Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Lost a decent 6-point

6-Point at 50-yards. Shooting a scoped 30-30 off of a "window bag" rest out of a box blind. He's broadside and standing still. I took a shoulder shot. He runs for 50-yards, is out of sight, and crashes around. I figure he's down. I gave him only 15-minutes as it was only 5-minutes to sundown when I shot him and it was getting dusky fast.

I KNOW I hit him solid. Two of us looked for him for 1 1/2 hours in the dark. Never even found any blood. I went back out today and looked for another hour. Nada. These woods are very thick with underbrush. He could be behind anything.

I shot the shoulder hoping to break both shoulders down and have him fall on the spot. At that range I should have taken a heart shot. Big mistake.

Ever shoot a deer and not even find a drop of blood?

That stinks and yes I've shot deer that didn't leave any signs of a hit.

I hit one too far in the front of the shoulder one time. We found lots of bone fragments and a fair amount of blood, at times. The deer eventually quit bleeding and we never found it. I wait for a better shot these days. I tend to try to get in just behind the shoulder, regardless of the cartridge that I’m shooting. Sorry you lost the buck. It happens to best of us,

If you hit high maybe the deer bled into his own chest cavity. He's probably laying there somewhere. Can you use dogs to help recover him?

Dogs would indeed be good to bring out.

What bullet was that?

Nope. I use enough gun to center-punch them and bleed out both sides. Good luck!

I've shot several deer through the shoulders with a .30-30. They all dropped where they stood.

My dad did the same thing once. Tried to break both shoulders, shot was a little to far back. Caught both lungs high. All we found was a little brown hair, not a drop of blood. Luckily my grandpa had a bird dog that would trail a wounded deer. We found the deer about 100 yards away in a little thicket. Several off use had walked the area and not seen the deer.

Shot one once that did the same thing but I kept looking and eventually found a couple drops of blood where it jumped a fence and then found it dead a little ways further in a still standing soybean field. Shot it with a 30/30 too using150 grain factory ammo. The bullet sliced through one side of the heart, took out one lung and then passed through the liver but didn't expand and just "penciled" through exiting on the off side right at the last rib. Apparently it ran as long as it could until it bleed out internally then just fell over dead as when I field dressed it it was full of blood.

Sounds like you didn't hit him where you thought you did.

50 yards, standing still, bag rest, almost dark, you don't want him to run far. I can't imagine why you didn't place the bullet in his ear.

Who can't hit a golf ball at 50 yards from a rest?

Sorry you lost him, disheartening for sure!!

Always handy to have a dog on followups. Almost any dog will do. Sorry to hear you lost him. And I agree with Btail, neck shot with an undisturbed deer at that range DRT.

Proly pinged a twig and deflected.....hit other than where aimed.

Last year.....shot a mule deer doe at 212 yards with a 7mm-08 and a 140 grain accubond. At the shot the deer collapsed. I walked over snd started field dressing her. Not a single drop of blood!! I looked at the head, shoulder area. No entrance or exit wound?? Upon completing field dress....I looked her over again. Finally I found a 7mm entrance hole through the spine that looked like the bullet did not expand, did not find an exit? 1 of the fastest kills but no blood.

what we need is Winchester to make the old silver tips seen a lot of deer go down with them!

Schit happens. Don't second-guess yourself now. Seems like you did the best you could, and that the bullet didn't hit where you expected it to. Hopefully you can get a dog out there. I've seen lots of dead deer that didn't start bleeding on the ground until they were nearly down. Shots in the bottom half of the body cavity bleed faster.

FWIW, I avoid the "high shoulder" shot because misses are lower-percentage. I shoot for the lungs tight behind the shoulder, and there's a lot of room for misses to kill quickly.

This year I shot an elk and broke the off shoulder and leg and the bullet exited, he turned and ran directly at me until I shot him in the chest. I shot a second elk a few weeks later through BOTH shoulders and broke the off leg too, and the bullet exited. He turned and ran directly towards me and I shot him in the chest too. Both elk were dead on their feet but didn't know it, and I didn't know it either. I'm still a bit surprised the second elk could run that fast with two broken shoulders. Over the years with deer and elk I've had better results with armpit shots.

I shot a good buck last year that was slightly angling and he ran about 45-50 yards with no blood. I also shot a boar hog at an angle recently that went about 60yds without blood. No exit on either of them. Thankfully, the woods there were a bit shaded out by heavy canopy and there wasn't much underbrush. They'd have been much tougher to find in a young briar thicket.

A buddy shot a doe a few weeks ago and got a really thin blood trail that petered out about 50yds into a young pine plantation. Briars were tough and visibility was minimal. I brought one of my dogs with me, just to see if he could help out. He's not trained, but he did find more blood and pushed the trail along another 20yds. The dead doe was spotted another 20yards ahead by projecting the line the dog was working. The broadhead didn't punch out the other shoulder and the arrow was still blocking the entrance wound. We likely would have given up if the dog hadn't helped.

I can tell you this. You may have been aiming at the shoulders, but you did not hit them in the shoulders.

You either hit high and stand him and he’s gone. Or, you missed.