Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Shot a good one tonight, but not sure what to make of it...

Hunted my best stand this evening, shot many good bucks there over the years. There's a 40 yard patch of timber contecting two big blocks of timber, where 3 properties come together. I own all of the funnel and all of one of the blocks of timer, and half of the other. I have a shooting lane at a 45 degree angle just past the funnel, that goes up to the property line about 90 yards away, and there's a pasture on the other side of the fence.

Bucks walk about 10 yards on my side of the fence down the line, and into my shooting lane. Today what will easily be my biggest buck ever stepped out right at about 4:30. I stopped him with my voice, steadied my thompson center omega as aimed behind the shoulder. It takes about 30 seconds for the smoke to clear. When it did, the buck was on the other side of the fence, and walking up hill in the opposite direction. He stopped for several seconds, then kind of galloped off across the field. I didn't know what to think. I shoot 250 grain shockwaves and though deadly, they don't expand and the blood trails can be bad, even with a well hit deer.

I went to look for sign of a hit. Yes, small bright/dark red blot spots immediately, about 15-20 yards down and then crossed the fence. Blood on the other side as well. A small puddle where he stopped. The blood was steady but not a lot for 40-50 yards across the field then I lost it. He was crossing the field at a downhill angle. I saw no sign of him along the fence at the bottom, which is bordering a small draw/branch. So he either jumped that fence, or ran to the far end of the field and jumped a fence into a small patch of woods. As I approached that patch, a deer ran up the hill out of those woods, couldn't see if it was the buck.

The blood looks like it's from the vitals. The deer hair at the place of the shot was brown, so not a brisket hit. But hard to imagine a well hit buck jumping a fence and running 3-400 yards, or even 200 yards and jumping another fence. I called the guy who owns the land on the other side of the pasture, who hunts the pasture, and we will go out in the morning to look.

Tuned in but I have to ask, if blood trails are spotty with those Shockwave bullets why keep shooting them?

If I shot one, maybe two deer with them and the deer was hit good but trails were thin I would be looking at a different bullet before I ended up with what you are describing what happened tonight.

Assuming you are shooting a .50 caliber muzzleloader that should be putting most of your deer down within 25 yards with many falling at the shot.

Best of luck and hopefully you find your deer close by in the AM.

Is it possible the deer was slightly quartering toward you? It sounds like a buck my son in law shot a couple years ago with a .44 Mag rifle. Shot placement was behind the shoulder but he didn't realize is was angled so it only took one lung and liver. We recovered the buck the next morning after a 3/4 mile tracking job.

I've had some chitty blood trails but not a problem with losing deer. Shot over 5 dozen with this gun and it is very accurate out to 200 yards.

He seemed to be broadside. I think this was user error and either low or back slightly. If he's dead I should be able to find him in the morning. He's somewhat boxed in by the geography.

Good Luck. Hope you recover him.

What’s temperature like tonight.

Jerry

Below the blue line is my property. 1. is where he jumped the fence. 2. is last blood. 3. is the deer I jumped 2 hours after the shot. If that is him....then he would have to have either crossed the road, bedded back down along a fenceline, or come back to my property. If it was not him, and he was fatally hit, then I expect to find him in the branch along the purple line, or in the block of woods by #3.

Temps in the high 30's. I've kept deer left overnight with lows in the 50's and never had a problem.



Here's a pic of the buck from last month.

Let us know if and when you find him. I'd suggest switching to 300 grain saboted xtps.

Glad to hear about the temp.

Good Luck finding him.

Jerry

That's a nice buck.

Hope you find him, be a real shame to waste a good one like that.

Good luck with the recovery.

IMO 250 grain 50 cal bullet does not have enough mass.

I like 460 grain no excuses projectiles.

Waiting for the report. Good luck.

wish you luck, but those bucks are sometimes tuff to kill , to me a rutting buck is in excellent shape ,because bucks have spent all fall getting ready for fights and the rutt just like a football player. bucks don`t die easy they have a will and luck to live.

Keeping my fingers crossed. I wish you had my last lab. That dog was a tracking machine.

I suspect that you hit him high on the near side and maybe only clipped that back lung with a bullet that did not expand well. He will lay up and probably better that you didn't push him. Watch and listen for blue jays, crows and red squirrels because they will likely find him before you will if he is down and out. If you hit him farther back, you should have seen him hunch and jumping a fence would be unlikely. They don't bleed to the ground well with a high body hit. If he could go a ways in your place I would check the creek bottoms because they will go for water and the thickest security cover that they can find. A tracking dog would sure be useful in your situation. A couple of buddies for more eyes on the ground too. They are really fit right now and fat and muscle can roll over a wound and they will drop even less blood to the ground. Hope that you find him.

If you hunt long enough, you see weird schit that you can't exactly plan for. Sounds like a good hit, and a tough animal, but it's hard to say until the buck is either recovered, or is observed doing just fine with a flesh-wound.

I was out at first light with some help in the pouring rain. We covered every inch of terrain along the branch, fields, pastures, brushy draws and the open hard woods and could find no trace of him. Any blood would be long gone with the pouring rain. Last night I followed the blood in the field, which was never heavy, until I could find no more. After the rain stopped and the sun came out, I drove around the surrounding area to look for buzzards and there were no circling.

With a solid rest, the shot should be dead on, but I can admit I was rattled. Maybe I pulled to the front and missed vitals in that direction. The shockwaves do tremendous damage to vitals and a deer hit in the vitals never goes more than a hundred yards, usually less than 50. In this situation, the hard to see places are small scraps of brush along the fence lines and easy to search.

One thing I didn't mention, yesterday at 5:30, about an hour after the shot, I stopped by the landowners, right up on the road on the other side of this 30 acre hay field. As I stepped out of the truck, a 4 point was standing on the fenceline 20 yards away. I knew something was up because he didn't notice me.
Then he started chasing a hot doe in a circle, and up comes a very nice buck, well outside the ears, after the doe....the buck turned and I could see the profile....this buck was not hurt and I could not rule out that it was the one I shot an hour earlier. This is the direction he took off after I shot, I just can't believe that he would be hit and chasing a doe an hour later. Do to the brush on the fenceline I only had a limited view before they were out of sight.

There's that 1 section on a deer thats above the stomach and behind the lungs that when deer are hit there they'll live on. I've done that with bow and a few weeks later get it with the rifle.

Last year I shot a buck during rifle At 100 yrds..... The buck went down on the spot....I got out of the blind and started walking towards the buck....When I got within 10 yrds the Buck got up and ran off....I tracked him for over 400 yrds and the blood trail ran out....Later that day about 2 miles away the buck ran across the road in front of me.... Hot on the heels of a hot doe....He had a big bloody spot very high on the shoulder.....He is alive and well.... I have been getting pics of him in the last couple of weeks ...

Hate to hear that. What part of VA are in? I hunted Carroll county, SW Va over the weekend and they sure were chasing does. Shot a nice 8 pt at a little under 100 yds. using 240 gr XTP's. Never had problem with that bullet and didn't Saturday either. Died within sight. Hope you find him, but I would certainly switch bullets. Poured rain on us Sunday morning also

Shot a buck years ago with a muzzle loader I believe it was a 250 powerbelt. Went back about two hours later and started tracking him it was December and we had good snow he was bleeding good. Anyways ended up jumping him after about three hundred yards. Well we were in the middle of a big nasty chunk of federal ground so I decided to keep following him, pushed him about a mile till we got to a road and left him till the morning. Went back in the morning and he was dead a hundred yards the other side of the road. Ended up he was quartered a little to me hit him behind the shoulder got one lung and liver. Hope you get him.

That is a very good observation about quartering deer and worth noting. A couple years back I was crossbow hunting for a meat doe and when I looked over to where she was, I thought it was a short coupled fawn of the year. Nope, it was a mature doe with a lot longer body, but quartering toward me. A shot tight behind the near shoulder resulted in a several hundred long tough trailing job with minimal blood. I’d only got the back of one lung, the liver and through the gut. Lesson learned.

good luck on finding him, I'd suggest a full bore lead projectile.

Shot placement is the problem not the bullet type. When buck hunting shoot to break bones or high shoulder. There's nothing worse than watching a buck run off after you shoot......besides not finding him.

What kind of powder you using ? If triple seven or pyrodex , change powders . We had the same problem with shockwaves not expanding , not enough velocity . If you're not already using BlackHorn 209 , then by all means get some . Couldn't believe the difference in accuracy , cleaning and bullet expansion .
110gr BlackHorn under a 295 Barnes knocked an exit hole about 2.5-3" wide with a behind the shoulder shot . Lungs were pulverized .
The BlackHorn according to charts is giving a little over 2100fps with that bullet .100 grs was pretty accurate but 110 was better with most groups going about an inch . Also the blue sabots, ez load were easier to load and more accurate . Do not use ML 209 primers with this powder , results are terrible . Make sure you use magnum shotgun primers , powder requires a hotter primer .
Friend has a CVA Wolf and he is getting better accuracy around 80 gr using 250 gr bullets.
Mine is a Knight .
Just thought I would mention this about the powder because you said takes about 30 seconds to see , BlackHorn doesn't make near that much smoke and way easier to clean .
Also found that Federal bore lokts 270 gr give excellent accuracy. They also expanded well with pyrodexand triple seven . Haven't shot any game with them over the BlackHorn, but they should be good .
Have a good one , Kenneth

Well this buck was never found by me and ruined the whole season. Ultimately I came to a pretty terrible conclusion about the whole thing which makes it worse. I am fairly certain the guy who "helped" me on the morning of November 1st in the pouring rain found the deer on his property and kept it for himself, or whatever he did with it. He and his sister own 4 acres that cover a strip of woods then runs for about 300 yards from the corner of the field the buck had crossed (where if the purple line continues in my aerial photograph) to the road. This is the natural escape route of the buck. From where I shot the buck to the road is 600 yards. Everything off of that creek is steep uphill.
I got a call at very first light on Nov 1st, having told the guy the night before that I had shot the buck. That night he indicated he knew the buck based on my description, he believed it's at least 5 years old. In the middle of the night it started pouring rain and continued for 12 hours. So this guy calls me at first light and says he's already searched his property and it's not there. He will meet on my property and we can keep looking. The only really logical place for it to be is on his property, but we keep looking for a couple of hours and I think this is awfully nice of him. This guy is unfortunately a known poacher and trespasser. I have caught him trespassing numerous times years ago, caught him with untagged buck a few years ago, known for being shady by pretty much everybody.
When I shot my gun to see if it was off, it was not. It's a tack driver, I had a solid rest, 80 yard broad side shot. So I should not have missed by much. The blood looked good, and I believe I one lunged him, with a .50 Shockwave he would be dead, and should be within 600 yards. When I went back to google earth I measured his property and it is a full 4 acres. How could he search that with about 10 minutes of far less than full light in the pouring rain?
I waited until after the season and gave him a call, scratching my head but not yet thinking the worst. Just casually asked him if he ever saw it again or knew what come of it? No, he never saw anything of it. I told him that I had full confidence it was dead somewhere, and he said yeah but you never really know. He is a big rabbit hunter and wanted to come over and hunt my place with my sons (8 and 11) and I said sure, give me a call. I then texted him a pic of the buck from trail cam after we got of the phone.
A week later I called him back. He said he had never seen the buck in the pic before. But he had already admitted seeing it back at the time of the shot. I mentioned that I know the buck must be dead somewhere and I know that it couldn't have gone too far. At this comment he became extremely defensive, but I did not say it as an accusation. So no need to be defensive. That was a flag but I quickly backed off and said oh just thinking out loud.
We talked another half hour. We got onto how the shockwaves are deadly but terrible about leaving a blood trial. He said " you know it was almost a perfect shot" (about my buck). Silence. I said oh really....I don't know what else was said I opted to get off the phone instead of calling him out right there. Obviously, if he knows that it was almost a perfect shot that just didn't leave a blood trail then he found the buck, and lied to keep it for himself. Not sure that he broke any law. He did not offer me to come on his property and lied when he said he searched and it wasn't there. Not sure that is illegal. But he has burned a bridge for life. I won't slander his name in the community because I don't have photographic proof. But he knows and I know. The next time I see him....which may be years or may be never...I will look him dead in the eye and ask him how he knew it was almost a perfect shot.

That sucks. I've got no tolerance for liars. This guy sounds like a shïtty neighbor.

Karma is a biatch.
Relax and let him reap what he has sown

The Karma bus is probably warming up for that run right now. Be Well, RZ.

^^^^^^^^
This. No Excuse bullets work!

I have shot over 100 deer with a 240 - 250 gr XTP over 100gr loose, 777. It works too.

110 gr loose 777 with 45cal 300XTP kills the HELL out of deer

Sorry to hear that happened man.

You gave it a fair and ethical try and were responsible in taking the shot.

You gave it your all to find the animal.

There's nothing more that can be done, and what's more you did those with skill.

If that corksoaker stole your deer, then at least know you made a good shot and there's not a buck out there running around suffering right now because of you. Or dead and never found.

Small consolation I know. But some people just really suck.

This reminds me of something that happened to me a few years back. I had been watching the biggest buck I'd seen on the farm all summer and had seen him a few times while bow hunting, but quite far away. I'd done all I could do to keep from spooking him. He was evidently bedding near where the tornado came through the government ground about half a mile up the hill. On cool, sunny evenings he would browse down the natural funnel to make his way to the clover field just before dark. The farm borders a few thousand acres of national forest which is a walk-in only area about two miles from the county road. There is an access road that isn't public, but it isn't uncommon for people to drive ATVs and UTVs through.

I had waited for a front to come through and had placed a stand just on our side of the fence row, knowing the buck would make his way down to get to the clover field. The day I was ready to make my move happened to be the first day of firearms youth season, so I knew there was a possibility of other hunters in the woods on the public side of the fence.

I made my way to the stand around 1500 with the expectation the buck would be coming through around 1600-1630. Sure enough, at 1545, he appeared. He made his way down the fence row and came within 35 yards of my stand according to my rangefinder. I never had the perfect broadside shot I had hoped for, but 35 yards wasn't unreasonable. I had been practicing to 70 all summer long and had set a limit on myself for 40 yards. I decided to take the shot. I had pressed the release and maintained focus on my pins perfectly bracketing him between 30 and 40. I let the arrow fly, seemingly in slow motion as I watched it strike the buck in his shoulder passing through to the other side just behind the opposite shoulder. It appeared to be perfect shot placement despite the mildly quartering angle.

I was more pumped than I'd ever been. I watched the buck attempt to jump the fence, but he had fallen. He mustered the strength to stand back up and clear the fence, spreading his blood all around the area. He slowly crested the hill 80 yards from my stand and continued on his way. I heard him crash once more and get back up. I heard stumbling, faintly in the distance. I decided to give the buck plenty of time to expire as to not bump him. After all, I had at least two hours of daylight and it was cooling off quickly.

Approximately one hour later, I decided to clear my stand and walk to where he had crested the hill. As I crossed the fence, I heard a UTV pull up. I heard excited voices, one of which said "look at the size of that buck Its fresh too!" I began yelling at them that it was my deer and took off running. They were about 250 yards up the funnel. I heard a tailgate slam before they drove away. I walked the blood trail all the way to where they were, found the first spot the buck had crashed, then followed the blood trail to within ten yards of the access trail where the buck's final resting spot was with disturbed leaves and a large pool of blood. But my buck was gone.

By the time I got back to my vehicle it was approaching dark. I drove up to the gravel road that leads to the public land just as a truck with a trailer behind it hauling a red UTV. In the bed of the truck, I saw antlers. I flashed my lights and did all I could do to get the truck to stop with no avail. By the time I got my truck turned around, the truck was out of sight and my deer gone; taken from me.

I spoke with my father-in-law who informed me that that was not an uncommon occurrence in that neck of the woods and it had even happened to him, though not with a trophy buck. Fortunately, the 20 acre section of private ground people have to trespass across to get to the access road came up for sale a few years later. It had been owned by an elderly woman that lived several hours away and was more or less abandoned. The family was able to purchase the land and harden it such that trespassers can't make it across so easily. If one wants to hunt the back portion of the government property behind our land, they will have to hoof it at least two miles.