[10acres]

I just happened to be working close to my buddies farm yesterday and got done with work a little early. So I was able to slip into a stand for an afternoon archery hunt, which was my 1st of the year. I got all settled in around 2 pm and waited anxiously. I just had that feeling I was going to see deer. My excitement waned as the afternoon drug on until about 4:45 pm.

I was was putting a few items back in my bag and preparing to call it, when out steps this little basket rack 8 pt. He was nothing to write home about, but I have never killed a deer with my bow. He grazed on the other side of small tree about 25 yards away and I waited patiently. With about 15 minutes of shooting light left, he stepped out and offered a 25 yard broadside shot.

As as I drew my bow back , he turned straight at me and watched me for what seemed like 30 minutes. So there I stood holding my bow back with him looking right at me with no shot to take. He finally turned to go back behind the tree and I tried to steady myself for a shot, but I was shaking so bad from holding for as long as I did, I decided to left off and draw again as he passed by the other side of the tree. I don’t know how it happened, but when I relaxed the arrow went flying and I heard a thwack as it hit the deer somewhere. As the deer took off his tail was tucked and I knew that I had hit him, so I listened to him run off and never heard him drop.

I immediately got down and went to where he was standing to look for blood, but there was none and also no arrow. I looked for blood for about 45 minutes and then went into the woods where he had entered. I knew he wasn’t close by because he ran for a long way before I couldn’t hear him anymore. I searched for blood in the woods and decided to call it a night. I called my buddy as I was leaving and told him I was going to pick him up in the morning to help look.

I enlisted the help of my youngest son and into the woods we went this morning. I was somehow able to find a little blood about 75yards into the woods. After that my sons young eyes were able to keep us on his trail. We found where he ripped the arrow out of his body minus the broad head. We think i shot him in the shoulder. We were able to track him for about a mile and a half before the blood trail ended.

It was a sad ending to my first arrow flung at a deer even though it was unintentional. I was hoping I had missed him completely. I hate that it had to end this way, but it was very good experience for my son to track a deer so far. I learned a lot of lessons during one hunt and hope I passed some along to my son also. It was my first and possibly my last archery hunt of the year.

 

[tradarcher]

Don't take it so hard. It was experience & bow hunting. There's no telling how many have been lost due to the shot placement, a deer jumping the string or the number of circumstances that lead to losing an archery deer.

You didn't give up and forget about it. Coming back to do all you possibly could is doing the right thing. Your son will gain knowledge of blood trailing every time he goes out tracking. That's a plus there!

 

[Flat Top]

I guess I am lucky but have never lost a deer...but, there were times I thought I had, and like you 10acres, I just kept after it. I am sure that my day may come............on that note: A buddy of mine who owns and hunts his own land has lost a couple of deer during his lifetime. On one occasion, he found a deer that he had poorly shot (deer turned at the shot) a few weeks later, and he said that there was not much left of the deer...mostly skin and bone. A few weeks after that he revisited the carcass and there was not much left but clumps of hair and a few bones. Nature has a way of wasting nothing...nothing, so, as bad as my buddy felt (you feel, or I would feel) about losing any game animal, he at least knew that birds and animals survived that winter from that carcass............but as a second thought he said that he would have been much happier having the meat on his plate....cause he aint in the business of feeding wild animals!!!

 

[94win30wcf]

As long as you tried to find him dont beat yourself up. but for many of us. you never forget it. hunting does not always go well. I swear murphys law was made for bow hunting.

 

[kingstrider]

I lost one once and still feel bad about it but it happens sometimes. At least you tried to find the deer, some guys would just say screw it and move on.

 

[Goldtrigger]

Don’t beat yuur self up did what you could here is something to think about
An old man I know collected fossils and stuff when they were digging canals through what is now the Venice of America. Cape Coral Florida he was beaming when he showed me this petrified leg bone of a deer and at the knee joint was a stone arrow imbedded in it with bone growth all around it I’ll never forget that fossil as long as I live that deer was hit and lived for a long time after who knows how many hundreds or thousands years ago

 

[Nodrama43]

"thwack" = shoulder bone.

if you got the entire arrow back just minus the broad head he isn't hurt bad enough to kill him. Someday when he is finally killed the hunter will be shocked when he finds a broad head in the shoulder all grown over and scarred. I have killed two deer in my lifetime exactly like this. Both had OLD 2 blade bear razor heads stuck in a shoulder bone.

It happens. You can't kill em if you don't shoot at them.

 

[10acres]

Pretty sure I hit the shoulder and he’s still alive. Didn’t find enough blood for him to have bled out.

 

[Arky73]

I know how you feel. I have lost two deer since I have been hunting them, and I was sick about both for a while. But, if you hunt, and hunt long enough, it happens to everyone at some point. Especially bow hunting. At least it wasn’t the buck of a lifetime! I have a good friend that is a great bow hunter, had never lost one as long as he had been hunting. A few years back He had been hunting a nice buck he had on camera for two years, never got a shot. On year three, he finally got his opportunity, and hit it far back. He looked for it for several hours, gave up, went back the next day with friends and family, and they never found it. It’s just part of hunting.

 

[kraynky]

It happens to the best hunters now & then. An unseen twig, a deer jumping string or even a release letting go too soon. You went back & looked hard, and taught your son few things along the way I'm sure. Don't beat yourself up over it. I know exactly how bad it can make you feel to wound a deer.

I did something similar to the very first doe I slung an arrow at using a recurve. I didn't take it hunting again until the next season, & practiced a lot in between. You are not alone.

 

[MidBigWest]

I have family that have shot deer and recovered broad heads buried in the vertebrae of the deer.
Archery is a game of an inch in either direction and you hit bone.
Breast plates ribs shoulders vertebrae. Any number of odd things happen in archery.

 

[256WinMag]

I have been there and done that. Archers understand. I started years ago with Muzzy broadheads, and Zwickey's depending on the bow. Tried a few new fangled ones in the interim. Gone back to my old favorites. "They will kill".

 

[10acres]

The thing that bothers me most is that the shot I was supposed to take was identical to the shot I practice of my back deck. The only difference was that my target at home never turns and faces me when I draw on it, such is hunting. I felt it was my responsibility to follow the trail as long as I could. There were several points that we were just following what looked to be a trail in the leaves, then we would find blood when he would step over a downed log.

 

[BFPGW]

It happens. The first buck we mounted for the den took my wife and me, with rifles! She is a dead shot at 75 yards and this was about 50. She fired her 1895G because she had a broadside shot and it was facing me. First round fired and no movement. She short stroked her rifle and it jammed. I took a front neck shot and it dropped right there.

While examining the rack we spotted a nick in a main beam with a dark ring. I asked her for one of her Rem 405SP rounds. The nick and dark gray half circle matched the bullet nose exactly. How did she hit it two feet from her intended target at that short yardage? Things happen.

The taxidermist saw the nick and asked if we wanted it fixed. Simultaneously we yelled NO.

Ours ended better but it might not have and we would never know why. Probably why there are so many good old recipes for beans and ham hocks.

 

[Flat Top]

There are other reasons that a hunter may not find a deer that died after it ran off..............other hunters, which I prefer to call deer thieves....or, dead deer rustlers. I dont know how many times I have actually witnessed events where a hunter got a clean shot on a deer, followed up to the end of a blood trail, to find nothing but a pile of guts and/or drag marks through the woods! That happens a lot on public land, but I know of three cases where it happened on private property as well.

 

[navajo]

I have a nice 9pt rack on the wall in my loading room...
When we strung the deer up, we noticed one of his front lower leg
joints was badly swolen and somewhat mis-shapen.
Turned out too have been healed from being shot, I believe
with a small cal like a 22.
He also had a hole that went all the way through his
back, just under the spine, about the middle of his body
just behind the rib cage.
When I skinned him, it was weird, because the hide was poked
into the hole sort of.
I asked around and a guy I know that bow hunts told me he
believed the deer had been shot with a bow.

They're tougher than you think...
I killed a buck out in west Texas back in the 90's that had been
shot in the neck with a rifle and it was fully healed.
The bullet just didn't expand enough and didn't hit anything
vital.
I've seen them shot low in the leg and make it.
It happens more than you think.
You just never expect it will happen to you.

 

[T REX]

10acres, most of us that have "bowhunted" for quite a while, may have had the same results you had on that deer, I know I have, and let me assure you, it almost physically made me sick to my stomach, the only obligation we have to the deer is just what you did, make every possible effort you can at a recovery!!! Odds are, with no more blood, and recovering the shaft, which I would guess means shallow penetration, the deer will recover!!! as an example, one of my mentors in bowhunting, and this is gonna show you guy's how long I've been at this game, was processing a deer, and found a "lump", same old discussion, should we toss it? One guy decide to cut the "lump" open, inside the calcified lump, was a MA3 broadhead, the deer totally survived being shot with an arrow!!! So, keep hunting, these things get easier with time, trust me!!! T Rex

 

[OLSKOOL]

one afternoon in 2014 me and my brother was bow hunting. he shot a 6 point buck under his stand in the back with a 50# recurve. the deer ran off with the arrow in his back, we trailed a very small amount of blood for about 50 yds. not another drop. we looked long and hard to no avail. two seasons later I was hunting with a rifle at the back of the property, I killed a 10 point buck. being lazy that day I took it to the processer. a couple of days later it was ready. when I got there the kid working there gave me my broadhead back! I said I killed this deer with a rifle! he said it was imbedded in the deer's back. I thought a moment, I called my brother and asked what broadhead he was shooting? he said a 100gr. muzzy, I said I got it back for you but I am keeping the deer,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[HIKayaker]

KUDOS to you. That's a hard thing to admit.

I've lost a couple myself. One buck I hit hard, then trailed for probably 3 miles. Blood everywhere, but no deer at the end of it. Trail stopped in an open stand of woods. I could see every direction for 200-300 yards. No idea where he could have gotten to. I still think about that one.

Overall, it happens more often than anyone cares to admit, I think.

 

[tranteruk]

10acres, your attitude does you credit. You are clearly a responsible hunter.