Most deer i thumped in the boiler room ( double lung) died within seconds. Average about 6 second or so.
Ruminants have a well established mediastinum. That is a membrane that divides the lungs.
If you only get one lung it can collapse & clot. The critter can survive with the other good lung. This occurs usually when it’s a straight down shot. The deer is directly below the shooter.
Thinking the same thing, they drop down almost instantly with no tracking needed.
I quit counting at over 100 deer with a bow. That was many years ago.
I can say its fairly rare to see a deer die in 6 seconds. It happens. But its not uncommon to go 30 seconds to minutes or hours. Even with a double lung as I've noted. Watched a good buck get double lunged. Ran a bit. walked a bit. Bedded down. Never moved. I snuck out the back, ate breakfast etc... came back 3 hours or so later, he got up, walked out of sight and fell over dead... Same with a brother in laws book deer.
Some just don't give up easy. And to be honest I could even imagine given the right set of circumstances those deer ability to clot a wound and if they stay still long enough, to heal and never start bleeding again from that wound.
Lots of factors of when to trail. Weather. Heat. Varmints. Etc... It can be a hard call.
All I can say is for the most part if you trail a gut shot one less than 8 hours you likely won't find it. If you leave it, it will be dead within 100 or so steps in its first bed. Assuming no varmints, pigs, heat etc... has ruined it by then.. left one once in the evening. Came back next morning and the pigs had eaten it all except hide and hair. Would have never found it if we had jumped it in the dark anyway.
