What went wrong?

[Sherm65]

I shot a doe Friday evening. I thought the shot was good, maybe a little forward, but still behind the shoulder. After following a great blood trail for what seemed like a half mile, I quit for the night. I came back Yesterday morning to continue the search found the trail right away and after two hours of searching....no deer! After looking at the diagrams on this sight I am even more convinced I made a good shot. Any suggestions?

[joekeith]

Keep lookin'...  

[Bjorn]

Keep at it-see if you can borrow a dog! Unfortunately the arrow is rarely where we thought it was.

[ChuckC]

out of a treestand ?  Betting your shot went low and you got leg and or a very low chest hit.  That would put the fletch higher and make it look good.
ChuckC

[Ken Taylor]

With what little information we have, I would also say low.

[Sherm65]

Im sure there is truth in all the responses. It is just frustrating to hit a deer with what I thought was a good shot with good blood only to not find it.

[jhg]

Few things are harder to see than a deer laying on its side, dead, in a ground depression.

[Whip]

I'd have to agree, something was certainly not quite as it seemed.  Things happen very fast - faster than our mind can process sometimes. A deer hit where you thought you did will not make it a half mile. Was the shot quartering away at all?  It's not hard to slip between the ribs and the front shoulder if a little forward on a quartering shot.  Sure sounds like muscle of some type.

[bowmaster12]

what did your blood look like? pink? dark red? "normal" looking

[KSdan]

A little forward and higher than half way would put it over the spine.  Muscle hit only.  

Dan in KS

[David Yukon]

I would think that if there was a lot of blood (and a lot of blood for some one might be a little for an other) it should have been a good shot. I know some one who killed a deer one day and it was found under a fallen tree... So keep looking, and maybe a dog would find it!!

[Mudd]

Once a certain level of blood loss occurs the animal can go any direction because they aren't functioning under their normal thought processes.

Basically they aren't conscious of what they are doing or where they are going.

I would say not to give up.Check any nearby water sources.

God bless,Mudd

[OkKeith]

Gotta keep looking until you feel good about quitting.

Find any hair in the first patch of blood? Body hair, belly hair or back hair? All brown, brown and white mixed or all white?

Like Bowmaster 12 asked, what did the blood look like? What did it smell like? All these things can either confirm what you have in your head or dispel the version you keep telling yourself.

A deer hit hard will generaly circle to the side it was hit on (left side hit, trail veers generaly left). A wounded deer will also tend to go down hill or towards water (or both). Not a hard and fast rule but why not check if you have exhausted everything else.

I have found it helpfull to make small flags using toilet paper at each drop of blood. Keep them high enough off the ground so you can look back to see what the trend is and that way you can look forward and make some assumptions about direction of travel. I always try to collect all of them after I find my deer, but if you miss a few the next rain will dissolve them to nothing.

Check all the bedding areas or secluded corners.

Stay after it! Lay down, reconstruct the whole thing in your mind. Don't try and see what you thought you saw. See what actually happened.

If you did everything you could and feel good about your effort, go back to hunting and learn the lesson.

Good luck!

OkKeith

[Keith Zimmerman]

Half-mile.  Maybe a muscle hit.  That is a long way with no lungs.

[Sherm65]

Thanks for all your responses. To answer some of your questions. The shot was from a 15ft. ladderstand at 12 yrds. she was quartering away and the blood was dark red...no bubbles. The arrow was burried to the fletching as she ran away I found half the shaft and it was soaked. After several days looking everywhere I have finally given up. Thanks for all your input and advice. This is a great site.

Sherm

[Wile E. Coyote]

Yep, sorry to say but the shot was not where you thought it was. A double lunged deer CANNOT travel that far. Sorry you didn't find her, sounds like with the amount of blood you found she would be down. Best of luck on the next one.

[Ronyag]

Sorry, but it somtimes happens. I lost an 8pt one year. I center punched him somewhere near the diaphram. There was pretty good blood but it turned to drops in 100 yards. They dissapeared all together at 1/4 mile in a swamp. I looked for 2 days.

[Stumpkiller]

I've only lost one and it was heartbreaking.  I spent two days of a three-day canoe-in camping hunt in a swamp looking under hummocks and hemlock roots for a beautiful eight-pointer I had hit the first evening.  It was an almost straight-down shot with a 135 gr Sasquatch broadhead (two-bladed & very wide) and a heavy 23/64" 30.5" BOP cedar arrow from a 55# recurve.  The deer collapsed in a heap and I, like a fool, lowered my bow from my stand and it jumped up and ran off.  I could see the shaft was buried up to the crown dip and sticking straight up beside his spine between the shoulder blades!  Found a lot of blood, then little, then none at all.  The trail went through a knee-deep in water hemlock swamp.

 

Never did find the deer or any part of the arrow.  And it was 15 years before I hunted from a tree-stand again.    

Good for you for fretting it.  It is truly unfortunate and a shame, but a dead deer is never wasted in nature.  It will be a windfall for some critter(s).  Say a prayer for its spirit and do your best to prevent a recurrance.

[30coupe]

Dark red blood usually means liver, especially if you had lots of blood. Unfortunately, if the liver was all you hit, they can go quite a ways even though it was probably a fatal shot.

Where in Iowa are you? I missed your first post, probably because I was in the woods, or I'd have offered to help.

[-Achilles-]

Once I shot a deer from a stand and it was close to straight down,I watched the arrow go into the vitals at least it looked like it and I thought it was a good shot.Next day we didnt find no arrow and not a drop of blood and no deer.That 1 sure did confuse me.