Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Any Ever Shot Any Game That "Got Away"

Looking for game that you have shot that either got away or took a very long tracking job. List ammo used, Caliber, where the game was hit, as much detail as possible

Thanks

I'm fortunate in that I've never lost one...

I've had many a dead dove fly away.

BP...

Only big game I have lost was a doe whitetail shot high through the chest (bow)and a black bear hit somewhere unknown(rifle). No blood from the doe, just a little fat on the arrow. Searched for 2 days and never found a trace of blood. The bear (340 Wby, soft point) instantly dropped at the shot but then got up and took off. I never found a trace of a hit after searching the rest of that day and the next. No blood, hair, nothing. Maybe I just scared it really bad.

I have had to crawl around for hours looking for pindrops of blood (and guts) but I have always found hit animals (except these 2) sooner or later.

Coyotes now, that's a different story.

I have a blood trailing dog (Great Pyrenees) and have looked for a lot of crippled deer for others. Some, after trailing a long ways I decide that they are not hurt bad enought and they will recover and quit the trail. All that I have to trail very far are the result of a bad shot. I have never had to trail one over 150 yards that I found that had a shot to the heart, lung, shoulder area. Most were gut shot, brisket shot (low) or hit in the back legs. A couple were shot too far forward in the shoulders and did not damage the shoulder bones. The longest trail was a gut shot eight point that did not want to quit. He finaly gave up and let me get close enough to grab his horns and cut his throat after he hit some property with barbed wire fences and his guts would grab them when he crossed. I caught up with him after three and half miles as the crow flies. On his trail, I have no idea. miles

Its always a tragedy when a hunter losses an animal. I have been hunting since the early 50's & have shot over 150 deer, over 140 boar, assorted African game, bears, caribou, stags, elk, antelope, sheep, goats, even a lot of predators. I pass up on poor shots & while not the best shot practice a lot. I have 2 heart breaking losses. The first was a wolf hunt in -39 weather with blowing snow & almost dark. The black wolf walked slightly out of the bush & I shot with a 257Weatherby 115G X bullet. The wolf dropped like a rock & never twitched. I watched through my scope for close to 2 minutes & almost put another bullet into the carcass at about 150 yards. I slowly unloaded my custom Mauser & started for the snow machine. Suddenly, the wolf stood up, it was virtually dark at this time, & began to stagger into the bush. I radioed my guide & then sped to the point of impact. Only a tint drop of blood was found. The guide & I tracked into the bush & found where the Alpha wolf had led the pack away. Not another drop of blood. Apparently, I nicked the skull & knocked the wolf out. The second was a Whitetail Deer(8 point about 17" inside spread) again shot at almost dark at about 300 yards with a .300 Win. Mag. with a 180G. Partition. The deer jumped at the shot & disappeared into a swamp with standing water, blow downs, briar's, & piles of small trees & limbs from having been partially timbered(cut) many years ago. I found red blood at the point of impact & where the deer jumped into the swamp. Using my flashlight & marking tape I entered the swamp. About 10 yards inside I found where the deer lay down, pieces of bone from the shoulder(I believe), & lots of red blood. I then fell into a swamp hole & decided to wait for day light. On returning I found the blood trail & about 30 yards later when the deer lay down again, more bone, & lots of blood. I was convinced I would find a dead deer in minutes. I followed the blood trail as the deer zigzagged about another 100 yards deeper into the swamp. Finally I lost the blood trail & returned to the lodge. I then located the best tracker in our club who has found many wounded deer. Using a large magnifying glass he found where the deer had left a slight bit of blood on surrounding leaves. After about 75 yards more we found where the deer lay down, a lot of blood, & a big piece of bone that looked like it came from the upper leg. Long story shot after another 100 yards the blood trail disappeared & the deer was never found. I looked for buzzards in the area for several weeks & never saw any. The deer must have been shot through upper leg & brisket, but how could he have survived?

Been killing deer since the fifties. Never lost one that I shot at, but when I was young, kids were dogs. That meant we chased down cripples. All that I remember were either gut shot or hit in a leg(s). Being as most everyone was using 30-06 rifles I would say that probably the vast majority of what I had to chase down was hit with 180 grain bullets. I remember in particular one doe that went a quarter mile leaving blood and lung tissue in her wake, a gut shot buck that made it maybe a half mile before he spent too much time looking back at me in a big azz swamp, and a front leg hit doe that I chased for a couple days in a big wooded pasture.

Good luck getting any info outta this bunch. From what I have seen no one on here wounds anything, makes bad shots, misses, makes bad shooting decisions or shoots over 300 yards. The ones that do talk about it get crucified. And the ones that addmitt it I commemend cause it does happen and no one is perfect.

I have shot Javelina with a 357 shooting 125gr SJHP and never recovered it. looked for hours, tracked blood, and never found him.
Hit a Coyote on the ranch with a 22LR at 25 yards and never recovered him.
Shot a deer at close range with a bow and never recovered him. luckily we found him on the rifle hunt and my buddy got him.

Numerous quail and dove with my shotgun that were just peppered or that got a good dose and flew off.

Wounding animals, bad shots and misses happen. Sure we don't like it and feel bad when it happens. But fact is it happens.

Hope my wounds helped and I hope you get some good info from these guys.

Kique

I shot a coyote two winters ago that took off. It was facing me at 300ish yards when I let loose of a 40 grain v-max from a 221 fireball. I heard the splat and decided to retrieve it in the morning but after sunrise I tracked good blood for over a mile before the trail quit. Roughly three months later I shot a limping coyote in the same area with a wounded front shoulder. It was nasty enough I didn't feel like digging but am pretty sure I had cleaned up my own mess. I have lost a coyote since then but he was bleeding badly and dragging his feet in the snow when he crossed the fence onto unfriendly territory. I'm as certain as possible that he didn't go much further.

I was hunting on the White River Refuge in Arkansas about 1975 or so. We were camped on the river, and a big storm came thru on Sat night and about blew the tent away, drenching us with rain. Sun morn dawned clear and cold and I decided to hunt a hot trail near the river. About 8:30 (I was sitting on the ground, we did that back then) I saw a big 8 point headed down the trail that passed about 40 yds in front of me. As I brought my 50 cal Hawken around to get ready, movement caught my eye and behind that big 8 was an even bigger (read MUCH bigger) deer. He had six long tines on my side and his rack was high and wide with alot of mass where it went into his head. The 8 smelled me and stopped but the big boy didn't have a clue, but was alarmed by the way the 8 was acting. They both bounced off into a thicket and I had one small window for a shot. As the shoulder of the 2nd deer (I thought it would be the big boy) came thru the hole, I fired at about 50 yds. Found blood and looked for him for about 8 hrs along with my 3 buddies, but no luck. He may have been one of only 2 booners I have seen in my life (the other was in Canada (Sask) years later.) If I make it to the pearly gates, I hope I can ask to see a replay of that morning.

I found that when they first introduced steel shot I was losing a lot of cripples, but after I took a steel shot shooting seminar my efficiency went way up. Still , I tend to lose a few birds every year due to the tendencies of steel and probably some poor shooting.The last animal I lost was a bear shot at about 30 yds. with a 30/30. Thought I'd made a good hit but tracked it to a big swamp where I lost the blood and trail. Kept going back looking for birds but never did find any sign. I think I might have hit high between the diaphragm and spine which would explain the lack of blood and dead animal at the end of the trail.

I'll admit I have lost game that I have shot!
Sometimes it was poor placement, other times it was due to the fact I went after it too fast. and yet other times the critter went on property I could not get permission to retrieve.
This year for instance I shot and lost 2 whitetail doe, (both with a bow) 1 I know for a fact I hit high and basically gave her a flesh wound and a haircut, the other I cant explain...I saw the arrow hit her in a double lung shot..arrow blew through and lots of blood at first.
The guy I was hunting with is a Registered nurse/anesthesiologist and told me by the type of blood I had that we would soon find her, but after 4hrs of tracking and no more blood (we waited 2 hrs befor tracking) we lost her.
I'm not happy about any of my losses but sometimes things happen.

I would second your comments. I have belonged to a lot of hunt clubs, owned a booking business, & hunted Canada, Western States, Europe & Africa. I have seen a fair amount of lost game especially whitetails. In many cases when the deer runs off after the shot the shooter looks & seeings no blood & chalks it up as a missed shot. The deer may have died in 100 yards or have traveled quite a distance belong laying down & dieing. In some cases the wrong bullet was used. My best friend insisted on using his standard deer load while hunting plains game in Africa. A 7mm Mag. with 140G. ballistic tips isn't the correct bullet for Africa. He lost an Impala, shot a zebra 5 times, & would have lost a Gemsbok if the trackers couldn't have tracked a snake on a rock. I have personally seen friends loose caribou, Black Bear, deer, & hogs. Its seems to just disappear from their memory. Anyone that hunts a lot has either lost animals or is a good liar.

I have never lost any big game animals I have shot with a rifle or a bow.
IME most of the game lost is from bow hunters. We did have a guy in our camp that lost a deer every few years with a rifle. Very poor shot.

I lost a buck this year. I guess. No sign of hit though and I followed him for 2 hours seeing him 3 more times with no sign. A friend saw him 6 days later, nothing wrong...6mm woa, 85tsx, and i'm fairly sure it must have hit brush I never saw becasue the shot was so steady Id' have bet I could have hit a dime at that raneg. Should have shot him in the head but didn't want to ruin the cape..

My buddy shot a very unique buck smoe years back. 125ish yards. 06, 165 sierra game kings that I loaded, 50 something of Varget. He is a good enough shot, and we found a bit of blood and that was it, appx 5 of us looked for almost 6 hours... never found. Until 3 weeks later he was found running a doe and shot in the neck. Perfect hole through each lung from 3 weeks earlier, and healed up with scar tissue....

You never know.

As to bowhunters loosing more, I dont' think thats capable numbers wise as there are a ton more [bleep] that can't hit squat with a rifle. But that wasn't the question. And I say that having well over 100 animals with a bow under my belt.

My bottom line at this point in life, I'm 99% sure I can find mortally wounded game at any place, and if I don't I don't think it was mortally wounded. Just my take on it.

Jeff

Big game, no.

Small game, yes. Squirrels. .22LR.

My first Elk- a Bull that I walked up on, scared the chit outta me when he came up ouf of nowhere. Was packing a Ruger # 1 converted to 338-378- Many will say too much gun, but I think Buck fever- Almost didn't shoot and to this day wish I had not
Worst shot of my life, maybe he jumped and turned or maybe I missed. Broke his right hind leg and creased his belly.
Damn single shot rifle, I had bullets in every pocket but couldn't find one when he staggered and stopped for a moment. Six hours and several miles later I finally put him down just about fifteen yards from private property where he would have been coyote food.
I made a promise right there that I would never fire at any animal I was not sure of putting a fatal shot into

I shot a four point buck back in 84 or 85, I was excited and
missed him before I hit him. At the shot he ran about 45 yards
and lay down under a tree. I fired again and missed him,
he jumped and ran. I tracked him for two hours by myself and
the next day my dad's friend tracked him for another hour.
Never found him.
Another time while hunting squirrels with a 22mag, I
suprised a large raccoon that was sleeping in a large tree.
It woke up at the same time that I saw him. He sat up and
I fired for the head, he tumbled backwards into the
crotch of the tree, which was also the entrance to the den.
I walked home and got a large ladder, but it didnt do
any good. I couldnt justify cutting the tree down.

If I had a blood trailing Pyr, I'd teach him to retrieve so I wouldn't have to keep up with him.

Mr. jwp475;
I hit a small mule deer with a 180gr Hornady out of an �06, while it was running. I assume I must have hit the withers, as it went down immediately. I was on horseback with another chap that day. He was having a bit of trouble with our horses when I looked back at him, so rather than go to the buck as I normally would have done I went to help with the horses.

When we got to where the deer had been, we found one drop of blood and a piece of meat the size of a pencil eraser. We looked for it on foot and then on horseback for about 4 or 5 hours without finding another trace. I searched the area for ravens later to no avail.

As a by the way, that particular load had a string of something like 18 one shot kills on deer for me up to that day, so it was all me that failed that day.

I hit another small mule deer with a 165gr. Hornady BT out of a .308 Norma that got away. I know where I was aiming, but as the buck was lost, can only guess where I hit. My rest for the shot was less than perfect and I believe the barrel of the rifle was touching the Saskatoon tree I was using as a rest and not the fore end.

I looked for several hours that day and returned the next morning to look for several more hours but found nothing beyond the original small bit of bone and two small drops of blood. Again this load had proved to be very effective on deer both previously and subsequently, so it was my error yet again.

I hit a large mule deer with the same load, that is a 165gr Hornady BT out of a .308 Norma doing somewhere around 3150fps. The buck was a long ways off, judging from how much the bullet dropped and he knew we were there and was leaving. I was prone with a good rest, but pulled the trigger as he jumped to run and immediately regretted doing so as I well knew from the buck�s body language he was leaving.

We followed him for over two hours into a blow down shin-tangle canyon with a small creek at its bottom. I finally ended it after first missing an easy shot at it at less than 50 yards and then making good on the 2nd shot. The first shot was a foot back of the lungs where I'd aimed, it was a gut shot.

We packed out 144lbs of boned meat- including leg bones- uphill in a blinding greasy snow storm that afternoon, making it out to the pickup at the edge of a remote cut block long after dark.

After all these years I still get mad at myself thinking about what I put that grand animal through because of my desire to get a �good� mule deer when I knew the shot was marginal. He was indeed a good buck and I really didn�t deserve him that day, nonetheless we thankfully did eventually find him.

Well, there are my lost big game animal stories. It is my hope others can learn from my errors and I hope I learned from them too.

Regards,
Dwayne