This one is strictly Bowhunting related; not strictly “trad”, but an arrow is an arrow and a hit is a hit. I’m bringing it up over here only because I think there is a lot to be learned and I know that there are a lot of people on the wall who don’t spend much time over there.

But over on BowSite, there is a thread called “How Long/How Far Challenge”. If you haven’t seen it yet, I would encourage you to surf on over there and take the whole thing in.

Go ahead! I’ll wait…. ;)

But for those of you without the patience to go and read the whole thing…

Long and short is that the OP there (GreyGhost) made a textbook shot quartering away; high (perfect) entrance, low exit, complete pass-through. From the pictures of the skinned deer, you can see that he did not punch through any excessive amount of backstrap on the way in; the arrow entered forward of the fringe of the diaphragm, so any hit to the liver (none reported) would have been minor; exit was just behind the off foreleg and slashed the shank.

So the point of the “challenge“ here was to guess how far that buck ran and how long it took him to expire.

Are you sure you don’t want to go read that whole thread before you weigh in with a guess?

Just something to think about next time, before you climb down from your tree.

interesting

One lung.

“One lung.”

That’s extremely unlikely, given where the exit was and how high the arrow would have been as it crossed the mid-line.

Clearly, though, there wasn’t much air getting in through that entrance wound. I don’t know if maybe the hole in the hide simply wasn’t lined up with the hole through the ribcage and that prevented the lungs from collapsing, or…

Certainly, had the exit been forward of that off leg he would not have been aft of the heart, and I doubt that he would have skimmed through above it. But if I had made that shot and had seen where it went…. I sure would have expected a short, heavy blood trail and a crash inside of 30 seconds.

Both lungs.....live for an hour.... Highly, highly unlikely. Unless of course the buck held his breath for an hour or the broad head was that dull it actually pushed the lung aside without cutting tissue... Again, highly, highly unlikely. Sometimes things aren't always what they appear. Something's not right.

Just my opinion, but I don't define a perfect hit with high in and low out. Too steep an angle.

What Juspassin and Pa Steve said.

A "perfect" shot leads to a perfect conclusion which is a short trail and quick recovery.

Not denigrating his success though. Very nice deer.

“ I don't define a perfect hit with high in and low out. Too steep an angle.”

Seriously?? A deer’s chest cavity is roughly oval in shape. The steeper the angle, the longer the cutting path through the goodies. So (JMO) you have only crossed over into “too steep“ territory if it prevents you from opening up both lungs because you never crossed the midline.

I’m not going to pretend that this sketch is 100% on the money anatomically, but for the two lines I just drew in with the ballpoint, if you measure the cutting path, the horizontal line measures 1 1/4 inch, and the diagonal high/low measures an inch and a half, so that’s what, an extra 20%?

“A ‘perfect’ shot leads to a perfect conclusion which is a short trail and quick recovery”

Seriously, Frank?? You’re going to tell me that you would not choose a quartering away angle from a tree stand? And you’re saying that you would not be perfectly happy with that hit??

OK, so nothing in this life will ever either be absolutely “perfect“, but the shot in question here was a Perfectly Acceptable hit, and better than most, probably. The OUTCOME in this case wasn’t what you would want or expect, but that’s not the same thing.

In the emergency room business, they talk about the Golden Hour; if you can get someone into a trauma unit within one hour, they can salvage a person from just about anything. And many of us knew a man who survived a shot through the chest with a 10 mm pistol and lived to tell the tale.

In this particular case, it’s really quite a surprise that the deer did not expire in under a minute or so, but it’s quite a stretch to say that the shot placement was somehow subpar. Maybe the Broadhead was simply not nearly sharp enough? I hate to even suggest that for fear of insulting the guy who took the shot, but something here clearly defies expectations.

Unless you think back across history to the age-old rule of thumb that says you ALWAYS wait 45 minutes before following up on your shot.

I suspect that if this animal had taken off at a dead run, he might’ve expired a lot more quickly…. although there’s no way of knowing that for sure, obviously. But on three occasions, I have bumped animals from their first bed or stopping point, and on two of those occasions it added very significantly to the difficulty of the recovery effort. I didn’t lose any of them, but I didn’t make it any easier on any of us.

GF, I didn't say I wouldn't take a shattering away shot, I don't like the angle though because it's too steep for my taste. But....I also don't hunt from treestands and the like.

But, as I said, a perfect shot leads to a perfect conclusion which in my mind is a short tracking job.

I think that it is most likely that he did very little damage to the entrance side lung Because of how far back and steep he was. A person or an animal can live a long time with only one lung. People can live forever with a long resection , but then we are not dealing with blood loss. We are also not dealing with possible shift of the structures in the chest limiting blood flow. The periphery of the entrance side lung like likely had minimal blood loss as there are only small blood vessels along the periphery of the lung. This likely explains why it took so long for the deer to expire.

Overall, I will say something that I say frequently. Not all single or double lung shots are created equal.

I didn't read the post but not every shot that should be perfect is. Had it been a perfect shit the deer woulda dropped from the sudden bp drop within 100 yards and usually 60 or less. My 2 longest tracking jobs were both "perfect" quartered away shots that looked textbook. Arrows sometimes glance off of ribs or bone having a different outcome than the holes predict.

Btw my guess would be somewhere between 30p yards and where he finished it with another arrow.

“ I think that it is most likely that he did very little damage to the entrance side lung Because of how far back and steep he was.”

I could agree with that one! It’s easy to second guess after the fact, of course, and I guess you could say that he “shoulda” held farther forward …

I think you’re right though… Probably he damaged only the rear lobe of the near side lung, which would leave one or two lobes pretty much intact, so without sufficient air to collapse what was left functioning, it took a while. My point in bringing it up was simply that this serves as a pretty stark reminder of the importance of the Old Wisdom that says to give them time & space to expire quietly and peacefully.

If the hunter in this case had given it 45 minutes or an hour before he took up the trail of an animal that had bolted out of sight and he encountered the buck after it had expired, there would be no story here. If he had bumped the deer out of its bed a half hour after the hit, he might never have found it.

So now I’m thinking about all those threads that you see where someone is asking for some kind of “help” after losing an animal, and I don’t recall any one of those threads ever starting with “after giving the animal a good hour to expire…”.

So I just appreciated the reminder that even when a shot looks like it should’ve been perfect, these things can take a little time.

just read through that thread...interesting.

I agree. If I see them go down or hear them crash, I don't usually wait that long. Just had a guy on the farm my buddy hunts have a similar experience, pushed the deer and never recovered it. Stood in the field for 12 minutes mouth breathing, nd the guy took up the trail right after it left the field. Probably a little liver and one lung. Cold weather and probably would have bedded down and died close by overnight. Can't be to impatient in this game.

Typos

The diagram above showed two trajectories of approx. 45 degree downward angle. If you are 17 feet up in a tree, thats a deer 17 feet away from the base of your tree. If you are 25 feet up in a tree and shoot a deer that passes under you, 10 feet from the base of your tree, the shot angle reduces the potential path of damage to one-third of a what you had at 17 and 17. The angle of entry is routinely discounted, yet all pentration tests have been done at essentially 90 degrees. Surgeons stick trocars into people abdomens and chests all the time to do laproscopic surgery because they know the instertion point and angles to avoid hitting a major organ or blood vessel. You can do that 'accidentally' with an arrow despite thinking you had a perfect shot.

CR. I didn't go over to read the thread, but the gist of the discussion so far indicates the trail was much longer than expected. That means only one thing. Regardless of what the shooter thinks, or where the holes are in the carcass, it wasn't a perfect hit.

Actually, the buck in question went 7 yards and just stood there (labored breathing) until he bedded down. He was with some does, and when they started to leave - about an hour later - he tried to get up and follow, but couldn’t.

The point of the exercise here is to remind people to take nothing for granted and give them time no matter how good the hit looked in the moment. If you see them crash, that’s one thing, but otherwise…

OK. Longer in time, not distance. But I agree, take nothing for granted. A lot of times, folks, myself included, think they've made better shots than they have.

The amount of time from shot to follow up has to be determined in real time.

While the animal should be given adequate time, based on the particular evidence found, that amount of time is not set in stone. Too many details come in to the equation.

I don’t disagree for a minute, but when in doubt…. seems better to err on the side of caution, no?

Sometimes it’s ike the old Cowhand says… Don’t just DO something - STAND THERE!!

This was a buck I shot last year. First shot is behind the leg. It looked great when I shot him. Arrow blew through him. But when I looked at the Arrow and smelled it it had guy looking material and jot great blood. Left him overnight. I trailed sparse blood for 300 yards and jumped him out of his bed. Followed and bumped him three more times. He was actually getting up following does two of the times. Finally caught up to him and he couldn’t get up. He was pinned against a pine so I was having a hard time putting a finishing arrow in him. Ran out of arrows. Made a spear with my knife and stick and ended up getting charged and gored through the hand. He died about 10 min after that. As my hand had a big hole in it I didn’t do a proper dissection so see what really happened on first shot. But I think he had cud in his esophagus and that was what made the arrow smell and clogged exit hole A good looking shot isn’t always text box

That’s mind-boggling! Looks like a 10-ring from here!

But you paid attention to the sign; you planned your follow-up and recovered the animal under really tough conditions. I think not many of us would have fared so well.

My hat is off.

Didn’t mean to hijack thread but thought it related to my own experience I did learn lots on my tracking and what not to do next time lol

My shot was off a 14 ft ladder stand about 15 yards out. Wasn’t very extreme

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