Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Deer shot question! Did it get away?

Walking across pine rows with some of the rows 3 foot deep on the sides along with briars up and down on my knees caused me to start cramping like I never have before.

Its probably in a brush pile in the direction of water, having died watching the back trail for you to come jump it again. Next time you find that kind of blood trail back off at least an hour to give it time to bleed out internally.

What was the shot angle? Standard soft deer bullet? Any bone or hair? What kind of hair?

Go back to the last place you saw blood & start walking in circles that expand a few yards each time. Put up tape so you stay on track if you need - my bet is that deer is dead if you got that kinda blood.

Good luck!

I was basically about 8’ off the ground in a box stand and using psp bullet! No hair or boat found! Like I said not a drop of blood where it was shot or between the piles of blood I did find!

LOL. thats about opposite of my experience. Low hit. Brisket. Pools where it stops to look around to figure it out.

Deer won't die. You'll see it again.

BTW you don't need exclamation marks.

You missed basically. No big deal. Deer has no clue what happened.

And yeah, A dog would answer that right quick. Dog won't go past a dead deer.

Don't need a fancy dog either someone's house pet on a leash would likely find it if its down

That sounds like a lot of blood to have clipped leg or low brisket. What color was the hair where it was standing when you shot and it first fell? Sounds like a deer I shot through the lungs that kept bleeding into the chest cavity and only tipping out smaller amounts before finally hemorrhaging and falling. (Then it looked like the prom scene in Carrie.) But that bullet had exited and pulled out shards of the offside shoulder bone, so had a pretty good idea it was gonna be dead.

There are basically three kinds of blood trails.

1) The kind where they are pumping and/or blowing blood. (Easy)

2) The kind where they are leaking blood, because their "blower" and "pumper" get put out of commission. (Short, but often difficult.)

3) The kind you probably won't recover.

Good luck.

Where were the crosshairs located on the deer when your rifle fired? If you don't remember you probably had you eyes closed.

I know how to shoot a gun and my eyes weren’t closed. I learned when I was a teenager to keep your eyes open during the shot!

Not sure about the terrain where you live but...........any animal I have made a poor shot on "wounded" ....but hit hard, heads downhill and often near water, always....no shortage of steep hillside around here.
The last buck I shot was standing in a lake after a poor shot.

high shot. Clipped the top.

That's good. So where were the crosshairs?

Halfway up in the bend of his front shoulder!

Bet not

That's where it was before he yanked the trigger lol

....and clipped him high.

The “pie plate” was because he stopped. He was probably watching you.

Could be a brisket hit. Did you find hair at the shot site?

Buck,
We've all made those questionable shots. No fault on this end. I've shot where I knew it would go down only to never find it and then I've made shots that I thought were pulled and the deer went right down. Any chance you can go back out tomorrow and look? I would think that deer is not far away. Can you use dogs to track in your area?