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Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 11,756
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 11,756 |
Sorry to hear the outcome, but it happens.
Almost everyone (myself included) that has bow hunted for many years has had that happen.
Learn and move on.
NRA Patron
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Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 5,735
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 5,735 |
I wouldn't worry so much about going after the deer too soon. The fact that it was not moving well when you jumped it says it wasn't that bad of a hit. Chances are good the diminishing blood trail was due to either loss of blood or plugging the hole. Putting deer with an arrow in the lung into motion s not a bad idea in any way shape or form. The deer moving and the arrow moving are going to do nothing but cut it up some more inside.
I ALWAYS go after a deer right away and I've never lost one in 60 years. NEVER! Nobody with a bleeding out patient gets them on their feet and jogs them to the hospital. The quiet them down and help get the bleeding stopped.
My personal opinion is that more often than not blood trails diminish from decreased blood pressure, and deer are lost when the blood trail is lost because the tracker couldn't find a dead deer.
A deer that's bleeding is more likely to keep bleeding if it keeps moving. A deer that has a well shredded chest contents can easily plug both holes and not bleed much if any, and still make it fifty yards after the blood on the ground stops. I've seen deer with the heart completely shredded, the lungs gone and a fistful of tissue on the ground where it was hit make it 70 yards and leave maybe a teaspoon of blood in between. I've seen deer with the lungs well shredded and the heart loose in the chest make it to their final resting place with but three #6 shot size drops of blood and those in the last 30 feet.
I have seen enough bird dogs step on a dead bird and still neither smell it nor find it that I look at any dog as just another tool that may work or may not in any given case.
The deer isn't lost until you give up. Even when you do quit though, it doesn't mean Bambi isn't laying dead somewhere. Do the best you can and learn from all of what happened to make it easier next time.
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Joined: Dec 2015
Posts: 2,062
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Dec 2015
Posts: 2,062 |
Curious about this statement in the OP:
"Started just looking for a dead deer, found him laying down, got my knife and he took off, not moving to good."
I was taught to NEVER approach a non-dead deer, shoot them again. Was the plan to finish it with the knife?
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 5,611
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 5,611 |
Rain changes NOTHING. NOTHING. That statement has me curious. And your example of a doe lying under a single tree out in an open field compounds my curiosity. Try that same doe 80 yards away in five foot visibility brush with several inches of moss and duff covering any dirt that might show a track, all in a steady pouring rain. Rain can and does wash out a blood trail. Seen it happen many times here in the rainy PNW. That changes the visibility of the blood trail and makes it more difficult. Rain does not change how quickly the animal dies, but it changes the difficulty of finding that animal. That and snow covering a blood trail are two conditions when I've decided that time is not on my side and followed an animal right away. We work with what nature gives us and you are obviously very good at recovering critters in your part of the world.
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Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 25,092
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 25,092 |
I wouldn't worry so much about going after the deer too soon. The fact that it was not moving well when you jumped it says it wasn't that bad of a hit. Chances are good the diminishing blood trail was due to either loss of blood or plugging the hole. Putting deer with an arrow in the lung into motion s not a bad idea in any way shape or form. The deer moving and the arrow moving are going to do nothing but cut it up some more inside.
I ALWAYS go after a deer right away and I've never lost one in 60 years. NEVER! Nobody with a bleeding out patient gets them on their feet and jogs them to the hospital. The quiet them down and help get the bleeding stopped.
My personal opinion is that more often than not blood trails diminish from decreased blood pressure, and deer are lost when the blood trail is lost because the tracker couldn't find a dead deer.
A deer that's bleeding is more likely to keep bleeding if it keeps moving. A deer that has a well shredded chest contents can easily plug both holes and not bleed much if any, and still make it fifty yards after the blood on the ground stops. I've seen deer with the heart completely shredded, the lungs gone and a fistful of tissue on the ground where it was hit make it 70 yards and leave maybe a teaspoon of blood in between. I've seen deer with the lungs well shredded and the heart loose in the chest make it to their final resting place with but three #6 shot size drops of blood and those in the last 30 feet.
I have seen enough bird dogs step on a dead bird and still neither smell it nor find it that I look at any dog as just another tool that may work or may not in any given case.
The deer isn't lost until you give up. Even when you do quit though, it doesn't mean Bambi isn't laying dead somewhere. Do the best you can and learn from all of what happened to make it easier next time. That always made sense to me as well. I've never had to track a deer very far, but I'd think a pushed deer with a lethal hole in it would expire quicker, even if it did cover more ground, than one left to rest. I presume the distance a mortally wounded deer would travel when pushed is the reason for letting him lay.
“Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die.”
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Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 5,735
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 5,735 |
That always made sense to me as well. I've never had to track a deer very far, but I'd think a pushed deer with a lethal hole in it would expire quicker, even if it did cover more ground, than one left to rest.
I presume the distance a mortally wounded deer would travel when pushed is the reason for letting him lay.
Well, the OP said he had a quartering away deer and put half the arrow inside the deer. NOT saying the arrow was high or low tells me he thought it was in at least one lung. I will push one like that as hard as I can every time unless I am pushing it somewhere cannot go. In September I shot one that wasn't hit as well as I would like. In above the brisket and out the shoulder. When I hit her she almost went down and recovered. Didn't bleed all that well for the first hundred yards, but I could see she had to stop and rest fairly often and wasn't moving fast. Pushing her was hastening her expiration. I did not expect to find her alive or very far away. I found her dead 200 yards give or take some from where I shot her. Usually you have to follow them for a ways to understand more about the wound from the trail. I have on occasion stopped and either myself or someone else got out in front of the deer. But... the closest I have come to stopping is when it got dark and I knew the deer was going to need shooting again to recover it. I think in every case like that it was a leg shot deer. I have never even considered not going after one right away to at least find out how bad it was hit. Sometimes you just know that the deer is well hit and dead near by regardless of what the trail tells you, and you have to go with that.
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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 3,188
Campfire Tracker
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OP
Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 3,188 |
Curious about this statement in the OP:
"Started just looking for a dead deer, found him laying down, got my knife and he took off, not moving to good."
I was taught to NEVER approach a non-dead deer, shoot them again. Was the plan to finish it with the knife?
That was the plan, it was dark and there was no way I was going to hold the flashlight and draw the bow, let alone see anything through the peep. I had to do this last year with a doe shot in the neck with a flintlock, its a rodeo but can be done. Never fun.
Stuck in airports, Terrorized
Sent to meetings, Hypnotized
Over-exposed, Commercialized
Handle me with Care...
-Traveling Wilbury's
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