...Lost another one today.  I don't believe it.  Been bow hunting for 11 years, 9 deer harvested and not a single one lost.  This year?  2 harvested..2 lost..  What the actual fuck?

I'm used to hunting from a treestand, yes, but I regularly shoot 3d tournaments, many unmarked yardage.  Do pretty damn good too.

I don't know what the fucks going on.  I took the young 8 on a heavy quartering away shot.  Not extremely difficult but no gimme.  Shot the button buck(thought it was a doe) quartering to at 35 yards.  Picture perfect shot on him, dropped in 30 yards.  A 30ish yard shot on a young buck earlier this season?  Hit him god knows where...fucked up the yardage.  Sparse blood on the arrow.  Almost no blood trail.  No dead deer within 1 mile of anywhere I could physically walk/crawl until it turned into waist high swamp and deepening.

Now this morning I go out..  I didn't sleep at all last night so I was nodding off in my blind till I get woken up by the sound of hooves.  I look up and to the right and through the brush a nice tall mature 8pt buck that I've been hot in the pants for since last year is staring down my blind.  He's slowly working his way into the clearing but stopping and taking a keen interest in my blind any time he gets a glimpse of it.

I think he caught a wiff of some doe estrus I squirted around my shooting lane because right before he hit the clearing he completely forgot about my blind.  Got behind a little 7ft pine tree that I estimated at 23-25 yards and I draw down.  He walks right into the clearing, stops dead in his tracks full broadside, wide open, right on the fucking path I was hoping a deer would come down, damn near holds up a sign that says "shoot me."

I estimate he's at least 3 yards beyond that pine tree and put the 30 yard pin on him low, estimating him at about 28.  Perfect shot left and right but when I see it stick I realize something.  It's high.... like way fucking high.  Like an asshair away from spining him high.  Fuuuuck.

He runs off with the arrow sticking out each side about equal length so I got full penetration but shooting a fixed blade Muzzy, and no indication what so ever of a spine hit, I'm really surprised it didn't punch all the way through.  I've sent them out and gotten a full pass through on much worse.

Well shit, might as well sit tight.  I have a smoke.  Get my gear gathered up 20 minutes later.  Slowly back out back to the truck.  Head back to camp(about 4mi away).  Shoot my 30-30 to sight it in for gun opener next weekend.  Eat a sub.  Okay 2 hours has passed, it'll be damn near 3 by the time I get back to track him.

My father and I get to it.  Find a little blood about 30 yards from where I shot him.  Blood is really sparse for a while.  About 1/4mile it starts to pick up.  Not seeing any spray or mist though so I'm starting to lose faith in any serious lung damage.  Big swaths of blood along trees and branches he rubs up against so I know his coat is pretty saturated in blood but no real spray.  Just drips...  A few areas it would pick up but nothing major.  I'm starting to hear water...he's heading to the fucking river.  Get to the river, sure as shit he crossed.  Wade across the river...Find blood instantly at the other side upstream about 30ft.  Again, an OK blood trail, big swaths of blood on anything he rubs against but only drops of blood on the path, no spray, no big spray.  Decent size drops though.  Then it starts to dry up but still followable.  Hit the next finger of the river.  Walk the bank up and down and up and down, no blood so he crossed.  Cross over to the island.  Went over that island with a fine tooth comb and not a single drop of blood.  Went up stream around the island and downstream...no fucking blood.  Found some fresh hoof prints going up the bank onto the island directly across from the trail we followed into the river but no blood for the entire stretch of that path on the island.

Nothing...just absolutely dried up.  I mapped it...we followed that trail for THREE AND A HALF FUCKING MILES.  And no deer!  I am 100% positive without a shadow of a doubt it was not a gut shot.  Left and right was spot on.  I mean really, how the hell do you fuck up what actually ended up being a 22 yard shot?

Point of interest.  When we first found the blood trail the third little patch of blood we found had a nice chunk of meat in it about the size of a superball.  Not fat, nice, tender venison.  I'm assuming it was stuck to the broadhead and got shaken off.  Also, we never found the arrow.  We followed that trail like we were glued to it and we were very slow and methodical.  Never found an arrow...

I'm fucking done.  For one, I'm not taking a bow in the woods again until I can afford a range finder.  Had I been able to get some accurate bearings that deer would have been dead within 100 yards.  Though I'm still absolutely ashamed that I fucking blew a 22 yard shot on a very nice buck and left him with an arrow stuck in his back in the god damn woods somewhere.

This would have been a PB buck for me as well... by a distance longer than the trail we blazed through the woods looking for him.

Hang in there. It sucks to lose an animal like that. I take it very hard. I hate to make any animal suffer. I went through the same thing years ago. I put the bow away for awhile to clear my head and get over losing a couple deer. After the season I practiced and refocused on the basics. I learned that I had to walk away because every time I saw a deer I started thinking about making a bad shot instead of a kill shot. You sound like you made every effort to recover the deer.

Sounds like you hit him right above the spine in the backstrap area. I shot a doe once in the neck and trailed her for about 1000yds when the bloodtrail stopped clean. Spent the next 2 hrs looking for blood and couldn't find any. Called a guy with a deer trailing dog and after looking for about 20mins she was able to pick the trail up on a spot of blood 150yds from the previous last known drop. Ended up trailing the deer for another 1000yds before we found her. I had pulled the shot and barely clipped her aorta. Blood had dried and clotted the wound is why she had quit bleeding.

That far and still bleeding, may have run out of blood and died shortly past where you stopped

Go and do circles, or follow trails

Also, it's ok to take a break, just practice and go again when you are comfortable

I had a year like that one year.  Hang in there.



I think that's the year I switched to a one pin setup.  I was three inches high 15-20 yards, dead on at 25, and three inches low at 30.

I won't win any archery competitions, but I put the pin in the middle of the chest and I've got a lethal shot.

I feel for you. The last two bucks I've shot i haven't found. Both in Illinois and both real nice deer. The one this year was a 140" class buck 5 yards broadside. I thought I smoked him. Blood dried up after 200 yards. I think I one lunged him. Hopefully I find him later this year if I go back. Or better yet, find out he is still alive on a trail cam picture. Just like you I contemplated giving up bowhunting. I was scared to shoot another deer and wound it. All I can say is get back to shooting targets. Make sure your aim is true, then get back in the stand and shoot something. A squirrel, a raccoon, a Doe, something. Get your confidence back. It happens to everybody who bowhunts. Whenever somebody says they haven't wounded a deer, they are lying or don't seriously hunt.

Good luck

Single pin slider
Rangefinder
Switch from muzzy to slick tricks

These 3 things improved my bowhunting like no other.  I sadly learned this when I started elk hunting which in turn made me a better deer hunter.

My one and only bow deer....

I'm in a groung blind and have an anterless deer walk by.  Its quartering away, maybe 25 yards, and I'm actually a bit lower than the deer, due to my position and topography..  I aim right behind the shoulder, intending a shot that will pass behind the close shoulder, through the boiler room, and out in front of the other offside shoulder.  At the shot the deer takes off , hard.  I spend hours looking for that shaft and the 125 Muzzy broad head -  nothing.  There is NO sign that this deer is hit.

Two years later I see a nice mature buck.  Should be a 8 but he's missing brow tines for a big six.  I smoked him with a muzzle loader.  This, BTW, is in the same location as the bow shot two years earlier.  I drop my deer off to be processed, and when I come back to pick it up, there is also a rib cage on top of my boxes of meat.  The cutter is like "Come look at this..."

Well, there is a really old wound track, still visible on the rib cage, where a broad head hit the deer right behind the shoulder.  and instead of punching through, you can see that this wound track when under the skin but over the ribs all the way along the ribcage angling up wards.  And there is a 125 muzzy broad head, buried in a spinal vertebra pretty much dead atop the shoulders, wedged hard into the bone, and bone sorta growing, wrapping around this broad head -  one that probably had been there maybe a couple years....

I get sick at the thought of that deer carrying a damned four blade broad head stuck in his spine for two years.  I'm not quite so fond of bow hunting since.

Somebody please explain what the advantage is with a sliding pin.

I switched to the trophy ridge react one pin this year. Alot less clutter in the sight picture. That in itself helped my shooting I believe. I'm shooting tighter then every this year.

Single pin = a clear sight picture.  You can't get confused on which pin to put on them.  Slider = You can always set your sight to the exact yardage and put the pin right on where you want to hit.  No more gaping pins or guessing.

I went from a 5 pin, to a three pin, and now to a single pin and I'll never go back to a multiple pin sight.

I only have a few stands where I even have a chance at a shot over 35 yards.  So I put my sight on 28 yards and leave it.  I can pretty much(from practicing out of a tree stand at 3d targets) put the pin right on out to 30 yards.  35 I have to hold over a few inches.  Basically I hold 1 pin width high at 35 yards.  I pretty much limit myself to 35 yards in hunting situations, however, in ideal conditions i might stretch it to 40 or 45...I routinely shoot my bow out to 120 yards and rarely practice below 60 unless from a tree stand.

My theory is that( and it has held true thus far) if they're over 35 yards, and moving too quickly for me to get a range finder reading and dial in my sight, they're moving too fast for me to shoot them with a bow at that range.  

I think a huge problem with bow hunting these days is people forcing shots.  Hard quartering shots, long shots, shots through brush, etc because they think they won't get another shot.  People need to get back to  the fact that they are bow hunting and need to make sure they have a quality look at the vitals in a distance they can accurately shoot.  I don't believe this to be the issue with the OP, he simply made an error in yardage judgement and that can happen to anyone.

I will never be an archer, too much "maybe" with a solid hit.

It happens with rifle hunters too.  I have found more rotting elk gut/ass shot by rifle hunters than I can remember.

I have also put at least 17 elk in the freezer with a rifle, and have lost one.

I started going archery only 2 years ago, no regrets,and no elk yet.  But I could have filled 20 rifle tags

A few years ago I killed a nice buck up in Kansas. Didn't notice anything odd about the deer but when skinning it there was a perfect cross shaped scar in the hide above the shoulders. Embedded in the very front of one of the back straps was a broad head.  It was stuck in one of the vertebra but came loose pretty easily. It was completely healed over and the deer showed no sign of being injured. Since bow season only started a month and a half before rifle season (when I killed it), I believe this happened a year earlier.

Moral of the story, sometimes deer take a pretty solid hit and survive.

omelet; eggs


hang in there; aim smaller next time.

This statement is just dead false.  With a solid hit, meaning lungs/heart shot, there is no maybe.  They will be dead within 100 yards, and usually far shorter than that.

The problem with bow hunting comes in when a bad shot is made.  Worse when the hunter thinks they made a good shot or just plain refuses to believe they can make a bad shot.  This is the same thing with rifle hunting.  Plenty of guys that never shoot their rifles hit them in the ass and chase them for miles.

This,  you may want to check around where you lost the blood trail and possibly downstream at the first bend, snag or gravel bar.

I did this a long time ago myself.  Closest deer to the house that I ever shot and the longest track ever, I was just going out and saw a buck in the side field by the house.  I nocked and arrow and shot but it moved or jumped the string.  I saw the buck run off with my arrow half out of it.  I waited just a half out and started tracking.  I found the fletched side of the arrow in about 45 yards where it broke it off on a tree.  I ended up tracking that deer with a blood trail like yours.  Some blood but not frothy lung blood or lots of heart shot out blood.  Found a couple beds in the snow where there were good blood that melted 6 inches through the wet snow in the beds.  The deer crossed the creek and then back again.  The blood trail would vanish and then I'd pick it up again.  Nothing much, just drops at this point.  

IIRC right I shot the deer at 1100 ish and tracked it until dark.  The blood trail petered out in a major runway intersection area.  At this point I was about to give up as it was now dark and past shooting hours (like 40 minutes or so, so it was dark and very dusky).  I started to just follow the runway a bit before I gave up and heard some thrashing and crashing about 40 yards away.   I got lucky and found the buck dead and out of blood.  

Upon butchering I saw what happened.  The muzzy broadhead I used clipped the back of the scapula blade, not only was it a bit off mark it also robbed a lot of energy.  The broadhead was between the off side rib cage and under the other scapula.  The arrow did pass through but didn't do any lung damage to drop him.    That poor deer had been shredding his right side the whole time I pushed him which helped me get him.  If I let him sit longer he may have only died somewhere else with the broad head still in him.  

Give it one more shot looking for it even if the deer isn't salvageable it's good closure to solve your puzzle.
Even if you don't get the deer.  Take a break and pick it up again next year.   FWIW.  You also may want to make a "range Card" for each stand.  Go out with a range finder and range to your land marks.  Take a few shots with a practice arrow from the tree when you go out in the early fall or late summer to trim your stand vegetation.   If you can practice from your stand you should practice from your stand.   Granted it doesn't work for every instance like a new in season setup.  

I've been lucky.  I've had two deer that I got with shots that weren't perfect, the one I just mentioned and another nice buck I shot, both jumped the string noise I believe.  The buck above dropped a bit to launch and I hit the back end of the scapula a bit higher than my mark, the other buck I hit a bit aft of where I aimed as he was in mid bolt at the noise.  That one was a very lethal liver and lung shot but not as far forward as my aim.  Shit does happen.  My other lucky shot was on a lesser buck.  I call it lucky because I didn't cut a hair.  That deer came from a direction that was not a trail and I took a shot in a direction I didn't anticipate.  My failure was I could see a straight line clear shot to the lungs on the deer but I completely missed a small thin branch above my sightline that was in the arrow's path.  Of course the arrow hit the branch and then stuck in the dirt between the front feet and the rear feet and the deer ran off unhurt.  I got lucky and learned something.  Mortarmen will know to check their mask and overhead clearance for the projectile to fly without interference.

Aimed perfectly small.  After getting the actual range I know exactly where I fucked up.  I hit that deer square where I aimed.  Unfortunately where I aimed ended up being way too high because I had the yardage off.

And for those saying "go to the last blood and do circles" etc.  Not a bad idea but it's been done.  Believe me, that would have been my PB buck with a bow.  I scoured that area.  I walked the banks up and down on both sides.  Nada...  I just don't get it.

Though looking at this picture now I can't believe I didn't spine him.  Maybe I ended up just above the spine though...  If that's the case whats the over/under on this deer surviving?

Much lesser example but animals have a will to live. I went squirrel hunting this morning. Shot a squirrel In the neck. It came out his stomach and through his back foot. He still managed to crawl into a broad bush that took me about 15 minutes to get into and out of. I got the squirrel but he had the last laugh for sure.

Whats your setup? Bow broad heads etc???  The wife missed one friday night, she has been practicing with only field point and the broadhead sailed on her.  Me, I check my stuff pretty often, I shoot fixed blades and have to stay on top of em.

No, not with a good hit, archery takes MUCH MUCH MUCH more work, practice, etc.  I have lost a deer b4, bad shot on my part, I drew she jumped, I didn't range again after she stopped I shot High right in shoulder joint, made a Rage look like a fish hook arrow penetrated like 2" and fell out in sight.  Switched to a stout fixed blade after that, Have not hit a shoulder bone with the new ones yet but have a lot more confidence now.

If you're over the spine, they have a very good chance of surviving.  There's nothing vital up there, it will heal up and they'll go on with life.  Plenty of posts on the internet of guys shooting them high and getting them on trail cam a few days later.

if you're in the rib area of a deer, there's two options, under the spine(dead deer, unless you're REALLY low and just slice the brisket) and over the spine(most likely a live deer).  If you're not in the rib section of a deer...well, it's a crap shoot.  

I was definitely high and definitely in the rib section.  I was also hunting from the ground so I can't see how I could have single lunged him without also catching the other lung.  I'll be back up in that area next weekend to see if I can finish him off if he's still alive.  Never did find an arrow so for all I know he's still walking around with it in his back...

What advantage do slick tricks have over Muzzy's in your opinion?

On every deer I've shot with my muzzy's I've gotten full penetration.

For me the slick tricks flew better, I was shooting Razor tricks so COC too.  Switched to red feather phoenix,

I think we found your DEER

My Muzzys flew great out to 50 yards but i never shot them in any.kind of wind though and they weren't quite hitting with my field points (though that could be a tuning issue).

After going through a deer though there is no sharpening and reusing them. Even just a rib shot and they were a little tore up.  Not sure how they'd stand up to a shoulder hit (hopefully never have to find out either).

I may give them a look.  Depending on how things go financially though I may be upgrading to a new bow next year.

I really,  really liked how that PSE Full Throttle shot.  Not sure I'd be shooting fixed blades out of something with an IBO that thing has.

From personal experience, and having hit a buck in the exact same spot the deer probably survived. I was in the same situation as as you, made a bad read on yardage and used my 30 pin when I should've just used my 20. Still makes me mad to this day since he walked in the one area I decided not to range. Nonetheless when I hit him I knew it was high and he took off like a bat out of hell. Found sparse but enough blood to follow for 500yds, then it ended. Looked for two days nonstop but didn't find a thing. The next spring he showed up on my trail camera 20yds from where my stand was. You could see the scar from where I hit him. So if it makes you feel better id bet he's still alive.

http://www.redfeatherarchery.com/products/broadhead/item/phoenix


I don't expect em 2 fly with field points, single bevel really makes em spin, but they are tough.

I'm surprised you haven't lost more deer taking shots like this.







 

Ah you mean that one I shot standing still at 10 yards where the arrow went through the liver and diaphragm, caught the right side of the left lung and annihilated the right lung,  then proceeded to only make it 40yards at a dead run before piling up in a 5ft slide across the leaves?

Yeah...how reckless that shot was

It would amaze me that anyone would feel comfortable hunting a deer with a bow and not feel comfortable taking that shot with fixed blades.

The only time I've ever failed to recover an animal was when I blew the yardage.  I have never lost or missed a deer on a blown shot.

I know what the issue is also.  I didn't hit up nearly as many unmarked yardage shoots the past few years as I normally do and this is the first year hunting from the ground for me in a loong time.  I've identified the problem and am doing what I can to fix it by practicing my range estimating and not hunting with a bow again until I get a range finder.

I do find it peculiar that you would go out of your way to post that though as this thread is about blowing the yardage on a deer and not blowing the shot and that picture is of a deer when neither of those took place or are remotely relevant.

I had a good 4" window left and right that would have been a definite kill shot on that buck when i drew down that actually opened up wider when he turned his head back before i took the shot and at 10 yards I'm not one bit worried abiut missing by that much.

Would you feel comfortable shooting at a 1ft vitals window at 30 yards?

If you hunt long enough you are going to lose a deer eventually and it also seems to happen in bunches then goes away.  With most bows if you hit to far forward the shoulder will stop the broadhead and to far back and you gut shot him and he is going  a long way.  I always range a new stand, what I mean by that is the first time I hunt I take the range finder and mark certain land marks that way I have a good idea how far the shot will be.  You could walk off the distance as well.  Of course I also use a crossbow and my hold over is the same from 0 to 40 yards(2 inches high at 10 and 3 inches low at 40)  after that my next drop mark is 50, I don't take shots past that.  Even hunting with a crossbow I have hit the shoulder on one occasion.  Nice thing about my crossbow is it blew right through the shoulder and still got to the heart.  Bottom line keep your head up and keep practicing you might go on another 10 in a row

they are kind of related

In this context they are not.

You can make a 'perfect shot' as far as shooting mechanics go and still end up with a poor result if you blow the yardage.

You can get the yardage perfect and blow the shot because of poor shooting mechanics.  But enough about semantics.

He is implying that I should be losing more deer because I take low percentage shots.  A 20 yard broadside shot is not low percentage and I didn't fail to harvest that deer because I took a shot that I shouldn't have.  If he wants to have that discussion that's fine but it would be nice if, in the future, he doesn't come in and shit on one of my threads that's unrelated to that topic to do so.

As I said, I had a 4" window to shoot into on that kill at 10 yards.  Do a little math and you'll find that gives you the same margin for error as a 12" window at 30 yards.  Not a very difficult shot to make by any means.  Is there a chance, pushing through all that animal until you hit vitals, that something might go awry?  I suppose but very, very slim.  About as slim of a chance as a mechanical broadhead giving some wonky results after a good shot when it meets rib and deflecting off and away from the chest cavity.

lol, ok

You quoted all of that to reply 'lol, ok'?

Thank you for your contribution.

np

My block list has been population 0 for the past 10 years.  I guess there's a first time for everything.  Judging by the quality of your posts in this thread though I doubt i'll be missing out on anything.  Petty little pissing contests just aren't my thing.  Hope you had a good gun opener.

Don't bother with a reply either, I'll take care of that for you.

apierce918:  "ok"