comndr45

Last night I went back to the area I took my doe a few days ago and set up a little deeper into the woods. After 20 mins a big-bodied buck with a messed up and half-broken rack comes in. He's only 11 yards slightly quartering away when I shoot and I hear a terrible THWACK. He runs 20 yds or so and stops. He starts walking away and I hit the grunt tube and he sticks around the area a little while. Meanwhile, he is not walking hurt, and the arrow is sticking out of his shoulder vertically with what looks to only be a few inches of penetration and only a little blood trickling out. I watch him for 80-100 yds and lose him. 1-1/2 hrs later, I get down and look at the trail he took. Not a drop of blood on the ground. I call my bro-in-law and we start searching approx. 4 hrs after shot. We find nothing to track him by, so we are sort of randomly checking every thicket and gully. We are about to give up when he miraculously finds blood where it looked like he lay down. He had apparently circled around to within 50 yards of where he was shot. We trail for 100 very winding yards of very sparse blood and then it stops. After looking near the last drop for 20-30 mins, it starts raining really heavy. We have the spot marked, but I hold little hope of picking it up again after all the rain we had last night.
If you look at a skeleton, the arrow hit right at the rear point of the heavy part of the scapula. To me it looked like it hit, didn't penetrate, and turned downward, sliding along the outside of the bone. What do you guys think? I was using Snypers on ACC's and 70 lbs. Do you think it busted through and got a lung, or did it stay out of the chest cavity on the outside of the scapula? I'm sick, we tracked for 7-8 hours before getting rained out.

The most important bloodtrail leads right to the foot of the cross

Deleted User

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THWACK

I shoot mechs from a 53lb. I took my big buck this year through the scapula and it punched right through both lungs. Were you on the ground when you shot? I shot mine ground level so I think the angle helped me. How much blood did you find and were there bubbles int it?

THWACK!

Tazman

comndr45 man that is a bummer, the doe I shot this year from what you described I hit in the exact same spot, the difference was it was a broadside shot and my spitfire opened perfectly, one blade sliced through the tip of the shoulder blade and then deflected upwards and shattered the vertabrae above the should blade, I only had about 6-7 inches of penetration, but she dropped in her tracks.

From where you hit and the angle I beleive you may be right in the path of the arrow, you probably did not get a lung, I wouldn't give up on him yet though, good luck, I hope either you find him or you see him later in a recovery mode.

The Tazman aka Martin Price
Founder and President of
Virginia Disabled Outdoorsmen Club

davidmil

Some one has to say it. The more I hear the more I'm learning these mechanicals are NOT as effective as a plain old broadhead. We hear story after story of these terrible penetration from these things. It sounds like your setup is more than enough but the broadhead(mechanical) didn't do it's job. They work fine on perfect hits but fail time after time on odd angles and when meeting bone. You had both the bone and the bad angle for a mechanical plus questionable shot placement from such a short distance. Sure if you hit the rib cage it'll probably work, but that bone is tough...especially on a big bodied deer. It sounds like you didn't get much of anything other than some bone. It just slid along it and stuck and kicked up. He'll be fine I'm sure. Don't beat yourself up over it. You may want to reconsider the broadheads you're using. I know there are those that say they're the greatest but there are just to many horror stories. A fixed blade just doesn't have these problems. Proper tuning and a little patience and they shoot as good as any mechanical. I've said it before... steel drums and plywood just are not the same as hide and bone and moving deer.



Edited by - davidmil on 12/13/2002 08:50:02

GForce

Don't lose hope comndr45. I recall a similar post sometime in October, early November maybe, pics were posted after the harvest where the hunter seen the buck with his first arrow in almost the same spot.

Your assesment of the arrows path seems correct if you were above him at the time of the shot. The sparseness of blood you referred to leads me to believe what blood you did find would be consistant with skin and muscle leakage. Arteries and veins usually leave more volume and a more defined pattern.

Without knowing what the blood looked like as far as color and contents, it would be hard to say whether or not the lung was hit.

I hope you get him.







Shoot often - Hunt always

stickerpt

Davidmil said it all. There is no mechanical that is going to
penetrate under all conditions and angles as well as a fixed
blade broadhead. Betcha if you had been shooting a Muzzy(bad
to the bone!) you would have shot through both shoulders and
that buck would be in your freezer.

comndr45

Well the blood was a fairly bright red-definitely no bubbles, though. It seemed pretty thin, but that may have just been the spots where it dripped off his leg. Where it looked like he laid down was maybe a teaspoon or two spread out over a square foot.
I will have to reconsider the mechs. They did such a beautiful job on the doe and were, of course, flying very well, that I thought it would be no problem. The snypers take so little to open that I thought they would be a sure thing. I have muzzys that I'll be using from now on. I was up probably close to 20' and I haven't practiced at such a steep angle. I usually practice around 15-20 yards from that height.
I was convinced before we started tracking that it never got a lung. My bro-in-law had shot his buck and the initial penetration with a spitfire looked like mine, but it had worked down into him and gotten to the heart within a few yards of running. He felt that since he didn't go running off, I had probably gotten a lung. We've both seen this deer a few times, and maybe it was non-fatal and we'll see him again. This really sucks, because now it is snowing like a madman to cover up any blood we might have been able to find. The worst thing is that there are so many deer in this area with numerous trails that it is almost impossible to track an individual deer that way. We probably found 15-20 piles of fresh, shiny poop within the search area. I sure hope he can break off that arrow or get it out somehow.

The most important bloodtrail leads right to the foot of the cross

Deleted User

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Eggman

I had a similar experience last year. At that range I believe even a mechanical would work with a properly tuned bow. I spoke with people at NAP and they routinely break leg bones with Spitfires at 30 yards.

Let me tell you my problem and maybe you can look at yours differently. My new Hoyt had set up issues, turns out in the long run that the center shot was off. I knew something was up but the inept shop I bought it from convinced me I would be all right. I couldn't get it to paper tune well but it straightened out at twenty yards. So being the greenhorn bowhunter that I was, I went in the woods. I had a huge 8 pointer charge in on me at 8 yards! I let one fly with a similar shot to yours and when he turn to ran all I saw was 90% of my arrow sticking out of the shoulder! Now I was shooting Thunderheads then so that rules out any Mech issues. I was heart broken, same thing, fairly decent blood trail and a spot where he stopped and bled but then walked on, I heard him walk off all four legs working. Never saw him again and I know he survived. I found my arrow and the blade was busted and the broadhead shaft bent.

After a while on the phone with NAP we determined two factors that may have contributed to the failure. 1. The attitude of my arrow at 9 yards. The guy at the shop was an ass for accepting that performance. The arrow has to impact straight on the target or the kinetic energy is displaced away from the arrow tip, hence the poor penetration. 2. I was new enough to listen to the shop that said I needed to line up the blades on my broadhead with the vanes on my Beemans, "that's why they have the o-ring" they said. That was probably my biggest mistake, when you back off the the broadhead to do that you pull the mating surfaces of the broadhead and insert apart. Having that space doesn't allow the kinetic energy to be delivered to the broadhead effectively, hence the bent/broken Thunderhead. NAP claims that the location of the blades should have no impact on arrow flight and your tips should be tight as possible. I've heard arguments for both sides, I felt the tight fit made more sense even though it seemed they flew better when I lined them up.

So you may have these bases covered, I'm a new guy to this sport. But these were two strong theories that I thought might help. Were you lucky enough to recover your arrow? Look at your tuning, look at the chance of your broadhead being loose. It might make even more of a difference if the NRG doesn't get to a mech tip.

I sent my bow back, they put a new riser on in two weeks and I managed a 100lb doe and a 5 point 143lb in the first two weeks of the season this year. I'm now shooting 100g spitfires on Beman ICS 400's.

Definitely turned my game around. Don't be too hard on yourself, sounds to me like that buck will make it. Good luck!