So my brother is not a deer hunter, but decided to take his 16 yo son out for our youth season. He called last night right at dark and said my nephew had shot one and they were starting to track it. He said it had been about 15 minutes since the shot, and after discussing the situation I advised him to leave and wait because it sounded like a possible gut shot. He said that he deer hunched up slightly, and walked but didn’t run away. I met him there an hour later. We followed a good blood trail over a fence and across a railroad track. The deer then went about 30 yards before jumping another fence. There was no pool of blood to indicate he hesitated before crossing the fence. At that point the deer entered a small tilled field. We were probably a little more than 100 yards from the start. As the deer entered the field the blood trail got pretty sparse. We followed tacks and blood drops 70 yards across the field and marked where he entered the next patch of brush before I told them we should stop. We found the deer this morning about 40 yards from where we stopped. Here is the pic of what we found. What do you all think, did I go in too fast and too far, and got lucky to find him at all? Or did I mess up by stopping last night and lost the meat as a result?

Well, it's my experience that "back-out 'til morning" bullshit is made for TV versus reality. Especially Kansas in the early season.

Don't know where you hunt, but where I hunt the coyotes always, always, find that deer before morning. I immediately go after a shot deer, and stay on it until we find it or it's determined that the shot wasn't fatal.

On the bright side - nice buck and congrats to your nephew!

Hindsight is always 20/20. You found the buck. Congratulations! That is a super nice deer. You would be even more upset if you had pressed on and jumped a gut shot deer and never found him. You never know, the situation is different every time. The way I would look at it is you found a super nice buck for a young man that is going to hopefully be proud of it. He learned allot and hopefully will continue to be an avid hunter. It is a shame the meat was lost but unfortunately that can happen.

In my past experience in hunting SE Kansas - you're damned if you and damned if you don't.
It takes a danged miracle for coyotes to not spoil the party overnight. Given similar circumstances, I likely would have given it another hour or two when you got to that next patch of brush, then went after him.

But it sure is easy to play QB here after the fact.
I'm guessing the deer was pretty sick when you got to within 40 yards - maybe even caught part of the liver.

The lad gained a lot of experience last night though - heck of a buck.

You didn't even track 200 yards before giving up? I understand hindsight and all that, and I don't hunt where there are lots of fencelines, but I wouldn't have given up after less than 200 yds. You knew the deer was shot, you knew that there was a blood trail. You just gave up for some unknown reason. Kind of sad, if you ask me. That 16 year old kid likely isn't too excited about it either.

You'll never know for sure - shoulda, woulda, coulda. Personally I'd have held off an hour or so last night and then pushed on slow and listened to hear him bump before deciding to call it off. If you didn't lose it to the yotes you'd have lost a least a portion to spoilage IMO...quick google search shows lows in the upper 50's in SE KS last night. Wouldn't be too excited about opening up a gut shot buck that layed overnight in warmish weather.

I didn’t give up, just waited till morning. Not for an unknown reason either. I assumed I was, and turned out to be correct in assuming, tracking a gut shot deer. I didn’t want to bump him and lose it for good. We were already on neighbors property (with permission) and blood trail was getting hard to follow. I was afraid there wasn’t enough blood to follow in the brush. Last night I was kicking myself for possibly already pushing the buck farther onto neighbor than I should have. Obviously I’m kicking myself for the opposite now. My nephew was more than excited to find his deer. The plan is for my brother or I to shoot a cape donor so he can get a shoulder mount.

In my experience, if I am on a good blood trail and the deer quits bleeding, it is probably down within about 50 yards or so. They only have so much blood and if there isn’t enough to hit the ground when there was, there probably isn’t enough to run the deer very much longer either.

I've found exactly the same.

Just because a deer is "gut shot" doesn't mean anything specific. Either does a dwindling blood trail. Heart-shot deer "hunch up" for me as well. As someone else said, the idea of backing out overnight only works on hunting shows.

I wasn't there, so I'm not trying to criticize what you did, but rather to offer my opinion based on my own experience. I'd track for at least a quarter-mile if I could. If I thought I was pushing a wounded animal, I'd wait until 2 hours after the shot, then chase blood. I'd then mark the last spot of blood and come back in the morning. I've seen heart-shot antelope run a quarter-mile.

It's a tough call to make. If you think this is a successful outcome, don't learn anything from it. If you don't like the outcome, learn something from it and do things differently if it happens again. Either way, I wish you, your brother, and your nephew well.

That’s hunting.

Looks like a nice buck, too bad...damn coyotes!.....Hb

Too many things to reply to to quote them all. It appears damned if you do or don’t is about right. My only experience with a gut shot deer previous to this was one where the blood trail completely dried up in 100 yards. Turned out that intestine had plugged the hole until he filled with blood a few hundred yards later. That deer would have never been recovered had we not happened upon him floating in a pond 1/4 mile a way. Luckily that happened in the morning and not at night. I was afraid that guts may be plugging the hole last night as well when blood began tapering off. With no pool at either fence jump I was afraid he wasn’t hurt too badly. After dark and in the brush would not have offered a second shot. Was I successful, ultimately yes. We recovered the deer. Did it happen the way everyone would have liked, obviously not. I am trying to learn, that’s why I posted this here. I’ve killed around 20 deer in 25 years of hunting and am still learning. My experience is with a rifle and don’t have a lot of experience tracking over a couple hundred feet. Every article I read last night said don’t attempt a track on a gut shot deer for 12 hours. The consensus here seems to be to wait, but not that long.

What cartridge was used and what ammo?

This. There's no right answer. At least your nephew got the antlers from his first buck... and learned something about deer behavior in the process. Coulda been worse.

If I know I hit a deer and it runs far enough that I don't hear it crash, I wait an hour and then search until I find it dead or bump it. Haven't run into one alive yet, but I'm sure I would if I didn't wait. Had one run like a lightning bolt straight into Texas mesquite and black brush. Waited an hour. The blood trail was very light but consistent, individual drops on leaves. A few small bone splinters at POI. Crawled through thorns for 25 minutes. Found it piled up after hemorraging on a cactus. Looked like Halloween II. The damn thing literally had no heart and not much lung left, the interbond had shattered the shoulder and spewed out bone chips. But still made it 60 yards leaving miniscule blood. Moral of the story: you never can tell based on the jump or the blood. Common logic would've said bone and little blood was a front leg hit and a long gone deer...

me personally, I would have kept looking till I found him.

so basically, I am saying you didn't make the right call.

260 rem Federal Premium 120gr Nosler BT. This is what I gave them to use after my brother originally took him out with a suppressed subsonic 300 bo. I have no experience with this load. I had used 120 core-lokt before but couldn’t find any in my mess of ammo.

I was told it was a quartering to shot from approximately 150 yards in the final minutes of shooting hours on a cloudy day. The buck hunched without kicking or jumping and walked away “looking hurt”. He only bled out of one side. I found no evidence of entry in the rib cage. Outside of that it’s all a guess

Just curious that s all. MB

If you truly felt it was a shot too far back, then I say you made the right call to back out until morning. It sucks that it ended this way, but you could have just as easily bumped him onto property you couldn't hunt.

If I ever think I have a liver or gut shot critter on my hands, I back out and come back that afternoon or next morning, taking my chances with the coyotes. If I know I had a solid shot then I go right in.

From what I can tell, you made the right choice for the info you had.

I wouldn't sweat it, man, it happens. What county? Who are you using for a taxidermist?

BTDT. This is the Neosho River - I'm sure you're familiar with it.

Luckily he made it to the river so the coyotes didn't bother him overnight.

I’m in Labette County (Parsons area). I use Brian Barnett/ Sporting Life Taxidermy in Edna.

I've never followed the theory of backing out and letting them "stiffen up". The theory doesn't hold muster with me. I want blood to keep pumping, I want them to keep moving and moving fast blood pumping means blood loss to the heart.

Not sure what I would have done. If you could do it over I would have waited longer to give the deer more chance to bleed out closer to where it was shot, the damned if you do is it also gives them a chance to quit bleeding. With three people one should stay at the last sign found and the others should circle in an increasing radius until more sign is found. If alone I leave some type of marker and work out from it. I lost one a couple of years ago in head high grass that I would have found if I had circled more. But my flashlight was not very good and I found him like you about forty yards from where I had stopped but the meat was a total loss.

Nice buck and if the kid is sharp he should have learned several valuable lessons even though it is a drag the deer got torn up.

Ive killed approaching 200 Whitetails in my life and assited in tracking at least 100 more and will tell you, no 2 situations are the same and sometimes you make the right choice and sometimes you dont. Gotta make your best decision based on what the sign is telling you and your "gut feeling" i have done both, found a deer the next morning, often not far from where I stopped the night before, as well as pushed too hard and fast and jumped a wounded deer and have it run off never to be found.

One case in point was a large 8 point i arrowed 2 years ago. Shot looked and felt good, heard a nice thump on impact etc. After waiting an hour to climb down i found my blood covered arrow and had a good blood trail. By that I mean steady flow with multiple at least pie plate size puddles of blood where the deer had paused to pick its escape route. After 200 yds of this, still no deer. At this point the blood started to taper and get spotty but still decent amount when found. Kept on it for another 300 yards getting more sparse. Led onto property I am not allowed access to so that was the end of it and I figured it was dead there. Fast forward 3 weeks and what do I see on my trail cam but this same deer with an obvious shoulder wound. A week after this, on Halloween, I arrowed this same buck again. Only a 50yd track this time and found. Post mortem showed first arrow had hit the shoulder bone and deflected down though the underarm area making a large wound with ALOT of blood loss but obviosly not fatal as the wound was partially healed up and the buck was chasing a doe when killed so obviously not too bad off. ANYONE who saw the initial bloodtrail would think there was no way the deer lived, but it obviously did!

Like stated above hindsight is always 20/20. I would take this experience as a teaching tool and help your nephew understand why you choose to do what you did. Also tell him every situation is different and at least you did recover the buck. Then get him out there and whack some coyotes as revenge.

I was going to suggest using a softer bullet in the future until I went back and read page 1 to see that he used a BT. At 150 yards even with a .260 it should have penetrated better than that. I hit an 8 point too far back once and while it went down within a hundred yards, it got back up again and ran for a creek bed 1/4 mile away by GPS measurement. The only way I had to track that deer after a sparse blood trail was that broken gut smell in the air. Use all your senses. Cracked him again as he ran out of that creek bed. I always go after them right away if I think that the shot was good. Switching to softer bullets has resulted in shorter or no tracking. In snow you can run them out of blood if you stay on them. Got a leg shot deer that way that others had given up on. Tracked another one by the hair cut off by the bullet when it got in with other deer tracks.

Your assistance got your nephew his buck. Some meat got spoiled but you maximised the potential to find and minimised the risk of total loss for young hunters first deer.

I think you made the best decision based in the info you had.

Maybe the young hunter now wants to shoot some coyotes?

Well, it's my experience that "back-out 'til morning" bullshit is made for TV versus reality. Especially Kansas in the early season.

Don't know where you hunt, but where I hunt the coyotes always, always, find that deer before morning. I immediately go after a shot deer, and stay on it until we find it or it's determined that the shot wasn't fatal.

On the bright side - nice buck and congrats to your nephew! This! I agree 100 %

Tough call. I like staying on the trail when possible but have waited four hours on questionable morning shots. Hate the tv shows that always back out till morning without even following the trail for 100 yards. They just want daylight to film the recovery. In coyote infested country stay on the trail. What is the difference between you jumping the deer or a pack of coyotes doing it? Coyotes don't wait till the deer is dead to get after it.

Around here if I can give them 3 hours after a gut shot I'm going after them. I've pushed them after dark and lost them but I've also found them. Too many times we've found dear the next morning and the hind quarter was gone. I like to try and find them as early as possible. And we don't have a huge coyote population.

As others said it's 50/50. No absolute right answer

We don’t have the coyote problems around here that some of you do. Coyotes, yes. No shortage of them, but I’ve never had them eat a deer left over night. And on a deer that is gut shot, I’m leaving it for 12 hours, minimum. A deer hit in the guts isn’t going far unless it’s pushed, and a gut shot is 100% fatal. It just takes time for it to work if no other vital organs or arteries are hit. When I was younger, I’d always track right after I climbed out of my tree and got my gear packed up. Lost several deer for myself, or my friends that way. Now, if I know a deer is hit in the guts, I wait. They’re almost always bedded and dead the next morning within 150 yards of where they were hit if they aren’t disturbed. Sometimes still alive, but very weak and able to be approached for a finishing shot. Based on the info you received about the way the deer acted, I would have guessed as you did(correctly) and called it a gut shot. And I would have done the same as you and waited. In my opinion you did the right thing, 100%.

I don't think there is a 100% right answer, every situation is different. I do know this. I have always found the deer by doing big concentric circles with the shot location as point A and the nearest water as point B. Mind you this is small tracts of private woods in farm country surrounded by crop land. Oft times a source of water is not that close, but I have always found the deer between the two points.

Shot a 8 point last fall. Tn deer so maybe 150lbs on the hoof. Not big.

243 with 95nbt. 394 yards. Unfortunately after the shot I found out my gun was shooting 4” to the right meaning I hit too far back. Had just shot it 2 days before to 700 yards and it was dead on. No clue what happened
Slightly quartering away. Bullet hit stomach/liver and exited. Waited 2 hours and then jumped the deer within 80 yards of where I shot him

Went back 2 hours later and he was laying 200 yards away dead. Middle of the day coyotes had already found him and tore up front R shoulder and rear R leg. I don’t let them lay any longer than I have to cause the meat will either spoil or the coyotes will find them

Not saying you made the wrong choice, and congrats to your nephew
Just the way it is when there are coyotes around or the weather is hot

As someone who bowhunts and has lost a deer in the process (got on it too quick after shooting if with a bow).If I shoot them with a gun, I take up the trail in about 15-30 minutes. If bow hunting I give it a minimum of 30 minutes, an hour is better. Outside of that, I agree that wait until morning to look is purely for TV.

We had a similar situation this last Saturday night when my father shot a nice 9pt, he thought it was quartering more than it was and wound up with one lung and liver. There was very little blood when we first started tracking which was an hour after the shot and kicked the deer up after about 50 yds. Then we waited another two hours to start tracking again and found him within a hundred yards. Very little blood and if we would have waited until morning the dew probably would have washed away more sign.

This bears repeating. Congrats to the young man. Kudos to you for helping him and your quest to learn and improve. 'naugh said.