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.
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.