darian1998

I had a doe and two fawns come in this morning. I took a 20 yard broadside shot with her quartering away just the slightest bit. I hit low about 2 inches behind shoulders. The arrow passed through hitting a tree on the back side. she took of and the arrow broke and both pieces fell out. There was an immediate blood trail from the point of impact. Massive amounts of bright red blood...no bubbles. We tracked her for about 100 yds and the blood just disappeared. It took us about 15 minutes to track her 100 yards. then we spent 2.5- 3 hours searching. There is no doubt that she is dead and this bothers me immensely. This is the first deer that i have not been able to recover.
I would still be looking for her except she crossed the property line onto a property that the owner WILL not permit anyone on for any reason. I guess what i want to know is did i take a ill advised shot. I have only been bowhunting for 2 years and arrowed 6 deer and never have a deer travel over 50 yards from the impact site.

Rammer

Sorry to hear your bad luck. It sounds like you made a good hit on it considering the angle. I'm not sure what state your in, but in South Dakota you can cross onto different property if you are tracking a big game animal that is hit as long as you don't have a weapon in your possession. So maybe that is something to consider.

BowHuntingFool

I was going to say the same thing as Rammer! Good luck!

MNpurple

I dont think you took and ill advised shot, your shot selection from your description was good. You said you hit her low but do you know how low? I have seen hits where the arrow (or gun) went through the bottom of the chest but below the heart and lungs. These hits have caused a ton of bleeding initially and then done just what you describe, finally just dissapeared after the deer went quite some distance, and I will say I have never found one of these deer. I think my tracking skills are prettygood, so that makes me think they might just survive.?.? Typically the bottom of the chest area has some very dark grey hair before it turns white towards the belly, what about the hair for your hit?

Illinois Bowhuntin

The sounds of it you made a great shot on the heart.Even though you got heart it will sometimes take them a little while to go down.I have had heart shot deer go 175 yards before going down.These werent pushed either.I am sorry for your loss of the deer.I can also feel for you on this.I had it happen to me twice since I started bow hunting.

rybohunter

All I can add is that sometimes a heavy bloodtrail will "disappear" right before the deer dies. Basically they run out of blood pressure but have a few more hops left in them. At that point the deer could have taken a turn in any direction.
Also depending on how quartering away, you may have slipped the arrow between the shoulder and chest cavity without hitting anything vital?

PABowhntr

I see nothing wrong with your choice of shot. In fact, I would say that it is about average for what most folks would like to see. Sorry to hear that you did not find her.