don't want the guts lying near the house. The other night we were in such a hurry to get finished (it was late, the deer was covered in hundreds of ticks, which made us think we were too), and the guts dropping out makes the heart examination a bit more of an effort than when you have the deer on flat ground. And we kept the gut bucket in the fridge so my buddy could dump them later.

He did promise to dig through the bucket - waiting on the results.

 

[Fire_9]

How sharp was the head?

 

[fwafwow]

How sharp was the head?

Sharp enough to shave the hair on the back of my arm.

 

[Fire_9]

Sharp enough to shave the hair on the back of my arm.

That’s always my indicator too. Never trust an archer going into September with hairy arms….

 

[Blockcaver]

That's why I like a 1.5" 3 blade mechanical. Better blood trails than the 1-1/8" 3-blade replaceable blade heads (Rocky Mt Titanium) I shot for a number of years

 

[Marbles]

Sharp enough to shave the hair on the back of my arm.

Could be the problem, sharp blades make very clean cuts that can stick back together. A rougher edge (but still sharp) will be less likely create a cut that seals itself. I have heard that 800 grit is as fine as one should sharpen to for a broad head.

Edit: Or so I have been told. Personal experience with accidental cuts to myself agrees, but that hardly counts as data.

I should also clarify, 800 grit is not dull, it just gives some microscopic tooth to the edge and while it will cut some hair, it will not shave clean.

Edit again: I've encountered some good reasons to disregard the above and go for a polished edge.

 

[fwafwow]

Could be the problem, sharp blades make very clean cuts that can stick back together. A rougher edge (but still sharp) will be less likely create a cut that seals itself. I have heard that 800 grit is as fine as one should sharpen to for a broad head.

Edit: Or so I have been told. Personal experience with accidental cuts to myself agrees, but that hardly counts as data.

I should also clarify, 800 grit is not dull, it just gives some microscopic tooth to the edge and while it will cut some hair, it will not shave clean.

Thanks Marbles. The blades are as sharp as they come from Valkyrie - I didn't sharpen them more. As far as being able to cut the hair on the back of my arm, they can, but not as easily as the knives that I sharpen with that as my intended outcome. They also failed pretty miserably at the paper-edge cutting test.

 

[Marbles]

Thanks Marbles. The blades are as sharp as they come from Valkyrie - I didn't sharpen them more. As far as being able to cut the hair on the back of my arm, they can, but not as easily as the knives that I sharpen with that as my intended outcome. They also failed pretty miserably at the paper-edge cutting test.

It is also possible it was a fluke. Was the chest cavity full of blood & clots? If not, my guess is you somehow missed cutting any of the great vessels and the deer probably died from some mechanism other than hemorrhage, such as a pneumothorax.

The only way to decrease the odds of something like that is larger blades, but that comes with trade offs. Not sure a data point of one is worth changing things up over, however it is certainly enough to shake confidence, and that could be reason enough.

 

[fwafwow]

Completely possible it was a fluke, and there was a lot of blood in the chest. Definitely a small sample size (the smallest!). I'm still waiting on my buddy to empty the gut bucket and send me a picture of the heart, which I will post here if there is any damage.

I am looking at a larger blade, but I'm also (for once) not going to immediately try to change up my gear. I am very happy with the shot placement, so I should count my blessings. (Yes, it was a very short shot, but I've had some physical challenges and pretty severe target panic, so any improvement is savored.)

 

[Marble]

I butcher around 12 lambs a year, 8 -10 deer, some bears, pigs and a few elk. With the exception of the elk,we have a pulley set at the house and one at the property. We always prep the legs and get the skinning started, cut off the head, hang, skin then gut into a container. It makes for much cleaner carcasses.

From laying hands on an animal to having it ready for the fridge, usually 20 minutes.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

 

[Marbles]

Completely possible it was a fluke, and there was a lot of blood in the chest. Definitely a small sample size (the smallest!). I'm still waiting on my buddy to empty the gut bucket and send me a picture of the heart, which I will post here if there is any damage.

I am looking at a larger blade, but I'm also (for once) not going to immediately try to change up my gear. I am very happy with the shot placement, so I should count my blessings. (Yes, it was a very short shot, but I've had some physical challenges and pretty severe target panic, so any improvement is savored.)

With a lot of blood in the chest (meaning a large vessel was cut) my guess is due to some uncontrollable reason the exit wound sealed off. Could be due to position at the moment of pass through. If the skin was pulled in one direction, then slid back to its natural position this can seal the chest cavity as the wound channel in the chest wall does not align with the wound channel in the skin and subcutaneous tissue.