Weird recovery!

[kfili]

I have seen some weird stuff happens while hunting but had a crazy experience this weekend. I hunted Friday evening and around 3 a doe comes walking down the trail at 35 yards, calm as can be. I draw while her head is behind a tree, she steps out and I execute what I thought was a perfect shot. I hear the pop of the arrow hitting the deer, and the smack of the arrow hitting a tree on the other side. She does the mule kick and starts to run off. I watch excitedly, expecting her to fall, then she just starts walking. I grab my binos, and watch her as long as I could without being able to see her too good. At this point I'm assuming I must have missed. I wait about an hour get down and find my arrow in a tree, with dried (what I thought was) guts, it was very faint. I look for blood all over point of impact and where I saw her run and walk off too. I did not find a single drop in over 3 hours of looking. I finally give up assuming I gut shot and killed a deer I can't recover.
The next morning my I go back out to start grid searching hoping to get lucky. My buddy is hunting about .25/.5 mile away and at around 10 he calls and says he sees one lying clearly dying, he is able to go over and slit its throat. He asks if it was mine and I ask where was the shot (since I thought I gutshot mine and it's public land so other hunters where there). He says nope looks like a perfect shot. I assume it's not mine but drive over a way to take a look, sure enough it's mine. The shot entrance and exit looked perfect, but ended up hitting liver. I wish I took a picture of entrance and exit because it looked perfect I must have misread the angle of the deer when I shot, since it hit liver came out the opposite armpit, but missed lungs and heart. We also tried to back track the deer but still couldn't find any blood, other than its bed. I'm not blaming the broadhead for lack of blood but I am switching as a result. I couldn't believe we couldn't find any even knowing where I hit it and finding it. I was shooting hurricane from ozcut. So thankful we found the deer fresh and nothing was wasted.
I have hit deer in the liver before but was always able to track them, I still can't believe how we couldn't find any blood. (I'm not blaming the broadhead, i k ow it would have been great if i hit lungs and heart and I know crazy stuff happens when your trying to kill a wild animal).

 

[Macintosh]

Im not picturing what I have in my head for “perfect shot placement” with hitting liver and missing heart/lungs being a possibility. Could you describe entrance, exit, shot angle in more detail? Tree stand or from ground, etc?

Either way great to recover the deer, and congrats. Its not hard to misread the deer angle and be a bit far back as a result, especially it deer is twisting its body look to the side or behind it, etc. Ive certainly done it.

 

[kfili]

I was in a tree stand, Deer was either quartering away or perhaps turning so shot was a step back from where I would have wanted it. Usually on a quartering away shot with a liver hit and exit at the opposite leg I would think it would have hit lungs also, but this did not I believe it passed right under them but still exited offside (at armpit, not straight down). I really wish I snapped a few pictures.

 

[Macintosh]

Ahh, ok, makes sense. I actually hit a deer this fall similarly, it was at 7 yards and I thought a perfect shot—how could it not be, right? But actual hit was 6” or so farther back than I would have said. In hindsight deer was broadside but turned its head away from me fairly significantly feeding, so my “straight above the leg” hold wound up being behind where I thought due to the body position. I got lucky and did hit both lungs and it was an easy recovery, but it could have easily been worse. Also if it was at all of a high hit they often dont leave as much of a blood trail as Id like. I really like a low exit for a blood trail, regardless of broadhead.

 

[Rich M]

How does it go from liver (behind ribs), thru the ribcage, and out the armpit without hitting anything in the ribcage?

Not doubting you, just typical for bow hunting....

 

[Quicksilver]

My bear this year had an entrance hole in the lower ribs and an exit on the opposite side ribs I could fit a few fingers in, found it alive and acting like its rear end was paralyzed . Weird stuff happens I guess.