Hit one and need help (update)

[wisconsinteacher]

Well I am stumped so I am asking for advice. I rattled in 2 small bucks tonight for my wife. One came in and at 10 yards she hit him with a sharp 2 blade broadhead with a bleeder. The hit looked a little forward but good from my angle. You could tell his shoulder was hurt because he could not put any weight on it. After a few bounds the arrow snapped. He went 45-50 yards and bedded down. He was bedded for 20-30 seconds and the other buck pushed him to his feet. He went 5 more yards and bedded again. For the second time the other buck pushed him to his feet. This time the second buck went right down one trail and the hurt buck went left down another. We gave it 40 minutes and found the back 5" of her arrow and hair. From there we walked to where he was bedded and I can not find blood. I followed the trail he was on for 50 yards and did not find a thing. It has been raining here the past 2 days so the gound is wet. I am going back in the morning to look. What are your thoughts, is it dead or will he make it? I am sick for her and she is ready to quit deer hunting. I hope he starts bleeding and I find it.

 

[Too Tall]

Take your dog with you. They don't need blood to track. Good Luck.

 

[JD338]

WT

The fact that the deer bedded down twice in about 50-60 yards says it is a good hit.
Sometimes deer will make a 90* turn and dive into the thick stuff. Look for smeared blood on trees as well as the ground. Make a mental grid of the area and do small semi circles.
Good luck.

JD338

 

[Polaris]

What color is the hair? Light or dark. Light/white will indicate a low hit, darker brown flat hair in the right area, dark bristly hair the shoulder.

Sounds like a high lung hit lodging in the far shoulder, no exit, just behind the front side shoulder. Arrow snapped off from action of front leg against shaft. Should be a dead deer. Cold up here tonight, deer will still be good but should be butchered ASAP. High lung hits with a bow seldom leave much if any blood trail until the deer is almost dead. Cavity fills up with blood. Sometimes they will cough some out, especially when they bed down.
At first good light, trace the tracks on your knees, looking for the smallest dot of blood. You're looking for drops the size of a birch seed, be methodical. Be careful not to disturb leaves on the trail until you have thoroughly scanned the area ahead. Look for blood smears on saplings. Mark any blood you see with flagging tape. Look for the next blood spot or hoofprint to determine direction of travel and flag second spot. This will give you a general direction to search. Beware of hard right turns and doubling back. Hit deer tend to run into the wind and towards the most secure cover nearby once they escape the immediate shot zone.

If all else fails, walk in concentric 10-20 yard circles from last known location looking for deer or sign. Follow the crows and bluejays. They are very quick to key on a dead or wounded deer. From what you described I predict your story will have a happy ending. Good luck.

 

[Oldtrader3]

It is high and should have hit the upper part of the lungs. With a rifle, this usually results in rapid death. With an arrow, they have to drown or lose enough blood to go into shock. This hit looks pretty high to me and may have missed one lung (the near one). The deer is certainly dead, the issue is how far did he get pushed before he expired?

 

[Elkman]

The trail is a good starting point. If you can assume that the deer followed along or near the trail. Take some surveyors tape and mark the last place you saw the deer. Then if possible start at that point on each side of trail out about 25 or 30 feet depending upon foliage, and head in the direction the deer was last seen along the trail for about 400 yards or so. Then mark your ending points, then come back another 25 or 30 or so feet in to your beginning point. Repeat that several times.
If you believe that the deer strayed off of the trail, then try to determine the path of least resistence or where the deer frequently travel the most. The trick is to establish a set point/direction and work consistently from that line. Wandering around may work but unlikely. Set up a good pattern and work the ground slowly and look on the ground and focus on color. As stated berfore the deer is most likely dead, probably within a few hundred yards.
Think about how you would travel away from the shot area if you were wounded. Think about where you would not go and cover that area last.
Good luck, good hunting.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Bill gave you good advice. The only thing that I would emphasis is trails that lead downhill, the path of least resistance as Bill said. Usually well hit deer do not travel uphill.

In your part of the country, I would check for thickets with deer trails going through them, like honeysuckle. The deer is likely bedded where they can not be seen and you will have to follow them into what ever thicket they chose to die in.

I hunted whitetails for years and dug them out of thickets, jump shooting and then followed them into the thickets that they died in. Just a thought.

Also what color was the blood where the deer was hit? Was it bright red or dark red? If the lungs were hit, the blood would have been bright red. Look for slide marks where the deer fell or dragged its bad leg, leaving slide or drag marks.

 

[Mountain Goat]

If it didn't die withing 10-30 seconds after being hit, then it's more likely than not a one-lung hit, and probably high by your description. My guess is that he bedded down again once he thought he was clear of that other buck, or if he was close to expiring. It will take a good methodical search, but I think you'll get him. You might end up finding him without finding any more signs of blood. Don't forget to be looking for a dead deer while you are focusing on blood.

 

[wisconsinteacher]

Well I was out at first light. I waited and listened to see if I could hear coyotes but it was quiet. I went to the crime scene and found the rest of the arrow. There was one drop of blood on it and the broadhead was snapped off/out of the insert. At that point I am guessing she hit the shoulder blade. I looked for blood found nothing. After 45 minutes of searching, I decided to grid search. I went 300 yards in every direction and only kicked up a few does. I went back one more time and looked at where the deer was and again found nothing. I think I was confused by the shot and she aimed high because where he was standing is taller grass. If she would have aimed for the top of the grass, she would have been in the lower 1/3. She went up from the grass line and the end result is a high shoulder hit. I hope he is able to make it a week and if he is still hurting some rifle hunter will get him. My guess is that in a day or two from now, he will be up chasing does again.

My biggest worry now is that my wife quits bowhunting. I have really enjoyed having her as a hunting partner the past 3 years. We are done with archer until next September so maybe time will help her.

 

[tddeangelo]

A couple things:

-the outfitter I've hunted with in NC uses a GPS and to keep him on track and makes a zig zag search of the area that way. He's found several that way that wouldn't have been found by trailing them.

-If the arrow passed beneath the spine, then by definition, it entered the chest cavity. The lungs and the chest cavity are all all pressurized. This means there is no empy space around the lungs, they fill it up. If the arrow was under the spine, it went into lung. A high lung, or worse yet, a high SINGLE lung hit, while likely fatal, will make the deer absolutely miserable to find. They can go a mile if pushed, I've read. The deer I've lost that I shot with a bow, without exception, were one-lung hits.

There is a lot of conjecture over whether a deer can survive a one lung hit. I'm not sure what to believe, but I'd think the likelihood has to be rather small of them surviving the encounter. The "problem" is that they have a working, uninjured lung to help counter the problems with the other. That doesn't help with the bleeding issue, but it keeps the blood oxygenated at least.

This is a tough one, given the nature of your wife's hunting career. It's hard on a hunter to lose one. It does happen, and it's hard to accept. The good news for her if he's not found is that Nature will take care of things. The deer will not go to waste. Coyotes, foxes, etc will eat well. It is not the ending we all hope for, but it's not a complete loss, either.

If she's very upset, maybe you can get her to just go with you to watch and keep her going to the field, at least. There would be hope then that she'd get back in the saddle in due time.

This is a trying experience for every hunter. I've thought of quitting when it's happened to me. If she can overcome and learn from it, it will make her a better hunter, though.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Here in Washington, they have shot Roosevelt elk bulls regularly that are scarred badly in one lung and are still healthy and fat. With a deer, I have never heard of a deer in 55 years of hunting that survived a lung shot and lived to tell about it.

 

[wisconsinteacher]

I agree with both of you and don't want to get in an argument but I don't think the lung was hit. The arrow got about 1-2" of penetration. I believe that the broadhead is stuck in the shoulder blade due to the arrow breaking at the insert and the treads of the broadhead are still in the arrow. The insert is bent 90 degrees. If the broadhead is in the shoulder I don't think it made it into the rib cage like I thought last night. Also, if the arrow made it into the rib cage, then it should have blood on it. There is one little spot on the shaft about 1/2 inch past the end. Lastly, the nock of her arrow as off. The only time I have ever had a nock fall out of an arrow is when it hits something hard. I stump shoot with my recurve and see it happen when I hit a hard back stop. Agian, not to fight, but I really don't think the lung was hit and that all the energy of the arrow went into the bone. I maybe wrong and if I am, I hope that the deer makes it.

 

[tddeangelo]

Not arguing with you at all....what you are describing sounds a lot like it stopped at the shoulder blade, like you described. Perhaps I missed something in prior posts, I had thought it hit the OPPOSITE shoulder and not the near shoulder.

That being the case, you are not going to find that deer, and it's very likely it's not going to die from that hit. It may show the effects of it for a long time, but it may very well not be fatally injured at all.

It hit one much like you described, but with a 6mm Remington. The bullet disrupted at the impact. I never found the deer, nor knew what happened, but my father killed a deer less than 200 yards from where that happened, had a bad shoulder on the correct side for the one I shot, and it had a wound about 2" across and 1" deep right on the shoulder. The shoulder was in bad shape, but the deer was healthy otherwise.

 

[wisconsinteacher]

tddeangelo, they are tough animals. I understand how you thought it was the opposite shoulder. I typed it last night after the hunt and was all wired up. I did not sleep last night thinking about it. After seeing the arrow today, I am feeling better for the deer. As far as my wife, I hope she keeps the fire. I wanted her to get a deer in the worst way this year. My goal is to let it settle down and then this winter start shooting my bow and see if she talks about shooting hers. I also am going to ask her to sit with me and take pictures if she does not carry her bow. She feels bad because she finally got a shot and it did not work out. It has been a hard season for her and she did not end it on a good note.

 

[JD338]

One more thing to keep in mind is that a deer can "jump the string".
At the shot (noise) they can drop 8-10" as they "load the springs" to run.
The only way to fix this is to hold on the heart. With a fast/quite bow, sometimes you hit the heart, sometimes you don't.

JD338

 

[wisconsinteacher]

Good point JD338. I just talked to my wife and she said something about maybe hunting next year so that makes me happy. One thing is for sure. We will have a 3D target next summer.

 

[Oldtrader3]

That is the problem with the internet, you render some opinion based on one set of parameters which is always taking a chance. I agree with Tom, if the penetration was shallow hit the shoulder blade and did not break the pleural membrane, the deer will most likely live long and be healthy.

 

[tddeangelo]

A 3D target is a great idea. I always make sure to get on my 3D for at least a couple weeks before the season. I actually find shooting a 3D target to be easier than shooting spots, but not everyone is the same.

Also, you might consider using illuminated nocks, if legal in your area. I started using Easton TracerNocks this year, and man, they are awesome. When I shot my buck this year, there was NO doubt where that deer was hit. That thing was like a meteor streaking into the deer till it disappeared when it went into him. They're not cheap ($20/2-pack), but to me they are well worth it. There is no guessing AT ALL where the arrow went.

They are cool for practice, too, because you can see any problems in arrow flight stand out quite a bit, especially when shooting at distance.

 

[JD338]

WT

Tom made a good point about the 3D target. They are excellent for practice.
Get to wife to consistently make heart shots and she will do just fine. You can give her the nick name of "Cupid". :mrgreen:

JD338