Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Searching for wounded deer

1st what size gun were you using ? how far away was the shot ? what bullet ? was it a buck or a doe? and if it was a buck what size buck ? was it standing ? walking ? standing still ? frontal shot,butt shot, full side shot ? off hand shot ? gun resting on tree /platform ? did you get gun sighted in this year ? as has been said,if deer you shot is moving shoot that animal tell its not moving no more. some may not like what I will post/reply : I like a magnum gun better just because magnums have just a little more power otherwise just a normal 30-06,270,308 is good too,some smaller guns don`t smack a deer as good sometimes ? my favorite for me is a 257 weatherby mag. with handloads 100 grain swift bullet going 3800 fps ,its a hand load and I smack bucks dang hard too ! where I hunt with so many deer hunters I want my deer down so no one else can take my deer from me.

Ever time you plug em you tear sheit out of something, specially if they're layin on the ground at a weird angle. I hate shootin them more n once myself.

That shot sounds like something I would not have trailed for quite some time, assuming that I could not get a 2nd shot into the deer while I could still see it alive.

But some folks find out the hard way about reactions to shots and time to look for it.

IMHO time is almost always a good thing. The more the better.

Our dog has proven that on the trail more than once. If its dead its not going anywhere, if it needs more time, well.....

BTW for all this continual I have the baddest ass load etc.. for DRT cause I can't afford to loose my deer, folks its either direct permanent interruption of the CNS or you chance them running. Has nothing to do with your magnum, choice of bullet etc....

Last weekend we had a tough Doe to track. Dad shot through one tree into the deer and into another tree. Took me awhile to figure out what was going on and trail it until the blood stopped. The sucker had gone into a river and floated downstream and died in the water.

Good for you to keep after it till you found it. That sounds like a tough one to figure out and track! Your line about taking some time to figure out what was going on (with the blood trail/deer sign) is a pretty good description of trailing wounded game.

We tracked a deer my buddy shot with a bow a couple weeks ago. He hit low and back. We let it lay overnight and ended up finding it the next morning around 10. Blood was ok (rage expandable broad head) but it went to hardly nothing several times. We found two beds the buck laid in. The blood dried up and we were about to start a grid when we looked across a drain and saw him dead.

I shot a buck yesterday. I was above him, and he was 1/4’incg away. Shot a bit high, in the 3rd rib from the back, and out in front of the opposite shoulder, about 1/2 way up his body. Somehow, he ran 100 yds and piled up under a jack pine. The only blood was at the site where he was hit. Blood and hair. They’re should have been tons of blood, all things considered.

I've shot a bunch of deer over the years, and fortunately, never had to track but one, and that one was shot with a arrow. I've helped track a bunch that were shot by other people, and I have only seen one deer go to water, and that was one shot with bow by a neighbor. Sometimes, for whatever the reason, they don't leave a lot of blood. I've had people tell me about shooting a deer, and it left a blood trail that a blind man could follow, only they never found it. My experience has been that if a deer left that much blood, it was dying, and should have been found.

Some deer don't bleed much. And they can run a long way mortally wounded. The way I look at it, If you shoot at them you have an obligation to look for them as long as it takes to find them or till you can't go anymore. I've seen several deer go 1/4 mile well shot and other deer shot the same way drop at the shot.

Several years ago I shot a spike , back when they were legal at about 30 feet . I watched him walk all the way down the field to me . Shot was in the snow with a 50 cal muzzle loader . He never flinched , quivered nothing . He kept right on walking past me and dropped in about 10 yards . It was really cold . No blood where i shot no trail and only a 12” round puddle where he laid . Bullet passed through him .

I’ve never figured it out ! But in a heavy wooded area you may think you missed.

When you shoot you have to look .

Good luck to all Happy Thanksgivings

Soup

My toughest trail was when I shot an 8 point that was walking and I hit too far back liver and gut with too hard a bullet that didn't expand well. No snow and another guy walked over when he heard the shot and jumped my buck up out of his first bed about a hundred yards away. The deer had either licked itself clean or fat and hair covered the wound. Only one little smear of blood on a small tree to give me a direction. No blood what so ever on the ground, but he was going down hill and I could smell that broken gut smell that just hung in the air. I knew there was a creek down there and I figured that was where he was going. Over an hour later I jumped him up along that creek a full quarter mile by GPS from where I'd first shot him. He was a sick deer, but still able to run up out of that creek bottom and needed a second shot.. Softer faster opening bullets have worked better for me ever since.

If I am an outfitter, and have a jackwipe client I want to get the hell out of my camp in a hurry, then I don't search very long. For a good guy, I am going to bust my balls.

If you hunt long enough you will lose one.