DannyD

Hi guys,
Pretty rough bow season this year. I lost 2 deer and recovered 1.

On the first deer. Doe.Shot at 25 yards. Broadside. From a ground blind. Hit right behind shoulder. Midway up. Complete passthrough. Bubbly blood on the arrow. Blood on both sides of the trail and on higher leaves. Began tracking after 2 hours
I tracked this deer about 500 yards up and down the mountain and then lost the blood. 3 of us trailed it for 6 hours the first day. Lost the blood after the first 4 hours. Went back the next day and tried to pick up a trail. looked for another 6 hours. no recovery

2nd deer. Same blind. Doe standing next to my same 25 yard marked tree. This time slightly quartering away.
Hit the deer behind the shoulder and it stuck into the far shoulder. slightly lower than halfway upsaw about 1/4 of the arrow sticking out as she ran off.
This time i heard the 3 deer running through the woods to my left then go up the hill behind me. I left my blind to go home and change and woujld come back later to recover. Apparently 2 of the deer went left and then up the hill but the deer i shot went left then down. As I was walking out of the woods on my trail I saw the blood. lot's of it but i must have jumped it. Same thing. tracked over 2 days but never recovered.

Third deer.
Ground blind, 15 yards, broadside. Hit her too far back. waited in my blind 2 hours went to leave the woods to come back later since it was a hit that was too far back. Deer was piled up 30 yards from my blind just over the mound. When i gutted the deer i could see I had only hit a portion of the liver.

I put 2 good shots on the first 2 deer and could not recover. I make a terrible shot on deer #3 and this one dies right away.

BTW, I almost put up the bow. I mean I basically had to be talked into hunting with a bow again for that third deer. I had sworn off bow hunting after the second one. I'm glad my buddy talked me into going but truthfully. I still have my doubts.
PS. I had a great gun seaqson though

Gundeck

I understand the frustration. I lost one this year. The first I have lost that I know about. It is just the nature of the beast. Sometimes things happen that you cannot explain. I have to wonder, though. You hear about all of these bowhunters that lose a deer. You just KNOW that there must be a ton of gun hunters that "missed" a deer that laters dies out in the woods somewhere. Most of these guys don't even look to see if there is a sign of hitting it unless it drops or staggers when they shoot.

bigcountry

You know, I have seen some wierd things bowhunting.

I went thru a cycle one year about 5 years ago when everything went bad. I went on a moose trip to newfoundland, and missed. I missedor got busted several times with the bow. I got busted twice by monster bucks. Good shot on a doe, like you adn couldn't find.

I blew the front leg off a sika deer with a sluggun and could not find. And since then, can't complain at all. I even got bad, bad shots in on two deer since then and recovered within 100 yards. In that one season, I lost more animals than my whole life hunting. I really wanted to give it up.

But the bottom line is, if your deer is going 500 yards, it sure doesn't sound like double lung shots I ever seen.

DannyD

I know BC. Doesn't sound like one to me either. If i didn't see it myself and then see the blood on both sides of the trail and then high up on the brush where his nose was then I would say I must have been mistaken about the shot. I could see him run for the first 30 yards and blood was pouring out of the side of that deer that i could see.
I almost didn't even wait the 2 hours to start tracking but my buddy, who was in the blind with me was still going to hunt. He also saw the shot.

Of course it is possible that we were mistaken. In fact i guess we had to be for it to go that far.
Still, I'm not so sold on the fact that i am going to keep bowhunting until I can come to better grips on what happened. I do know I'm done for the year. i was only lucky on that third deer. That was truly a bad shot

waiting_for_a_gift

I've heard these nightmare storys 100 times. I don't understand it. It has never happened to me. I've lost a few deer, but never on ahit like you described. There was one guy I knew that it happened to time and again, he would just absolutely thump em, and not get em, probably 3 or 4 lost for every one he recovered. IDK, maybe the wounds seal up with fat or something.

I'm curious about what kind of broadheads you are using. I use Bear Razorheads and have had excellent results, even on some marginal hits.

PreacherTony

Dan .... like BC said, there are weird seasons .... I almost hung my bow oneyear as well ..... the drive to hunt let me give it "one more time" .... I'm glad I did ... you will be too, Bro ...

GMMAT

I had that season this year. I hope I never have anything like it, again. That.....and I never loosed an arrow (shot attempt) I was ashamed of.



I've said it before.....there are those hunters who will admit to either wounding, losing (or both) a deer.....and there are those who aren't being truthful...or who just haven't had enough opportunities, YET. In saying that I wish no ill fate on anyone. I wish everyone a clean and speedy recovery.

But.....I went through a spell this year that was extremely discouraging. It balanced out in the end to be a successful season, OVERALL.

Hang in there.

Schultzy

Bow hunting can really mess with your mind real bad when stuff like you said happens! The only thing I can think of is that where you swore up and down on where that arrow went, it must not of went. The fletchings and arrows have made liars out of us all at times on where we think we hit the deer and when we later find that deer our thinking was 3" to 4" off from where we could of swore it went. Last night for instance a buddy of mine shot a doe fawn, he said the arrow was a little back but not much, we found the deer about 300 yards from where he shot him. The arrow went in about 6" back farther from where he swore he hit it, he ended up gut shooting it and caught the bottom of the far lung. Keep your head up buddy!

Dr Andy

Don't give up yet. What you described were very good hits. I have no explanation for what went wrong. A double lunged deer goes down within 10 seconds (runs out of blood) but a single lung pass-thru will still give you a frothy arrow but only hit the near lung. If that first deer was slightly quartering to you this could have happened. One lung won't bring a deer down quickly. I'd recommend shooting at a 3-D target from all kinds of ridiculous angles, then study the path the arrow makes. Couple this with some studies of the anatomy and figure out all your angles. Remember that a sloghtly quartering deer may look broadside to you, the 3-D targets will help you with your shot placement.
BTW, I've not recovered enough deer to know how you feel, i felt bad and even felt like giving up. I'm glad to say I've not made any bad shots this year. But I only made one, a dead doe. I passed on many dinks,who knows had I shot a few more times I may have missed again. But I feel better knowing I didn't wound any.
Keep at it next season, do your homework and you'll get on track!

DannyD

Thanks guys.
Even though i'm sure in my mind where i hit it, I'm certain that my eyes must have deceived me on the first deer. No other explaination for it.
The second deer was just plain stupidity. I left the blind right away thinking the deer had gone up the hill and i went down to get out of the woods and come back after it later.

Even though I have a few hunting days left this season, i'm just not ready to do it again for now. Next season, i'll most likely be back at it but when i drew on that third deer I almost couldn't let it fly.



Hey waiting,
Just FYI they were Magnus Stinger's 4 blade.