Legionnaire
New member
Last Wednesday I was out bow hunting. About 9:30am a nice six point buck walked past my stand at less than 20 yards. I let him pass and took what I thought was a perfect quartering away shot. He flinched slightly and kept moving, but didn't seem particulary spooked. "Good kill" I thought.
Unfortunately, it had been raining earlier in the day, and it picked up again about that time, so I decided I could not afford to wait the requisite 30-45 minutes before starting the trail. I climbed down and retrieved my arrow. Straight away, good covering of bright read blood; no green. "Good pass through shot to the chest" I thought.
Pretty good blood trail for a quarter of a mile to the edge of the private property I hunt. I knocked on the door of the home on the adjacent property and received permission to track their land. Unfortunately, the trail began to weaken as I crossed their property; good news was the rain let up again so I had less concern about losing the trail. But the deer was not to be found. Trailed him all the way across the property and across a road. Now we're a good half mile from where I shot it.
On to the next property (again with permission of the land owner). Through a field of fairly high grass. Now I'm getting suspicious. Blood was less evident than I would have liked, and I noted that it was only on the left side of the deer's path. Hmmm. If it was a pass through shot, the exit must have been through the chest, which would explain the lack of blood on both sides of the trail.
So across the property into dense woods, across a four-foot-wide stream . . . pick up the trail again. Down through a marsh. Blood trail is becoming a drop or small splash of blood only every few yards rather than a constant drip. I had to spend a lot of time marking my last sighting and then circling to find further sign. I began to suspect I had crossed another property line just because I was so far into the trail; but I never saw an obvious line and no posted signs, so I slogged on.
Got all the way to the bottom of the valley and the buck had crossed a creek, about 10 yards in width and a good foot or two deep at the crossing point. I went east until I found a place I could wade across, counting on the Gore-tex liners in my leather boots to keep my feet dry. I managed to pick up the trail again on the far side, but now the blood was pretty sparse. The buck followed the creek for some 70 yards.
In the thick weeds/grass/rushes along the bank, I jumped him. He was up and gone in a flash. There was blood where he had been lying, but nowhere near as much as I would like to have seen. I trailed him another fifty yards or so, and he crossed the stream again . . . or at least entered it.
. . . and that's the last I saw of the trail. I spent another hour looking along both sides of that creek, painstakingly, both sides, for 100 yards in either direction. No dice. I called it quits at 4:15pm, almost seven hour after the shot. It took me 40 minutes of brisk walking to get back to where I left my bow on the original property I was hunting on, and another 20 minutes to get from there back to my truck.
I still can't figure out just what happened. My best guess is that the angle the buck was at when I shot, as he turned away, was more acute than I thought, so that I grazed or penetrated the left shoulder and missed the chest cavity and anything vital. The one thing I'm confident in is that I didn't gut shoot the animal; absolutely no evidence of that on the arrow or on the trail.
But boy does it feel bad drawing blood and not being able to recover the animal. Just hoping that he was taken by another hunter during gun season, which started yesterday.
Unfortunately, it had been raining earlier in the day, and it picked up again about that time, so I decided I could not afford to wait the requisite 30-45 minutes before starting the trail. I climbed down and retrieved my arrow. Straight away, good covering of bright read blood; no green. "Good pass through shot to the chest" I thought.
Pretty good blood trail for a quarter of a mile to the edge of the private property I hunt. I knocked on the door of the home on the adjacent property and received permission to track their land. Unfortunately, the trail began to weaken as I crossed their property; good news was the rain let up again so I had less concern about losing the trail. But the deer was not to be found. Trailed him all the way across the property and across a road. Now we're a good half mile from where I shot it.
On to the next property (again with permission of the land owner). Through a field of fairly high grass. Now I'm getting suspicious. Blood was less evident than I would have liked, and I noted that it was only on the left side of the deer's path. Hmmm. If it was a pass through shot, the exit must have been through the chest, which would explain the lack of blood on both sides of the trail.
So across the property into dense woods, across a four-foot-wide stream . . . pick up the trail again. Down through a marsh. Blood trail is becoming a drop or small splash of blood only every few yards rather than a constant drip. I had to spend a lot of time marking my last sighting and then circling to find further sign. I began to suspect I had crossed another property line just because I was so far into the trail; but I never saw an obvious line and no posted signs, so I slogged on.
Got all the way to the bottom of the valley and the buck had crossed a creek, about 10 yards in width and a good foot or two deep at the crossing point. I went east until I found a place I could wade across, counting on the Gore-tex liners in my leather boots to keep my feet dry. I managed to pick up the trail again on the far side, but now the blood was pretty sparse. The buck followed the creek for some 70 yards.
In the thick weeds/grass/rushes along the bank, I jumped him. He was up and gone in a flash. There was blood where he had been lying, but nowhere near as much as I would like to have seen. I trailed him another fifty yards or so, and he crossed the stream again . . . or at least entered it.
. . . and that's the last I saw of the trail. I spent another hour looking along both sides of that creek, painstakingly, both sides, for 100 yards in either direction. No dice. I called it quits at 4:15pm, almost seven hour after the shot. It took me 40 minutes of brisk walking to get back to where I left my bow on the original property I was hunting on, and another 20 minutes to get from there back to my truck.
I still can't figure out just what happened. My best guess is that the angle the buck was at when I shot, as he turned away, was more acute than I thought, so that I grazed or penetrated the left shoulder and missed the chest cavity and anything vital. The one thing I'm confident in is that I didn't gut shoot the animal; absolutely no evidence of that on the arrow or on the trail.
But boy does it feel bad drawing blood and not being able to recover the animal. Just hoping that he was taken by another hunter during gun season, which started yesterday.