BowtechHunting

Stuck a doe last night about 5:05. It was dark and my shooting minutes were expiring quick. This doe came out slightly quartering away from me. She was looking away from me, so I let one fly.

So, Gri22ly (thanks) quickly found a speck of blood and then we found my arrow, with no blood on it, except for 2 small pieces of hair. Later we about 20-30 yards away from my arrow, we found more small specks of blood. We trailed for another 60 or so yards with only dots of blood. 30-40 more yards we found a 3-4 nice sized puddles of blood and then the trail went back to 100 yards or so with small specks and the sign ended with a quarter sized spot. We searched for nearly 2.5 hours and covered about 250-300 yards before giving up for the evening. Gri22ly has a lot of experience with tracking and judging by the looks of the blood he's not sure what happened.

Any advice would be appreciated. We are going back to look later this afternoon, but I feel for worse on this one.

Jasonlester

My guess is a high hit maybe a nick realy. You don't mention where you hit her so I'm assuming.

The reason I guess that is my daughter hit a doe high and had similar blood trail. The arrow nicked a limb and cut the deers back. Then the deer hopped a few steps and walked off after licking the wound. I shot the same deer a month later with a shotgun (didn't know at the time.)

Check the area of the shot. Look for hair. That will tell you alot I think. We only found dark hair and there was no blood on the arrow.

GMMAT

I was hunting with someone who had a similar hit this year. Let's look at this, logically. You've got the arrow, right? No blood on the arrow. So we can easily discern there was no pass-thru and that the arrow isn't in the deer (and hasn't been).

You've got a little hair on the BH.

HOW can this be anything BUT a glancing blow?

My opinion....if you don't have any more blood than what you're describing.....I think it's pretty apparent that your deer is fine. I think it's great Josh is going back to make sure.....but I wouldn't expect anything else from him. If I was a betting man....I'd bet your deer was fine, with a nick. Sorry you hit it, actually, but it doesn't even sound "major" to me.

Just my .02

BowtechHunting

Yeah, I was aiming for her shoulder of coarse, she was about 30 yards. We both looked for hair, but couldn't find any. Only a couple of pieces of brown hair on the broadhead.

BowtechHunting

I agree with you GMMAT, but I the few of the puddles of blood were nice sized puddles. But, I guess I'll find out here a couple of hours if she expired or not.

GMMAT

You'd be surprised how little blood it takes to make it look BAD for the deer. We trailed my Halloween buck for about 350yds. I thought it looked good from time to time (small "puddles").

The gentleman who brought up the tracking dog said there "might" be 2.5-3oz. of blood on the entire trail. That was amazing, to me.

Good luck to you. You've got a good man on the job, today.

Sooner State Hunter

Mr. Trout says in his book to not read too much in the amount of blood found. Sometimes you'll find alot but yet not recover the deer, other times not much blood but dead deer, just harder to find. Keep you chin up and keep looking.

kwilson16

A long time ago, an experienced aircraft mechanic told me: "A little oil goes a long ways"

Same is true for blood. If I gave you 1/2 beer bottle of blood (6 ounces), you could easily make a 300-400 yard trail with some puddles. My vote is flesh wound. Hunt her again someday.

OHbowhntr

How big is a "nice sized puddle??" In all honesty, take an ounce of milk and pour it out on your floor, then re-think "nice sized puddles," it will help you look at things from a totally different light. I'd guess if you found a couple "puddles," you may have hit low, brisket or flesh wound to a leg. As Jeff said, and I reiterated, you'd be surprised how SMALL an amount of blood you really are seeing. I remember talking specifically with Rob/PA about this in PA at the GTG, and we both said the same thing, MOST guys don't really know what a LOT OF BLOOD is. I DO KNOW, from both deer hunting AND my job, as I've seen people COVERED in blood, and you'd have thought they bled to death, when in reality, they lost less than 5% of their blood volume, it just LOOKED like a LOT!!!! I think I'd chalk it up to a lesson learned.....Be cautious shooting at "last light," and seriously, try the "spilled milk thing, maybe even add some red food coloring til you get to the point of it LOOKING like blood, then run a blood trail around your house and look at HOW much blood a little spilt milk can look like!!!! Again, not real harm, in all likelihood, and that deer will live to see many more days and maybe be wiser because of your "education" you gave it. Good Luck filling that tag, but I'd not vest a lot more energy in trying to find this deer specifically. I shot one in the brisket the same night I made my big oops and hit the one in the head, and there was ABSOLUTELY NO BLOOD on the arrow that went through the brisket, only FAT and HAIR, and no blood on the trail I'd watched her take for a good 60yds or so.

Western MA Hunter

sounds like you gave her a hair cut w/ a knick... i would look again w/ good daylight... just to be safe.