Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Have You Lost Any Big game You've shot?

No doubt. We mostly used 50's. If I would have known more it would have been a 54. The 50 usually would blow through, but with blackpowder velocity and a round ball that could only flatten some there was not much damage in lungs. Even with more modern projectiles that tear a big hole it does not seem like the meat is bloodshot. After a wash down of the carcass that ugly hole does not mean much lost meat. Shot a sabot pistol bullet through the front of a doe that was standing twisted. The bullet exited and hit the ham with a big hole. After cleaning it up little was wasted. A pleasant surprise.

A .54 is better, but a .58 is the ticket. Moving slower, but with much more momentum. It just keeps trucking through the deer (or elk) with little meat damage. 270gr of round ball destruction.

Unfortunately, yes I lost one. Ironically also one of the easiest shots I have had too. Doe whitetail at about 25 yards dead broadside with a 44 Mag. Gave the mule kick and ran into thick brush. Trailed her for almost a mile in snow and finally ran out of ground. Never have figured out what happened.

Lost two different archery deer, one I'm fairly certain would live and another I knew lived as I saw him a week or two later.

Had a couple I didn't know if I'd find, but did the following day and thankfully cold temps.

Yes.

Yes, Awful feeling!

fubar about a .50cal not being enough to take down a lousy deer!

Hell, the elk I shot back in 2008 was 140 YARDS... read the yardage... 140 yards... .54cal 230 grain round ball with a lousy 80 grain Pyrodex RS charge. That ball I doubt even had 350 ft lbs energy at that distance and the cows lungs where shattered.

Yes I have. I lost a nice deer.

Like others have said, it's not a good feeling in your gut.

Lost the first deer I ever shot, whitetail doe that I shot during archery season as a teenager. Was basically teaching myself how to hunt in those days. Haven't lost one since, and found one that a hunting partner had given up on so I guess I redeemed myself.

One hog last year. Shot one big sow, DRT, the rest ran about 100 yards to get back under the fence where they came in, sow at the back of the line angling away from me, took a bullet behind the ribs angling forward. She dropped, then made it back up and made it under and off into the mesquite. Blood and hair where she initially took the bullet and blood trail going under the fence. Neighbor doesnt allow anyone on, period. One less piggie in that hay field.

I have shot alot of WT here as we have a liberal season and limits and bonus tags/nuisance tags as well. I think if I recall correctly I have lost two. One straight under the tree with a 30-06 and a sst. Blood in puddles but it crossed onto private and didn't find a track to follow nor want to confront the anti-hunting owners. If there would have been any sign near the line I would have asked anyway but no indication after the initial hit. The other I tracked for 8 hours through prickers and only went about 300 yards. By midday I kicked it up along a housing development and it got up from it's bed and ran like nothing happened. No blood near her bed either. I am thinking that one was a non-lethal shot. They both made me sick. I usually shoot well under a hundred yards and always always use a rest if I can even on close shots. The only thing I can do is continue to hone and practice with the goal of keeping it from happening again.

Yes

Only one that I've shot at with a scoped rifle. More than I'm willing to talk about with metallic sights.

Yes

Yep.

Same here, f'kin bowhunting.

Yes.


Or don't bother to look at all because the animal ran away.

I have lost three I can think of with archery. The first was days after I boldly declared "I have Never wounded a deer."

I only had one get away with a rifle. A close shot, she dropped where she stood. As I walked to her, I saw a deer run away, but didn't shoot, since mine was dead. No, that was her.

A bad part about losing one, you don't know for sure what part of the deer was hit, and its harder to learn from your mistake.

Every hunter will miss his killing shot sooner or later. All one can hope for is that one can follow up and finish the animal before it suffers any more than necessary.

I have shot two animals, a pronghorn doe and a nilgai cow, that were not good clean kills and required multiple shots to kill. Fortunately, both were in open country where finding them to finish them wasn't difficult, but it made me sick that it took them so long to die.

I had a curious incident with my first buck of the 2014 season here in Texas... I shot him with what I fully expected was a clean kill shot at less than 100 yards with my 270, and the buck just leapt away over a fence and into a mesquite thicket. I searched the spot where he stood when I hit him, and there was nothing... no blood, no lung tissue, no hair. Nothing. I assumed a clean miss, but when I got back to the ranch house on my way out the rancher told me he had distinctly heard the bullet "whack" of a good hit on tissue. So I phoned for permission to cross the fence onto the next ranch and found the buck 50 feet into the thicket, dead from a thru-and-thru shot. There was no blood ANYWHERE on the ground. On field dressing, I found the heart had been absolutely destroyed, so apparently there was no way for it to pump blood out the hole... I dunno, I never saw a bloodless deer kill before. But it happened this time. If the rancher hadn't told me he'd heard the thump of the bullet hitting, I'd have lost that deer to the coyotes.

I lucked out on 1. Neighbors shot it just after it cleared the fence. There are a couple where I could swear that I hit them, but couldn't find blood or hair.