Hello Everyone,

I have been archery hunting for 15 years now. I made the switch to traditional about 5 years ago. I love it. But I hate losing deer... I upgraded recently from a self bow to a 1960's recurve. I took it out Friday evening and put a good hit on a doe whitetail at about 20 yards. I knew my penetration was so-so at best because I could see a lot of arrow/fletching sticking out...I figured I got 6-12 inches of penetration but the hit appeared to be right on the money... I checked blood after dark it was spotty and light but the good stuff, not dark liver or stomach, etc. I rested her came back in the morning with a friend and a dog(legal for game retrieval where I live) and tracked her through a swamp/cattails all day Saturday, when all was said and done we lost blood after 200 yards and did not recover her. I feel terrible. My question is how often are others losing hit big game with trad. gear? I was shooting a 50lb bow with 540 Grain cedar arrows, and 2 blade/ double bevel 190 grain Grizzlies on the front end...Do you get better blood trails w/ 3 blades? Just seems like I lose more game with trad gear than the wheel bow...

I am open to suggestions. Thanks guys.

Going from a self bow to a glass bow isn't an upgrade, its just a change of pace. You didn't hit that deer in the ribs as it appeared to your eyes, she would be dead had you. That being said, your set up should create pass throughs more than it doesn't. You must have hit a shoulder blade, leg bone or brisket. Of course, all of these are guesses based on what you said. In your case a four blade head wouldn't have mattered. Its all about shot placement and nothing more, same as any weapon. Broad head choice has never killed a deer for me. Every broad head I've ever tried worked great. All one dozen of them.

Sorry for your loss. Exactly as stated,if you didn't get a pass through, more blades definitely would not have gave more penetration. You rig is more than equal to the task if it is tuned and the heads are shaving sharp. Good luck.>>>----> Ken

One thing that I have learned, is to not rush the shot.Take a extra full second to make sure your eyes are laser focused on the spot.

Its easy to second guess yourself, If you bow hunt long enough everyone will have a hit like that. An arrow traveling through an animal can and does some weird things. Many years ago I hit a buck the shot was about 30 degrees DOWN HILL hit him in the center of the rib cage,(Up/down) the deer dropped in his tracks. Found the Zwickey delta imbedded in the spine. Don't beat yourself up over this; it happens, and we all hate loosing an animal. Your equipment is certainly adequate to get the job done.

Bob

When I hear about lack of penetration, I wonder about two things, 1. Was the hit high up where the ribs turn into the spine? 2. Was the arrow flying straight when it hit the deer? I almost always get pass throughs. My last two deer were shot with a 50 pound at 26" longbow with arrows under 500 grains and ribs were shot through. Both deer went down in sight, 45 to 50 yards and about 60 yards. Both with very narrow two blade heads, a worn down single bevel Hill and an original Schulz Hunter's head, file sharpened. Either the shot placement was not where you think it was or the arrow was wanky when it hit. One outside possibility was the head hit a rib and diverted high and it the process completely lost it cutting edge. A single high lung hit with a dull smooth head will not bleed much, especially if it is the left lung.

Shoot heavy arrows,practice, practice, sight picture, and good anchor/release should be 2nd nature. But sometime you loose one.

Do circles where you lost blood, they will do a "J" hook when they know they are going down and look next to down trees and thick brush/ravines. Most likely it went back to it's bed, go there first. Meat may be tainted by now depending on temps in your area due to the gases released from the stomach. It happens to all of us! I have lost three deer out of the last 9 I have arrowed, one to coyotes and one to stomach gas release/tainted meat and one to theft, yes..theft. My deer ran down the ridge and fell out at the river so I dressed it to get it cooling and hung it in a tree then went back to my vehicle to get my raft to come in from the other side and get the deer out. When I got there the deer was gone and I could see boot prints and a mark on the bank from a boat, I went to all the local boat ramps but found nothing so must have been a local that lived on the river. At any rate Doug my point is things happen that are out of our control at times but we just have to pick ourselves back up and keep going forward. Never give up!

Shoot perfectly flying arrows, regardless of weight they will do fine. Most folks do get to 9 to 11 gpp and that is plenty of weight for deer. You made a bad hit...not where you think, but it does happen. Just strive to get better on live game.

Was the deer tense or on alert when you shot? I'm mostly a ground hunter now and like them quartering away and usually 20 yards or under and relaxed. I've learnt not to force a shot, although sometimes it just goes off.

Doesn't matter what bow the arrow comes out of, but the placement does matter. I also prefer a 3 or 4 blade head to assist me in tracking, have some color blind issues. And I agree it happens to everyone at times.

Practicing without dots and spots is the best thing you can do for yourself. Shoot at blank targets with imaginary spots. I turn my block around quite often and its just a 16 x 16 black square. My objective is to place all my arrows in an imaginary 2 x 2 square dead center.

I've lost quite a few but it was years ago when I first started. Make sure you hit your anchor and don't short draw from the excitement. Pick a small spot to shoot at and don't shoot at the whole deer. Know your angles if the deer isn't broadside. You want it to come out tight and low behind the opposite front leg. Make sure you shoot your broadheads and are getting good flight. Also make sure they are shaving sharp when you hunt. Always wait unless you see it drop. How long depends on the hit. Trout has a great book on finding wounded deer.

Have you REALLY tested your arrow tuning? Bare shafts hitting with fletched FP hitting with hunting arrows?

I’m going to guess that you didn’t hit where you thought that you did, and/ or (as Dean mentioned) that arrow wasn’t settled and flying point-on.

Did you hear the arrow hit bone?

It’s crazy how hard it is to know what really happened on a shot… Sometimes I see video and I still can’t figure out!

Not a problem with your bow. Was likely a poorly placed shot, for whatever reason. Those things happen.

Cut your next shot down to 15 yards and see if there is a difference.

Bad hits happen, I've had my share. You could add a string tracker to your bow. It may not help to find a deer that wasn't fatally hit, but it will help with bad fatal hits (gut shot or liver), or for sparse blood trails. Even if the string breaks after the hit, it may be enough to get you to the blood trail. It will also help you find your arrow when you miss.

Full draw is a good point. Many times people set up their arrows that require and absolute full and often artificial stretch. A pushy territory hog said to my wife after she shot an arrow through a deer with her 38 at 26" recurve, "I don't get pass throughs and you don't either. I shoot a 70 pound bow with 30% ufoc, you don't know what that means, but my arrows are more than twice the weight of yours, no f ing way you shot through that deer." A couple weeks later, glassing a buck heading towards him, I saw why he didn't get pass throughs, he let go of the string at about 22 inches and his arrow flew like a bent fence post. He lost that deer that he tagged as well, it ran off with his arrow stuck in the top of its butt.

10 to 15 yard shots is what I strive for when I hunt with trad. I have found by waiting for that kind of shot(and I shoot broadside only), my recovery rate went way up - you will have to let some deer walk when doing this but I'd rather let one walk and have a shot opportunity another day than wound and lose a deer. And yes - to your original question - I like 3 blades like the VPA or Woodsman much better than a 2 blade but many highly successful trad guys like the 2 blade better...They will all kill if you do your part...

It's very easy to get confused on a shot. Did yu say you found your arrow? I didn't see that? If you have the arrow then whats on it? Never wipe off with your finger its the evidence.

Thats your 1rst important thing to find but if animal leaves with arrow and you don't give it up you can learn by this if you find arrow. Its hard to find the arrow at times and have some I never did either but found animals. What hairs were at the impact site? Did you tramp through bush and screw up all your evidence?

Still look for the arrow if you can. I'd want to know what that looks like.

200 yards is a very bad sign and the likeliness of you putting a good shot on the animal I don't see that.

Look around water you just might have gut shot but there's a bunch of other questions we all can ask you.

At the hit what do you remember the deer 1rst did such as tail up or down? Did the deer bolt like it was shot out of a canon? If so it further could confirm vertebrate hit you shock them.

Hairs should have been where you shot deer too. My guess based upon what you reported is it went through top vertebrate and was jambed up thats why no pass through possibly. If you found arrow and it had fat on it there ya go high hit. Easily done from tree not down enough on animal or you looked up and broke form possibly.

Sticks are not just go out and shoot like your shooting 3D it takes learning and tracking and animal postures and what they do at the hit. And its very import to calm yourself so you can remember as much as you can to tell others who might help you.

3 does for me inside 60 yards this year so far so what type of hits now where they? They all resulted in dead deer this year. 2 heart shots and 1 lungs thankfully I was able to put good shots on these animals even though I have been feeling not 100% or practicing either. It didn't always go that way for me though been on many blood trails and just trails looking for animals tracks or bush they went through off the trail ect. Walk out your trails coming and going.

Another thing to do don't give up on this arrow or the animal you owe it to yourself and the animal to learn by it. Look for it and in a day or so birds will show if animals dead and you probably will smell animal if no birds on it. Get your arrow if you can and learn by this shot if you can it wasn't a waste unless yu leave it go and many do just that so they learn slow or never learn to recover!!!!!!!!!!

Take any of this for what it's worth to you.

It is literally the worst feeling ever. Good to see you're seeking helpful advise to prevent future loss. I am by no means an expert, but I'll try to help.

Given the information presented: 50lb bow 540 grain arrow 190 grain broadhead Visible lack of sufficient penetration

Assuming you didn't short-stroke on your draw... My first guess would be poor arrow flight possibly stemming from an arrow spine issue. Are you shooting the same shafts from your new bow as you were from your selfbow? If so, Perhaps they are not a good match? Take the fletch off one of your broad-head equipped shafts and shoot it to check the flight. Heavy weight weakens your spine. IF you already tuned your shafts to your bow, then I withdraw my suggestion. Good luck

6 inchs is more than enough in an animal!!!!!!!!!!!! If you don't think so then next deer you get measure it with arrow and you will see.

As long as its in the right spot!

Animal usually dies 2 ways by arrow. Bleeding out or suffocation from collapsed lungs. So now unless you liver shoot which is dead deer they can't recover from this as well as gut shot. Animals die slower. But if yu look near water you might just find them they are sick and think water can help them but it can't they have leaking gut.

When an animal has its faculty's it can run on trails when they leave but when they are disoriented and hurt and know it they go off trails a lot of times and bang into things and make a lot of noise going through bush when they leave.

There's many variables. Only way to learn is arrowing animals and going through the learning curve it can be a butcher shop at times if you can't take that then hang it up is best.

Sleepless nights had enough of them.

If that set up didn't pass through, my guess is you got bad flight, way short draw or did not hit where you think you hit.

You obviously didn't hit the deer in the lungs. A deer doesn't know what it's being shot with - an arrow through the vitals is an arrow through the vitals.

I killed about 100 deer with compounds and 50 since going back to traditional only,as well as elk, moose, bear, hogs, and African game. I have lost animals with both but I doubt a higher percentage with a stick bow. In fact, I'm quite confident the ratio is less with traditional equipment because I take closer shots and use better and heavier broadhead and arrow combination. If you're at all skilled and diligent in tracking, I doubt few of the unrecovered animals were fatally hit. I won't tell the entire long story but just this past weekend I helped trail a deer shot during a youth hunt. It was about a 180 yard shot with a 30-06 from a blind in an alfalfa field. With Taz, my tracking Jagd Terrier, we found blood just inside the trees where the deer had stopped running and walked around. We followed a depleting blood trail about 60 yards until it quit and Taz lost the trail about another 20 yards. We searched the fairly open pastured woods for 2 hours and never found anything. I'm confident from the trail and blood sign that the deer won't die from that hit. The point of this all is don't blame your equipment. There isn't anything much more deadly than a scoped 30-06 from a solid rest, yet that deer probably survived a marginal hit.

As stated you didn't hit vitals so can only blame yourself. This means no disrespect. The shot when bad, unless the bow explodes at the shot is always our fault. This is the challenge, only high percentage shots in your effective HUNTING range. For this reason I'm not a big fan of guys touting longer range shots. A newer person or just any person doesn't even know if they (the other shooter) could do what they say. By longer shots, it can vary. My old neighbor was shooting with me just a few weeks ago. His effective range (not effective hunting range which is normally less) is 15 yards. He shoots good here and waits for deer at 5-10 yards. Now there are archers and hunters. In bowhunting we're combining the two. The best shooters aren't always the best hunters and vice versa. Keep your shots in your effective range while practicing harder. You're losses should decrease.

I hope you punched your tag and quit hunting. Make sure your arrows are well tuned and hitting the target straight. Make sure you can put the arrow where it needs to go (a lot of hunters still don't know just where the vitals are). You made a bad hit one way or another.

Has nothing to do with the gear you shoot them with. Arrow flight, shot placement and angle. It's really hard to tell exactly how a deer is standing...for me anyway. I have to really watch and be aware of the angle it is standing. Too steep an angle and the arrow doesn't go where you think it would, even when the hit looks good.

If you can, replay the shot in your mind. Are you sure the deer was standing like you thought it was. Not doubting or disparaging you, just asking.

"I hope you punched your tag and quit hunting" I respectfully disagree with this train of thought. It is a learning process that takes time in the woods to become more effective. Learn from it. Make a few adjustments and go hunt. Happens to everyone if you hunt long enough.

JHP I totally agree.If I lose an animal from a bad hit or whatever reason I do the best I can to find that animal.But punch my tag and go home? Dont even understand this train of thought.

don't be surprised if someone shoots the deer during firearms season. I've had friends to shoot a buck during archery thinking it should be dead to rights and then someone shot it with a ML and there the tell-tale BH scar. deer are tough.

Whether you punch your tag or not is a personal decision in the US...

In S Africa, if you draw blood, you’ve used that tag - those animals have commercial value, so if you break it, you’ve bought it.

If hunting in CO, where deer tags are basically by drawing ONLY, yeah, you probably should, IMO. Same with a bull Elk. Cow Elk, maybe you punch the first tag and go buy a second.

Where I live right now, tags aren’t used to control the harvest - only to document legal possession. State bios don’t want a high rate of sound/loss because it’s bad PR for the most effective management tool at their disposal, but as long as you’re recovering them, they really want you to kill as many as possible.

And oh, yeah....

If you’re not dead certain of your arrow tune, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ATTEMPT A BARE-SHAFT SHOT WITH A BROAD-HEAD.

Using the wrong spine, I have snapped wood shafts at 7 yards when they hit the target at too much of an angle, and that was with FIELD POINTS. Put strong steering on the front of an ill-tuned arrow and you will be lucky if the worst thing that happens is that you hit yourself in the arse.

Just sayin’.

Know your limitations keep your shots closer, practice, practice and more practice.Like what was stated earlier if you stay at this long enough, your bound to loose some.It happens to most but not all.Don't be real hard on yourself you'll get it, it may just take some time. Best of luck to you.

I've never punched a tag without putting it on an animal. I mean, I have a conscience, but I'm not going overboard with it. I kind of did once as it was... My conscience 'made' me drag out 3 miles a totally emaciated 4x4 mulie buck I shot instead of just leaving it and shooting another at some point (turns out I think it was in the advanced stages of CWD). I took it to the game check station and the FWP took it and issued me a new tag. I was grateful for that. However, they would not let me keep the rack, even though I insisted. I now know why, it DID have CWD and they would not let me have any part of the infected brain or skull. Since I did my due diligence on hauling it out, they gave me a new tag, and I shot a nicer 5x5 on the last 15 minutes of season that year. It was being pursued by a lion hound with an electronic collar on it, probably far from the hunter since it was so remote. I figure the hunter lost this dog. It served ME a purpose though, guided this big buck right to me by pure chance and accident during the last hour (or was it - divine intervention? or maybe Karma?).

I wounded a buck last fall - thought I killed it for sure. When I didn't find it after two days and nights of searching, a seriously honest and exhausting effort, I continued to hunt. Why would I punch my tag? Wild animals, predators, don't kill and eat every animal they try for. They eviscerate some and lose them sometimes. As it turns out I saw this buck in a field two weeks later. I understand someone's reasoning to punch a tag after a loss, but I am not that someone. It will get eaten by something, and that is part of hunting anyway. You win some, you lose some. Not overly conscientious here. Sorry if that offends anyone, or actually, I'm not, to each his own I guess.

I dont think your "reasons " for shrugging off a wounded animal and acting like it's no big deal are sound either. I just get sick of seeing that.

Idaho Steel....You have received advice...."Don't beat yourself up over it"....." "No need to be conscientious"...."Don't be real hard on yourself"...Those are the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard !!! You most certainly should beat yourself up over it!! You should feel bad, you should be sad, you should have a knot in your gut over what happened.It is called integrity and shows you have a conscience.Should you quit hunting....no ! Should you lose some sleep...You bet !!!! I understand things happen in the hunting arena but that doesn't mean you blow them off without serious regret. Folks who can cripple a game animal, and lose it without conscience or without beating themselves up or feeling terrible, as some have advised you, have no business in the woods. You should feel awful and it a credit to you that you do!!!! Use it as a sad but real life learning experience and grow from it.

Nothing is really wasted in the wild, including animals that die later from wounds we inflict. It happens and will always happen for one reason or another. I would not punch that tag..pull it off or whatever. You just learn to minimize those kind of outcomes. Dang few people are perfect, especially when the dynamics of hunting wild game are involved. Work on your shot process and go back out there.

I will say this though, make sure those arrows are flying perfectly. I see too many people shooting arrows that they think are fine but visually wobble or kick slightly off the bow. An arrow that has to spend time stabilizing itself will lose energy quicker, and that affects penetration.

Will your broadheads shave hair?

Bowhunting is a game of inches. Just a couple of inches back or forward or up and down is the difference in a clean kill or a lost deer. A lot of deer are lost because of poor tracking even with kill shots. My son shot a deer one year right through the boiler room and it had so much fat that the holes plugged up. Lucky for us I saw the deer go down in a thicket. I've seen heart shot deer go a long ways and gut shot deer go a short distance and bed down and die.

NY, As I mentioned, I spent extra concerted effort for two days and well into both rainy nights, looking for this animal. I don't think that constitutes 'shrugging off' the animal. I have as much as, and possibly even more regard for the wildlife I hunt, and I don't take it lightly when I hit one and don't find it. If you knew me better, you'd know I don't just shrug off a wounded animal and act like its no big deal. It is a very big deal. But humans are no different than animal predators and chucking a tag in the drawer after I draw blood without retrieval is neither going to help that animal nor is it going to help me. I rely on venison as a staple, and that tag is going to get filled - legally. It IS gonna get eaten like George said. Nothing in nature gets wasted. I've never hit a deer with a car either, but if I did and killed it, I would not turn in my driver's license. I have never heard of anyone else doing that either, even guys who have killed multiple deer with cars.

I was involved with a search for a deer where the hit was a bit back and low. The next morning I found a blob of coagulated blood with a molar sized piece of rib in it. I found two drops of blood in the 150 yards and followed that line, nothing. No arrow was found, cedar with a Bear head, but the deer did through long weeds and dense sticks prior to where that blood was found 200 yards from the hit. I guessed that the arrow may have hit right at the sharp lower turn of the third to the back rib and the arrow was diverted. Six of of us looked and failed to find the buck with the broken antler. Five days later, 400 yards away, I saw it walking, looked a bit stiff, but he was browsing and moving around.

"Bowhunting is a game of inches. Just a couple of inches back or forward or up and down is the difference in a clean kill or a lost deer. "

True.

Dat.

The "top" arrow in this pic was the first shot, which was taken at very short range from about 12 feet up; the head passed between the spinous processes of the vertebrae and tagged the top of the off-side lung. The deer went bananas, trying to rid itself of the arrow, and trotted off a short ways after the arrow snapped and there was nothing still on her back.

The "bottom" arrow was a follow-up (obviously!) and the shaft passed just below the body of the spinal column, opening up both the descending aorta and the ascending vena cava - basically spilling every bit of blood headed to or from the lower half (60%) of her body in literally about a heartbeat.

She barked, lunged forward about six feet... And Died.

I don't believe I could call the difference between those two hits - not real time/no zoom/no slow-mo re-play, anyway. And I would be pretty skeptical of anyone who says that he could.

I don't know whether I could have recovered that deer after just the first shot or not; there was a blood trail to follow, but you never know when it'll dry up. And it was getting late. No gut involvement, so maybe she would have made it? Hard to say.

But like Will said... Inches.

Did you use a well-sharpened broadhead? I ask this because you indicated that the hit looked good but that you had relatively poor penetration along with a light blood trail. With a 50 pound pull bow and a two blade head and decent weight arrow you should get complete penetration on a deer that is hit in the chest cavity.

GO BACK AND KILL ONE NOW!, forget yesterday,,

i would like to add one odd side thing. In October, we have the inline muzzle boys on our back. In all of these years, I have not been witness to one successful kill or even out hunting when there was one. I have been told by quite a number of them that had tales of how they hit deer and could not find them. I have witnessed twice, deer running away with a leg broken from a muzzle hit. In both of those cases the guy looked a bit and then went on hunting because he didn't see much blood or any blood. We can grind away in speculation, but I have come to the opinion that a sharpened two blade broadhead by whatever method one prefers, is deadlier than a long shot from a muzzle loader.

The fact is no one has a clue what happened because they didn't see it. You saw it n ur not sure. Forget it n go kill a deer. Think of nothing but you shot process as if this last one didn't happen. Stuff happens.

Those guys must not know how to hunt ML, Dean! .54 Roundball has delivered an awful lot of boom-flops and one, 40-yard stagger. There were a couple that were less decisive, due to placement - thinking mostly of one where I mis-judged the angle. Badly. Still killed him by about the time I got the climber back to the ground.

Anyway, let’s not bash MLs, let’s focus on what we know DOES work.

And for the OP.... If you have any doubts about your broadhead sharpness, you might consider switching to a really good factory edge such as is found on the Magnus Stinger/Buzzcut or even The Old Reliable Thunderhead 125. #50 should be ample to drive one through a deer, and MAN, are they sharp!

Its going to happen regardless of what they're shot with or how mortally wounded it is. Those that think otherwise or mistaken. I know how you feel too! BAD.

How many are gimped by a car?

We should do our best to find em and not talk about it publically.

I lost one opening day to my own fault. Shooting what I thought was a relaxed deer but when I released she jilted forward puttin my arrow in her stomach. Ended up 12ringing her sister 16 min later who made it 50 yds. I spent all night and half the next day trying to recover. Lost blood like you mentioned.i felt awful and still do because I know I did my part and couldn't control some of the aspects of the hunt. But I can say similar things happened when i shot wheels. And have helped buddies that shoot wheels try to recover similar incidents. Bow hunting is not easy so many things come into play. Don't second guess yourself it may not have been your doing. My guess is the shoulder was back and you hit it. A one lunged deer can go a long freakin ways. Keep your head up!!

yes, people make a mess even with a 30-06.

"150 with bows"

That is a lot of deer

Sounds kinda like an insufficient sample to conclude anything from. A 50 pound decent speed bow with proper arrow design is elk medicine all day long. My compound would shoot at least 2x the energy of a 60# recurve that I normally hunt, and I used basically the same arrows. So, yeah, you have way more power out of a compound, but a 50 lbs recurve is still plenty for a doe.

Try this for arrow optimization, most don't bother, but these are some steps you can try if you want to.

http://tuffhead.com/education/ashby2.html

Like guys said its does happen. Does it make the fact an excuse for poor shooting, improper placement of an arrow? No, it doesn't. I'm not bashing anyone, just want to remind folks that's why we should take very high odds shots in our mind. No matter the weapon the deer deserve that. A gut shot deer now is a dead deer. It dies of septicemia, (if I spelled that right) If not pushed there's almost no reason it can't be recovered but a heroic effort to recover game, though a necessary undertaking , is still worse than a shot you know you can make and resulted in a quickly expired deer. Shoot close imo. Sorry to derail your thread op

I would bet that you hit the shoulder blade at an angle, or a rib, and the arrow never hit a vital. Did it myself once and later shot the deer. My son put an arrow with a Rage broadhead, that didn't open, clean through a deer and it survived. He got pictures of it a month later. We tracked it for over a mile on snow the day he hit it. The warden up here examined a deer shot with a rifle that had an entire aluminum arrow length-wise under its spine all encased in fascia, perfectly healthy. If you used a good tracking dog, I would bet that deer is still hoofing it. If you don't slice a good sized artery or the gut, the clotting mechanism of a deer is amazing. It has to be as they get scrapped and cut in the wild.

I don't understand the mindset of "punching your tag" on a wounded deer. Very few arrow wounded deer die. An arrow wound is relatively clean, and deer have incredible immune systems and ability to recover. Of the deer I've shot in over 40 years of bowhunting, I can only think of one wounded deer that I later found dead, and that one I was quite sure was dead and found it a week later after the coyotes had dragged it around. I tagged it and have the antlers in my garage. I've been very fortunate to spend a lot of time year around on much of the land I hunt, and I find coyote kills, an occasional road kill, a few gun wounded losses, and EHD kills so it's not like I'm not out there looking. I have, over the years, seen and gotten trail camera pictures of a few deer that I had hit - including a monster non typical muley buck in ND that I hit low as he walked under my stand. I spent days combing the country looking for him, and saw him a year later during the rut - larger though still with many of the same distinct non typical caracturistics. We need to do all we can to be efficient and effective predators and spend all the effort reasonable to recover animals, but we also have to understand that not all hits are fatal. More deer probably die tangles in fences than are lost by bowhunters.

"More deer probably die tangles in fences than are lost by bowhunters."

Maybe where YOU are...

BowGuy is likely correct that a gut-shot deer is a dead deer; that would be the odds-on bet, anyhow. I'm sure we've all heard all kinds of stories about meat-cutters running across broadheads (and various bullets) encased in scar tissue, but ONLY in muscle (and usually lodged up against a substantial bone). I've never even ONCE heard of anyone who came across a head or a portion of an arrow during the gutting process. Not that we generally go looking, but if bacteria were to escape from the GI tract, it would cause a significant infection which would likely result in a big mass of scar tissue that would probably get our attention (and that scar tissue by itself can lead to an obstruction that will kill the animal).

But if you stay forward of the diaphragm or even stray back into the liver, it's all clean; if you hit high or low of the chest cavity.... Yes, it's a bad cut. Not much more than that unless you get into the shoulder and clip the brachial artery, in which case you should have a gusher on your hands anyway. Especially since the brachial is more accessible from the off side.

It's hard to get a single-lung hit that isn't on the margins where the blood pressure is really low and there is really nothing of any appreciable size in the way of blood vessels; so that kind of hit would probably cost the animal at least that one lobe of that lung... but all critters have some overcapacity that way. If the wound seals off (hide/fat/muscle layers), the lung shouldn't collapse

A high, double-lung hit on a clean pass-through is the wildcard, IMO... My brother zipped a Stinger through a cow Elk that just stood there looking for the source of the noise she had heard just before she got stung; he couldn't move to nock another arrow, so he watched for several minutes as she got wobbly and started acting like she was just about to go down. But then she walked off with the herd and he lost the track. No blood trail, but he said his entire arrow was showing the good stuff. If her lungs had collapsed, she would have been laboring to breathe, and he probably would have heard air passing through the wound channel. So she lost enough blood to get light-headed, but not enough to have to lie down, rather than keeping up with the herd.

Sharp broadheads don't release a lot of clotting factor, but a fletching zipping through at speeds high enough to create some friction probably does, so if you don't hit something with some meaningful blood pressure.....

I guess the wildcard on blood trails isn't so much the length as how quickly the distance was traveled; my first bow-kill traveled quite a ways, but at full-tilt... so he was probably dead in under 10 seconds...

If you hit it where you say its dead as dirt just did not find it. coupleof uple of years ago I shot a blacktail deer with a perfect ageling forward hit. I could not find blood or any sign of that deer. after 5 hours of looking I turned around to head out and in a small gully under a down tree was the stone dead buck.

Lv toohuny = lv2bohunt .... LOL! I bet you wish you didn't have spell check right now LOL! coffee on keyboard...

you say you up graded because you where tired af losing game? how many lost is the first thing that comes to mind? maybe you should up grade some more

its not about the bow,, its about where you hit the deer,, and how sharp the head is,, and its really not about the bow, it more about the shooter ,,, the arrow does not know what the bow is,, the deer does not either,, I have missed deer, lost deer and made great shots on deer,,, but it was all on me,, practice hard with what you want to shoot,, shooting closer if need be,,,,

40 years = 150 deer with a bow. That is still a lot of deer.

Lv toohuny

GF - yes, maybe it is "where I live" but I find one or two deer a year (plus over the years I've found pronghorn, a moose calf, and a cow elk in other areas of the west) that became entangled attempting to jump a barbed wire fence and probably died a slow death of stress and starvation.

In over 40 years of hunting and stomping around the woods I've probably only found 4 or 5 deer that may have been unrecovered bow kills. I don't want to make this an "us vs. them" argument, but I find far more unrecovered deer after gun season than bow season. Coyote and car kills are more common than unrecovered bow kills.

In my experiences hunting, guiding, and hunting with many other people, the vast majority of deer that bowhunters don't recover, survive the wound. I say this from the number of deer I've later seen or gotten trail camera pictures of, and the very few unrecovered deer I find. That said, it is vitally important that we all become as proficient with our equipment as possible, take high percentage shots, and learn what to do after the shot and how to track - a good tracking dog is ALWAYS a great asset.

Rarely do Deer stay put at the release of an arrow. Compounds help as they are faster, still deer react to the shot. Aim- look at a spot top of the heart. IF YOUR SHOT IS TRUE AND DEER DOES NOT DROP, YOU HAVE A DEAD DEER. If the deer drops you should get double lungs, even if it drops alot. Of course angles are everything in bow hunting, so adjust your aim accordingly.

Try a woodsman, I get trails that a seeing impaired individual could see. Losing an animal is part of the game unfortunately.how far was your shot, are you arrows tuned properly?

Slayer - not trying to argue; it’s just that around here we don’t have any 3 & 4- strand fences.

And I would absolutely expect that there are far more roadkills here than unrecovered archery deer.

I would also expect that among those animals wounded and lost, probably a higher percentage survive when hit by a wheel-bow shooter, because Trad- shooters tend to get the range right but shoot wider groups, where pin-shooters are more likely to miss high and low. Just a suspicion, but I lost a lot more arrows in one trip to the 3D course with a compound than I would lose in a year without wheels.... of course, they compound tends to bury the arrows a lot deeper in the swamp!

But hits high/low are basically flesh wounds; it’s aft of the diaphragm that things get messy....

Yes, a gut shot is almost always fatal, but not always the most difficult deer to recover. After the shot back out quietly and leave the deer at least 24 hours and trail quietly and carefully.this is where a dog really shines. I don't know who loses the most unrecovered deer that die, from what I've experienced it's definitely rifle hunters, but any loss is bad. I haven't kept statistics, but I doubt my wounding loss - fatal or non fatal hits - rate changed when I went back to stick bows 20 years ago. Just like we don't die Everytime we get hurt, neither does wildlife.

Gut-shots are high mortality and high-velocity bullet wounds are as well; a clean, aseptic arrow wound is not nearly as bad as getting bitten or clawed by a predator.

And of course bucks have to be able to suvive the wounds picked up in battle; those don’t bleed as freely as arrow wounds, but they’re not as clean, either.

deerhunt51 said "Rarely do Deer stay put at the release of an arrow. Compounds help as they are faster, still deer react to the shot. "

That's not been my experience.

Personally the more real you can make your practice routine the smoother will be your shooting on the real thing. Shooting full sized targets without marks on them with broadheads will tell you where you're at. Roving in the field, stump shooting as you go will also tell allot. Both build confidence which is all important. One shot at a time! Sometimes we pick the wrong spot on game especially out of a tree.

MGF said in his experience, Exactly! we all have different life experience's. That is why we pass them on with this site. It sounded like this MAY be what has happened to this Gentleman, without slow speed footage is just an educated guess based on MY life experience's.

Yes, I have seen deer react/duck at the shot so I'm not trying to call anybody a liar. I'm just saying that it hasn't been the norm with the deer that I've shot at...a limited number of deer in a limited range of environments, right?

As a result, I aim for where I want to hit and hope the deer is still there when the arrow gets there.

You have t be calm and shoot/tune your equipment and aim at broadside animals which are calm also.

I can tell you from personal experience that the hit you thought you saw isn't always the case. I have replayed shots over and over and swear I made a perfect hit. It's the "explosion" that happens when you release the string that turns good shots into bad ones. The deer isn't always in the same position by the time the arrow arrives.

A few seasons ago I had a small deer stand up right in front of me as I walked in. It froze broadside at 15 yd. I know a gift when I see it and took the shot. "Perfect 10 ring" is what I told my buddy when we went to retrieve the deer. No deer, little blood, nothing. .????

A few days later a friend and I hunted the same woodlot and saw my deer walking around. The fletching was sticking out from behind the shoulder and the broadhead was sticking out high from the base of the neck on the opposite side! We tried to get close but it scampered into the corn. I was sick.

Next time I saw it was a couple months later. No arrow, healed over scabs, acting normal. I saw it again the next year with fawns. :)

I practice a ton with perfectly flying arrows. Broadheads are sharp. Everything is as good as I can make it. Still, things can go bad in a hurry.

I'll share one more story. I made a non lethal high hit on a ducking deer on a MD hunt with George Stout and another friend. I said I felt bad even though we knew the deer would be fine. George said "You should feel bad. That's a good thing. Now learn from it and move on." Good advise.

Double lung says it all.

I'm sorry to hear it. As much as we practice and wait for that perfect shot, things can happen in a hunting situation regardless of the weapon. To add to that, we don't always see what we think we do in the heat of the moment and a lot of times in low light conditions. Again, I'm sorry to hear it and I wish you better luck next time.

I'm sorry to hear it. As much as we practice and wait for that perfect shot, things can happen in a hunting situation regardless of the weapon. To add to that, we don't always see what we think we do in the heat of the moment and a lot of times in low light conditions. Again, I'm sorry to hear it and I wish you better luck next time.

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