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Humble pie...

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
How do you like yours served? Mine? Well I prefer a world example of why just executing an action is sometimes not enough to get it done...

The goal Saturday morning was to get a shot at a deer with the girls in the blind with me. Implied in that goal was the successful harvesting of some organic groceries. I managed to execute the first part, but failed to bring home the proverbial bacon. I am still baffled as to what happened, but can only chalk it up to experience. The picture below was taken seconds before the shot. The red dot represents the exit wound of my arrow to the best of my knowledge based on angle on the N/S and E/W axis'. I held a touch low expecting her to drop at the sound of the shot given how quiet it was and the fact that she had been a bit on edge watching some other deer on the oak flat. She never budged at the shot and the arrow zipped rought through here and buried the entire broadhead in to a dead log 10 yards behind her. Shot was 27 yards and I missed my pin placement by at most, 2" back and 2" low. She was nearly dead broadside to me and only a few feet in elevation below me. The entrance wound was nearly identical in placement as the exit. With no benefit of any angle, the wound channel would have been fairly short.




After the shot, I waited 20 minutes to check the arrow. The arrow itself was nearly spotless. No fat. No stomach contents. Very little blood. We backed out and came back 90 minutes later. For the next hour, I followed a fairly consistent blood trail along the path you see below. She never bedded until the orange dot and when she did, I lost blood. It was like every muscle hit deer I have ever tracked: Bleed forever. Stop. They lick the wound clean and the trail dries up. I found 9 decent sized pools of blood. The blood was not liver blood and had no bubbles. I thought maybe I only nicked the heart or liver with one blade of the G5 Montec. However her never stopping to bed despite much better places along the route, had me scratching my head. I didn't reach her bed until 5 hours after the shot and she should have been there had I nicked a vital organ. I never saw or heard her get up and spent another hour searching the creek for her to no avail.

Note to self: That seemed WAY longer than a 1/2 mile!



Somewhere along the line I got better at killing dots than I did deer. All this talk about grouping arrows this summer and it matters not if you can't execute in the woods. I was probably too cute with my shot placement and should have put it center-mast and let it rip. I went 14 years without missing or wounding a deer with a bow. Since then I have missed the same doe twice to start and end my 2014 season, and now this. I still can't wrap my head around how this didn't kill her, but it goes to show that they are tough animals and anything can happen.

I learned from this and it will make me a better hunter in the end. It bums me out to inflict damage and not have the outcome we all desire. At some point, I'll head back out and it'll be with this lesson in mind.
 

Fluteman

Senior Member
Supporting Member
7,094
146
Southeast Ohio
In the word of the great, Taylor Swift, "Shake it off!"


Shit happens buddy, shoulda, coulda, woulda. Sucks, but we've all been there, and we all feel your pain!
 

"J"

Git Off My Lawn
Supporting Member
56,743
274
North Carolina
We've all been there on some shots like that... pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back in the game....
if you need a nut punch.... Call Greg lol
 
Sure looks like she was circling back on her original trail. Was helping track a deer last year for a friend that did the same thing. It was also early season and made tracking that much more difficult. Probably walked a mile only to die a couple hundred yards from where he was shot. Your shot placement looks deadly to me, but as you said their damn tough.
 
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Milo

Tatonka guide.
8,184
157
Did you drop your bow arm to peak at the deer? That happens a lot. It may explain your low left. I try to shoot deer to my tendencies. We all have stories and I have two you wouldn't believe...
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
Did you drop your bow arm to peak at the deer? That happens a lot. It may explain your low left. I try to shoot deer to my tendencies. We all have stories and I have two you wouldn't believe...
It didn't feel like it, but that is definitely a tendency of mine. I fight follow through more than anything and when I bail, it's low and right (I was on the other side of her). I'm sure I did more than I think I did.
 

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
You talked about something very key to me, you learned. That's all you can do about this now. Thanks for sharing so some of us can also learn from this. Without that picture of your shot placement, I might have aimed for that spot. In fact, I have before, just in a quartering away deer. Gotta learn from experience, doesn't always have to be yours...thanks again for sharing. Good luck on your next adventure.
 

Joel

Senior Member
3,049
113
Centerburg, Ohio
Sorry to hear this. It does happen and it always sucks.

My daughter really wants to shoot one this year and one of my biggest fears is she wounds one and we can't recover it. Hell I don't want it to happen to me again either for that matter.
 

jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,060
223
Ohio
Sucks man. Hitting that spot you drew should have resulted in a dead deer. Doesn't even look too low to me, especially if she was only few feet lower than you in elevation. Shit happens much faster than we can sometimes perceive, though. Hard telling what exactly went wrong. Deer are amazing critters... even good shots can sometimes lead us to heartbreak. All you can do is shake it off and get back out there.
 

hickslawns

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
39,721
248
Ohio
You have killed plenty of deer in your days. Sounds like you are doing all you can: Analyze what happened, learn from it. We have all placed shots poorly. It happens sometimes. I have been fortunate to have recovered 2 deer poorly hit. I have been more fortunate to have had clean misses on all others. If I am going to miss, I simply pray I miss completely. When we don't miss completely, it screws with our heads. Even the deer I recovered had my head screwed up. Hang in there and try to shake it off my friend.
 
Yep. It happens. Happened to me last year after having a pretty good run for a while of not making a bad shot. Grazed a buck's back on a chip shot and then within a week I hit a doe square in the shoulder and didn't get any penetration. I will admit that I had a hard time shaking it off.
 

finelyshedded

You know what!!!
Supporting Member
31,856
260
SW Ohio
I don't see the pics but kudos to you for putting this out there Jesse! I'm with you and others on your original thought that, how'd this deer not die and die quick or within an eyeshot! These deer sometimes just befuddle me on how they survive these apparent kill shots!

Follow through is so important and could be the reason you were off a wee bit but I bet most of us are guilty of not making the perfect shot! Get back on that horse buddy and shake it off!