Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Did I make the right call?

I’m in Labette County (Parsons area). I use Brian Barnett/ Sporting Life Taxidermy in Edna.

I've never followed the theory of backing out and letting them "stiffen up". The theory doesn't hold muster with me. I want blood to keep pumping, I want them to keep moving and moving fast blood pumping means blood loss to the heart.

Not sure what I would have done. If you could do it over I would have waited longer to give the deer more chance to bleed out closer to where it was shot, the damned if you do is it also gives them a chance to quit bleeding. With three people one should stay at the last sign found and the others should circle in an increasing radius until more sign is found. If alone I leave some type of marker and work out from it. I lost one a couple of years ago in head high grass that I would have found if I had circled more. But my flashlight was not very good and I found him like you about forty yards from where I had stopped but the meat was a total loss.

Nice buck and if the kid is sharp he should have learned several valuable lessons even though it is a drag the deer got torn up.

Ive killed approaching 200 Whitetails in my life and assited in tracking at least 100 more and will tell you, no 2 situations are the same and sometimes you make the right choice and sometimes you dont. Gotta make your best decision based on what the sign is telling you and your "gut feeling" i have done both, found a deer the next morning, often not far from where I stopped the night before, as well as pushed too hard and fast and jumped a wounded deer and have it run off never to be found.

One case in point was a large 8 point i arrowed 2 years ago. Shot looked and felt good, heard a nice thump on impact etc. After waiting an hour to climb down i found my blood covered arrow and had a good blood trail. By that I mean steady flow with multiple at least pie plate size puddles of blood where the deer had paused to pick its escape route. After 200 yds of this, still no deer. At this point the blood started to taper and get spotty but still decent amount when found. Kept on it for another 300 yards getting more sparse. Led onto property I am not allowed access to so that was the end of it and I figured it was dead there. Fast forward 3 weeks and what do I see on my trail cam but this same deer with an obvious shoulder wound. A week after this, on Halloween, I arrowed this same buck again. Only a 50yd track this time and found. Post mortem showed first arrow had hit the shoulder bone and deflected down though the underarm area making a large wound with ALOT of blood loss but obviosly not fatal as the wound was partially healed up and the buck was chasing a doe when killed so obviously not too bad off. ANYONE who saw the initial bloodtrail would think there was no way the deer lived, but it obviously did!

Like stated above hindsight is always 20/20. I would take this experience as a teaching tool and help your nephew understand why you choose to do what you did. Also tell him every situation is different and at least you did recover the buck. Then get him out there and whack some coyotes as revenge.

I was going to suggest using a softer bullet in the future until I went back and read page 1 to see that he used a BT. At 150 yards even with a .260 it should have penetrated better than that. I hit an 8 point too far back once and while it went down within a hundred yards, it got back up again and ran for a creek bed 1/4 mile away by GPS measurement. The only way I had to track that deer after a sparse blood trail was that broken gut smell in the air. Use all your senses. Cracked him again as he ran out of that creek bed. I always go after them right away if I think that the shot was good. Switching to softer bullets has resulted in shorter or no tracking. In snow you can run them out of blood if you stay on them. Got a leg shot deer that way that others had given up on. Tracked another one by the hair cut off by the bullet when it got in with other deer tracks.

Your assistance got your nephew his buck. Some meat got spoiled but you maximised the potential to find and minimised the risk of total loss for young hunters first deer.

I think you made the best decision based in the info you had.

Maybe the young hunter now wants to shoot some coyotes?

Well, it's my experience that "back-out 'til morning" bullshit is made for TV versus reality. Especially Kansas in the early season.

Don't know where you hunt, but where I hunt the coyotes always, always, find that deer before morning. I immediately go after a shot deer, and stay on it until we find it or it's determined that the shot wasn't fatal.

On the bright side - nice buck and congrats to your nephew! This! I agree 100 %

Tough call. I like staying on the trail when possible but have waited four hours on questionable morning shots. Hate the tv shows that always back out till morning without even following the trail for 100 yards. They just want daylight to film the recovery. In coyote infested country stay on the trail. What is the difference between you jumping the deer or a pack of coyotes doing it? Coyotes don't wait till the deer is dead to get after it.

Around here if I can give them 3 hours after a gut shot I'm going after them. I've pushed them after dark and lost them but I've also found them. Too many times we've found dear the next morning and the hind quarter was gone. I like to try and find them as early as possible. And we don't have a huge coyote population.

As others said it's 50/50. No absolute right answer

We don’t have the coyote problems around here that some of you do. Coyotes, yes. No shortage of them, but I’ve never had them eat a deer left over night. And on a deer that is gut shot, I’m leaving it for 12 hours, minimum. A deer hit in the guts isn’t going far unless it’s pushed, and a gut shot is 100% fatal. It just takes time for it to work if no other vital organs or arteries are hit. When I was younger, I’d always track right after I climbed out of my tree and got my gear packed up. Lost several deer for myself, or my friends that way. Now, if I know a deer is hit in the guts, I wait. They’re almost always bedded and dead the next morning within 150 yards of where they were hit if they aren’t disturbed. Sometimes still alive, but very weak and able to be approached for a finishing shot. Based on the info you received about the way the deer acted, I would have guessed as you did(correctly) and called it a gut shot. And I would have done the same as you and waited. In my opinion you did the right thing, 100%.

I don't think there is a 100% right answer, every situation is different. I do know this. I have always found the deer by doing big concentric circles with the shot location as point A and the nearest water as point B. Mind you this is small tracts of private woods in farm country surrounded by crop land. Oft times a source of water is not that close, but I have always found the deer between the two points.

Shot a 8 point last fall. Tn deer so maybe 150lbs on the hoof. Not big.

243 with 95nbt. 394 yards. Unfortunately after the shot I found out my gun was shooting 4” to the right meaning I hit too far back. Had just shot it 2 days before to 700 yards and it was dead on. No clue what happened
Slightly quartering away. Bullet hit stomach/liver and exited. Waited 2 hours and then jumped the deer within 80 yards of where I shot him

Went back 2 hours later and he was laying 200 yards away dead. Middle of the day coyotes had already found him and tore up front R shoulder and rear R leg. I don’t let them lay any longer than I have to cause the meat will either spoil or the coyotes will find them

Not saying you made the wrong choice, and congrats to your nephew
Just the way it is when there are coyotes around or the weather is hot

As someone who bowhunts and has lost a deer in the process (got on it too quick after shooting if with a bow).If I shoot them with a gun, I take up the trail in about 15-30 minutes. If bow hunting I give it a minimum of 30 minutes, an hour is better. Outside of that, I agree that wait until morning to look is purely for TV.

We had a similar situation this last Saturday night when my father shot a nice 9pt, he thought it was quartering more than it was and wound up with one lung and liver. There was very little blood when we first started tracking which was an hour after the shot and kicked the deer up after about 50 yds. Then we waited another two hours to start tracking again and found him within a hundred yards. Very little blood and if we would have waited until morning the dew probably would have washed away more sign.

This bears repeating. Congrats to the young man. Kudos to you for helping him and your quest to learn and improve. 'naugh said.