Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Back from the deer hunt

The deer bedded down as we approached and lost sight of them in the logged clearing. We knew we were close and I all of a sudden caught an ear pointed at us. I told my wife to get on the sticks and get ready as they would probably bolt any second now…


But they didn’t. The doe just sat there, it never said anything. So we tried like hell to make out the buck bedded with them. She was about 35 yards away and not moving but seemed to tolerate us. So we kept side stepping, trying to get a view of the buck. Found a couple fawns and two more does.


Then three deer stood up. And then the buck. Katie was already on the sticks and the buck was under 50 yards away.

She said he’s “quartering away, should it shoot?” I said he’ll yes and then the buck pivoted back to broadside another step and Katie shot.

He ran and in the binos I could see red on his side. He stopped after 75 yards and got wobbly next to a broken tree. Then ran again.

Katie reloaded and we waited 10 minutes. I thought the shot was a little far back, but he was quartering away slightly and it was still in the ribs not the guts. Could have been a liver hit though.

We slowly walked up to the spot we last saw him and found nothing. The six other deer were standing there with no buck and they trotted off, so we felt confident he would be right there in the slash. Finding nothing, we walked back to the spot he was standing initially and found neither blood nor hair. We tried to find something all along the likely track between where he stood and and where he got wobbly. Nothing.
Now we started to semi circles in the direction he ran. Nothing. 400 yards from where we marked his last known spot over the next two hours to true dark and found nothing.
I found more elk and more does and fawns(or maybe the same ones) but no dead buck.
At dark it was a tough walk back to camp. Katie was tearing up a little bit and I was frustrated by another lack of blood trail from a muzzleloader hit.

We got back to the spot at dawn the next day. We looked again for blood and began circling and circling. Still nothing. No birds, no coyotes, no bears giving us a clue. We followed every crow and gray jay sound that seemed excited. We used our noses. Nothing.

2 hours later we decided to hike back and maybe see if the goats could help. They alert at game and are always interested in dead game, so maybe they would alert.

We saw more hunters walk through the area and asked if they had seen anything, but they were all looking for elk and hadn’t noticed any deer, much less a dead one.

About an hour and a half later we arrived with the goats and spent two more hours circling, following bird sounds and letting the goats wander. Twice they got interested in smells and and we went towards the smell, but nothing. And then they’d go back to eating.

Nothing. We were at a loss and out of time. We had to start heading back to the truck soon, and we had no clues. We were both certain of the hit and I was certain he was dead, but he wasn’t dead within 500 yards of there. It sucked. But we had to give up. The end.