Not being a bow hunter a friend just called and said he hit a good buck. Blood is red and pinkish. Sounds to me like a lung shot. How long should you wait before you8 track it.

If it’s lungs I would wait a half hour

In July ? Where is this ?

Good question? sounds like someone poached a deer.

Hey Karen - I did a 30 second Google search in his home state and there are archery seasons ongoing currently for anyone who wanted to actually check before calling someone a poacher. So I'm gonna make a wild guess he is legal and wouldn't make a post like this. Get out of your small little bubble.


https://www.eregulations.com/california/hunting/deer-hunting-seasons

For the OP, general rule of thumb is if you didn't see it go down wait a minimum 1 hour on a "good" hit. 2+ on a marginal or little blood trail hit. At least that's what I've always done. California in July I might make an exception though if I thought I could lose it to spoilage.

Thanks, it is the California A season

Just unbelievable. This fuucking place.

My apologies Rick, not “this place”, but rather some of the members

I was curious. Never heard of deer season in July. Wouldn't really give a damn if somebody was poaching.

Yeah, I said sounds like , I didn't say outright poached. Who has a deer season in July?

GFY I said sounds like. Talk about someone in a bubble.

So we have someone not caring if someone is poaching, the other accusing someone of poaching then getting mad about being incorrect. All from a guy asking advice on how long to wait on a lung shot deer.

Congrats guys....

Op - was he able to recover the deer?

We have summer management permit season in VA for does.

It’s a tough balance of wait time after the shot, field dressing and extraction, cooling the carcass and transport - before any spoil sets in.

Foxes and coyotes make leaving the deer overnight a non-option if you plan on recovering more than bones.

Go fuuck yourself you sanctimonious piece of shyt. People have been poaching around here my whole life and there's always still plenty of deer around come season. I sure as hell don't GAF about poachers on the other side of the Country.

If I were certain I double lunged the deer, I'd lower my bow, pack up my stuff and go get it. The deer is going to live 5-10 seconds. I generally either see or hear almost all my double lung shot deer drop. July in California ??? It'll probably start to spoil in about the same amount of time. LOL !!!

What a shiit show. Was the deer recovered, how long did you wait?. It’s hard unless you see em pile up, which ain’t very often in this country, if I don’t see em drop, I’ll wait a hour. Meat ain’t gonna sour in a hour.👊🏻

Hope your pard recovered the buck and had a great hunt! 👍

I get that blacky, you asked a honest question. Alaskans can hunt in July too. Might even be other states.

Oh give me a break, it was the first thing I thought of as well. July deer? I certainly didn't know, and neither did a lot of other people. Doesn't make us asswholes. Stick your self-righteousness up your ass.

Use your head for than a hat rack sally. Maybe before folks open their yap, do a little research??

As far as me fuucking myself, fuuck you dummy. Maybe you’re the stupid sonafabitch that would actually poach something, then run to the www for help, dummy.🖕🏿👊🏻

If I am certain of a good hit, I wouldn’t wait at all to follow up. Doubly so if it is hot out.

How did it turn out?

OP,
Did your friend ever find the buck?

Killed over 30 whitetail with the bow. Doesn’t hurt to wait 1/2-1 hour but on a double lung shot a deer will be down and out in a matter of minutes. Usually they run full speed until they just tip over.

It doesn’t look like the OP is gonna follow up the outcome.

Did your friend recover the deer?

Sorry for some of the poor post to your thread. For most of us the idea of a July archery deer hunt is strange at best. Learn something new every day I suppose. Personally I Prefer to archery Hunt in November. Sure there must be a good reason why July, Though other than this is California I am at a loss why 65,000 Archery tags may be available as early as July 9th.

https://wildlife.ca.gov/Hunting/Deer#54773-seasons

Unless I seen or heard the deer go down, Id have waited 30 minute to an hour. Personally with perfect shot placement, upper lungs just behind the shoulder has resulted in downed deer inside of 8 seconds for me. Then I have hit what I thought was a good lung hit, though it was a bit low and watched the deer expire roughly 45 minutes later.

I wouldn't have either with some of the dumbass responses....

Most of my whitetails taken with a bow fell over in seconds within sight of me, some even tipped over after a jump up in the air and stood there a few seconds and fell over blood pouring out. If a poor shot was made wait a while but try before the coyotes find them.
Sounds like a good hit though.

I don't even like to hunt deer in October where I live- too warm.
I remember throwing a gut pile inside a yard bag once when daylight got things warming into the 60's. After we finished everything I quickly sealed the bag. Frigging things was absolutely alive with huge flies - like watching Re-animator or something. On the plus side it seemed like we had trapped every last fly in the area and were shed of them for a while.

Hope OP got his deer quickly and cleaned it without spoil.
Lastly- hate poachers for most part. Starved and feeding a family- can give a pass but doubt that is the norm.
As bad as the drought is here I can see taking some might seem humane at this point.

No he didn't recover it. They even brought in a dog but no luck. Told him any dog that was halfway good would of found it even in this heat.

sorry to hear that but it happens sometimes that deer may have lived ?

Pinkish lung blood but dog couldn’t follow up? Sounds like a Charlie Foxtrot

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.

Lots of big talkers on here but yet they can't do a little research before showing their azzes.

Sorry to hear no recovery.

I doubt it was recoverable.

It most likely survived the incident.

If you don't hear/see it crash-30 min minimum. Made that mistake myself more than once. But I tend to be a slow learner

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Wise advice IMO

Same 👍👍

except for the bucks I've seen double lunged that have been alive 3 hours later....

THAT IS VERY TRUE ! some bucks refuse to die even when that buck is dead

Funny how they automatically assume the worst about a person. its irritating.

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.

That tells me it wasn't a vital hit. Deer isn't dead, likely won't die either. From a number of years using a dog....