Interested in any feedback; shot tonight a buck, broadside at 15, just a scooch high ( but not shish kabob high) and pretty perfect width-wise from elevated stand ( 16 ft) with a R/D #45 AT 28, 3 rivers carbon arrow with zwickey head ( 165gr I think). He ran out of there hard... I found little drops of blood for 30 yard and then the arrow ( he musta pulled it cause no brush to speak of). 5 or 6 inches and BH very bright red , bloody blood. Then I backed out. He never crashed. I'll be back tomorrow AM. What do ya think? ( other than shoot a little lower).
Sounds like it did not pass through. Guessing only blood on one side of the trail. Bright red or pink? Either is good blood and I'm guessing 1 lung. If he wasn't pushed and had some cover nearby I'd guess you'll find him within 75-100 yards. If you lose the trail, head toward water. Good luck!
to be clear, even though the arrow was very bloody,it only penetrated 5 inches and then he pulled it out. I dont think it was fatal. Anyone else experience a dead deer with this shot?
You were smart to back out and not push the deer. 5 inches of penetration could be lethal depending on what the 5 inches hit but a higher hit with no exit hole is going to yield very little blood in my experience.
I'd try to recruit some help looking and even a tracking dog if it's legal in your state. I'd look for a bid trail at first but you may end up grid searching.
"Just a skooch high" is not quantifiable. And what was it high of? Heart, lungs,? Completely different things to consider. Just high of the heart should be in the lungs. Just high pf the lungs is in not much vital.
Sounds like you think you cleared the shoulder. But even if you didn't you should have penetrated the scapula with a modern bow and that arrow combination if you have good arrow flight.
I'm guessing the deer wasn't completely broadside and something else happened with the shot. The broadside vital are of a deer is as big as a basketball. And 16 feet is pretty high for a shot that close. Not a great angle.
Big difference between bright red and pink and frothy blood. Bright red might be nothing more than flesh wound/shoulder hit, pink/frothy means lung. Sounds like high shoulder, pulled out.
No one here has the answer, if you find it let us know the rest of the story. I've made shots I though were great and they weren't. I've also made shots that looked bad and they were effective. Good luck finding the deer. Stuff happens though, so don't beat yourself too much if you don't find it.
Sounds like a high shot in the loin muscle hitting the backbone. They bleed decent for a short distance then the bleeding stops. Rarely fatal if this is where you hit.
" I found little drops of blood for 30 yard and then the arrow ( he musta pulled it cause no brush to speak of). "
So you think he pulled it while running hard? Seems unlikely.
The blood that you did find....
Was it on the entry/near side or exit/far side of the tracks? Did it appear to have dripped down or was it sprayed out?
Did the animal react to the sound of the shot or the impact of the hit?
What did the hit sound like?
I'm trying to think through what would be dense enough to stop an arrow in the span of 6", but still loose enough for the arrow to flop out, and I've got nothin'.
Just a guess... if you hit under the spine, he didn't go far. If you hit above the spine, you may have opened up the top of the off lung, in which case the hit was likely peripheral and he could go a very long ways...
A high entry with no exit is always going to be tough to follow up, though...
Let us know what you find in daylight. JMO, the single most underdeveloped skill for 99 44/100ths of us is following the one thing that is virtually guaranteed on every hit, and that's hoofprints....
Not saying it has never happened or cannot happen, but I have arrowed a lot of deer in 56 years that were not pass-throughs, and helped tracked deer for others, but if by "He pulled it out" you mean that the reached back and pulled the arrow out. I have never seen it happen or know of others that said they witnessed it happening.
If arrow was on ground in short distance and there were no tangles to disengage the arrow, it is likely it never penetrated very far.
Ive had deer pull out a arrow, or bite it off too, and broken off from tree branches. Ive had very few pass throughs over my years and taken quite a few deer. I think you`ll find it.
Sorry folks. Did not find him. Looked at the anatomy charts and i cant really figure out where I hit him. Good windage, a scooch high, just above liver, just below backbone. Managed to put it in no mans land. Thanks for all the help. Sure do appreciate it.
Good point fdp. Need to know more. One of my African PH’s once asked. “ what is it with you Americans”? You say you hit the animal behind the front shoulder. The ass is behind the front shoulder lol
If you are referring to the alleged infamous dead space between the spine and the lungs, that's a fallacy. It does not exist. Verified long ago by close veterinarian friend. In fact, he alerted me that a deer's spine is located lower in a deer's body than most realize.
Rocky, That was not the hit. The hit was 1" to 1.5" lower, with the windage pretty close. I have spent some time on the anatomy charts and honestly, I am a bit mystified. I believe I may have caught the very bottom of the spine, which may have causes the lack of penetration. As I have played this over and over, I recall a very subtle click ( not a thwack and it was nowhere near the shoulder anyway) on the shot , and as he ran out, I could clearly see that the penetration was limited. Best I can figure, went just above liver, and just below spine, maybe catching enough bone to stop it.
You need to check arrow flight, and also see if you hit a limb or something when you shot.
Deer don't have large bones or muscles, and at that range, with that arrow, there are no bones in the area you describe that should stop a well sharpened, good flying broadhead.
Even if you hit the spine, the arrow should have stuck in the bone. And that broadhead doesn't appear to have any tip damage indicating an impact with something hard that would impede penetration.
Like I said earlier, we weren't there so we are more or less guessing. But based on your description and the condition of the arrow, I don't buy in to the current summary of events.
“Best I can figure, went just above liver, and just below spine, maybe catching enough bone to stop it.”
Except that that “spot” does not exist. If you were above the liver, you’d be into spine. And there are some of the largest vessels in the body right there.
Q: Did you give that blood the sniff test?
Q: What was the condition of the blades on that head? Any curling of the point? How about those edges? Do they look like they’ve been run across a rib, as if the point entered between a couple of them and the head was trying to spread them apart?
Just seems like anything that would stop an arrow that quickly would have to be a fairly hard/dense item but with some Give to it. The other thing that can stop an arrow pretty quick is the connective tissue between the spinous processes….
And it can be a lot harder than you might think to see exactly where you hit.
The hide pictured here belonged to a deer that needed a follow-up; the first shot (orange) was too high; passed between the spinous processes (3-blade) and topped the off-side lung, penetrating a few inches less than shown. It was a VERY steep downward angle - approaching 45° - and at angles like that, the target is much less forgiving of vertical error. Second shot was farther out and skimmed under the spine, severing the descending aorta… and she lurched forward into a heap. Both hits were forward of the diaphragm by a couple inches.
I’m thinking that Frank is correct about arrow flight being off. If you had hit enough bone to stop a clean-flying arrow that quickly, you’d think it’d stick pretty tight. First shot in that pic, the arrow came out when it broke off in the ensuing rodeo. And that “tick” that you heard could have been a twig. Or your arrow could’ve been flying a little cocked to begin with.
That's about what I got on the deer above. Sometimes looking from above you actually hit higher then you think you did. Deer look different from above then they do broadside. Easy to misjudge the hit.
Easy to misjudge and easy to misplace it in the first place.
On a steep-angle shot, most of us are probably better off waiting for a longer quarter-away than taking the short & steep broadside. That way if you do go over the top, it’s more likely to be purely a meat-hit. I took out enough of that off lung that had I not been gifted the follow-up opportunity, I’d say there’s a really good chance she’d have been coyote bait. Once the busted arrow dropped out, she just walked away pretty much as if nothing had happened. A bit more cautious than on her way in, maybe, but not looking at all like a hard-hit animal looking for a safe place to bed down…. and the property is just not that large. I did have blood to follow, so it would have been a long wait and a slow job in the dark.
“ And yeah,.....’no mans land’ does not exist, just so happens I killed a mule deer doe a couple weeks back, first arrow stuck in the spine AFTER, cutting the top of the lung on a level broadside shot from a ground blind.”
That’s not no-man’s land. That’s Spine. ;)
The body of the spinal column sits lower in the cavity than the highest portions of the lungs - (REAL) roughly like the sketch.
From the ground, you can top a lung and hit spine; what you CANNOT do (from any angle) is to thread BETWEEN spine and lung, which is where The Void is believed to be.
My too-high hit from the tree only got the Off lung… so that was a bad wound, but not immediately catastrophic. which is, after all, what we are looking for.
