Please track wounded game!!!

I fail to see how mis-judging the size has much to do with the fact that she was hit lengthwise instead of quartering or broadside as is taught in hunter's ed text books.
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You both made a mistakes. You misjudged size, made a bad shot yourself, and didn't even known the animal was massively injured and the other hunter misjudged the shot. As for the hunter's ed textbook, that is something you failed to mention previously, but glad you did. The hunter's ed textbook offers suggestions only. There is absolutely nothing wrong with shooting a deer straight-on. Also, in Idaho, a hunter born before 1975 doesn't have to take the hunter's ed course for a regular hunting license. So who says he had the course? I realize you are defaulting to a higher authority here, but it is an authority that may not even apply.

Also, the hunter could have gotten hunter ed elsewhere and other places do advocate head-on chest shots even if Idaho doesn't (and I don't know if Idaho does or not). http://www.myoan.net/huntingart/deer_shot_place.html
http://www.huntingusa.tripod.com/shotplacement.html
http://www.nosler.com/articles/2011/04/03/shot-placement/

that should also fall under the previous shooters responsibility as the 4th rule of firearms safety is to be sure of your target and everything beyond. if you have a deer standing directly behind the one you intend to shoot then you need to wait for one of them to move. anyone that has ever hunted knows that there is always a chance of a through and through, that is just common sense talking.
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I understand, but you were ranting that the hunter failed to track the deer known to be shot. After all, nobody randomly just tracks deer unshot, right?. Of course, you have no real knowledge of whether s/he did or not. You just upset that you misjudged a deer yourself that you shot that turned out to be undersized, destroyed a lot of meat, and then learned more of its meat was ruined by a previous hit. You seemed to have thought that just because it could have been tracked that it would have been found and that simply is an unrealistic assumption as noted by the examples provided here. However, it is possible that it was unintentionally hit. Yes, that should not happen, but if the hunter didn't know the animal to be hit, s/he isn't going to track it, are they?

Your rant was all based on the notion that the hunter didn't do due diligence and try to track the deer and you don't know if that is factual or not, bottom line.
 
sometimes that does just happen.
My friend shot a bull elk with his 338 whizbang mag and then, contrary to what you'd expect from watching any TV hunting show: it ran into the woods.

We and another friend found the blood trail and followed it for 40 mins and it just got fainter and fainter until it just stopped. We 3 circled for hours trying to refind the trail and couldn't. I seriously hoped that the trail disappeared b/c the elk had a flesh wound that had closed rather than a gut shot, but no way to tell. It just makes you sick when you hit one and lose it.
 
Almost all of my (roughly) four-dozen bucks never needed any tracking at all. Nor does.

But I did lose two, under strange circumstances.

On the first, I shot and "killed" the buck. As I walked up to gut it, he jumped up to run. The bullet had blown up on the upper bone of his foreleg. Okay, so I put the rifle on him to end the story--and got a 4X setting sun through the scope as he disappeared into the mesquite brush. He was seen crippling around, a few days later, and one of the other hunters put an end to the sadness.

The other was what seemed to be a good cross-body heart/lung shot. I saw a bit of blood pop out the off side, and the buck went to his knees. He jumped up and ran, but I didn't figure he could go too far before bleeding out.

I marked the place where I'd seen him go down (always carry toilet paper for that purpose) and started looking for tracks and blood. My father showed up; he was a better tracker than I. No luck. No tracks in the hard soil. No drops of blood for a trail after the original small amount at the site of the shot. After well over an hour we gave up. Too much brush, too many hidey-holes.

So, I dunno. No buzzards ever showed up anywhere in that pasture, from what we saw and from what the rancher later told us.
 
Usually I can tell from the blood itself, if there's enough of it, where the bullet struck. Lung blood is fairly distinctive, as is blood from a gut shot. And since I usually did the shooting on what I'm tracking, I know where the bullet should have hit. If your hold was steady, you'll know where those crosshairs were when the rifle fired. I swear that I can close my eyes right now and see where the crosshairs were on a monster buck that I 'nicked' over 20 years ago. Huge buck with tall white antlers. I saw him the same instant he saw me and I smoothly put the crosshairs on him (offhand at about 100 yards or so) and squeezed, but the crosshairs were right on the top of his back when the gun fired. I found blood and hair, but I knew that I had just nicked him. Tracked him over a mile till the drops of blood disappeared. It's the misses I have the sharpest memories of. Darn it.
 
There are three shots I take:

1. Kill shots.
2. Anchoring shots.
3. Central Nervous System shots. (Head/neck/spine)

Type 1 is fatal, but it may not stop the animal from making a temporary escape (100 yards to 2 miles, depending on the animal and terrain).
Type 2 might not be immediately fatal, but it will stop the animal from making any escape.
Type 3 is both fatal and anchoring, but not always possible or advisable.

I very much prefer a CNS shot, but hunting conditions rarely allow them.
Generally, I take a kill shot first. If there's a flight risk in terrain/vegetation that allows the animal to escape, the anchoring shot comes out.
I haven't had to track an animal, to date, but I'd go miles and miles, if needed.

I'll pass on the shot, before I make a compromise and risk a wounding shot.
 
Last season I shot a doe at 75 yards with a 308. One shot and she went down and stopped moving. As I was taking pictures I saw antlers moving through the woods toward me. I picked up the rifle and saw a six point buck walking toward me. The antlers were not as wide as his ears, so I decided to let him walk away and leave him for next year. As he was quartering away from me at about 25 yards, I realized that his left foreleg was opened up and dripping blood. I figured that whomever shot him would be tracking him, so I decided to put him out of his misery. I hit him with the 308 right behind the shoulder expecting him to drop. Instead he ran down the nearest hill and out of sight. I followed the blood trail to the bottom of the hill where it had expired. I marked it's location, then went back to the doe, filled out a kill tag and field dressed her. No one came by looking for the buck. I went down the hill to the buck and field dressed it. The first shot had been from the front, and went along the bottom of the foreleg and into the abdomen; a classic gut shot. What a mess! Since I put the last bullet in it, and no one had come looking for the deer, I used my second kill tag for the buck. I took them to the local DEEP check station; the biologist there said the buck would have died a lingering death from infection had I not shot it. Only two of us have permission to hunt the 80 acre woods, I spoke to the other person who hunts there; he was still at home drinking coffee when I shot the two deer. Can't figure why someone would not make an effort to find the deer and would leave it to die a painful death from infection.
 
It seems to me there are a lot of inexperienced hunters on this thread. I have shot a lot of deer that were either wounded beyond recovery or wounded and recovered from years before. Sometimes it is just unbelieveable how they keep on going. The previous post reminds me of a story about 25 years ago. It was the end of the first day of rifle in Pa. and I was at my brother-in-law's house. The old guy next door came over and wanted help loading a deer. He did not hunt anymore, but someone hit one with a car right down the road. It was straddled over a guardrail and the car was still there. The deer had been jumping the guardrail and was hit right in the head. The crazy thing was, the deer was gut shot and dragging ALL it's guts that had slipped through a small hole (Looked about 2-3 inches.) in it's side. It could have been running all day like that. It can happen to anybody. The posts that think not were not even aware of the deer being hit until after watching it a while or after shooting it. How is the original shooter supposed to follow a deer that gets around like it was not hit at all?
 
They may "get around like they're not hit at all" but holes in animals tend to leak blood.
Sure, we have no way of knowing what that other guy did or did not do to recover that deer but I have run across PLENTY of people who don't even go look around if the deer doesn't drop stone dead.
Without being there for the shot and recovery it's pretty rough to pass judgement, but there are an unfortunate number of people who simply won't look at all.
 
That's a big factor -not dropping on the spot !! That's caused by internet BS with so much talk about instant kills and even advertizing nonsense.
 
Plenty of bullet holes don't "Leak blood", especially gut shots. I shot a doe with a 7-30 Waters 140 grain Hornady at about 100 yards in 16" of very fluffy snow. There were 3 deer and I knew I hit the deer because of the way it took off. In the snow I could tell which tracks it was because the others just kind of followed it. Not a drop of blood. I followed it about 100 feet and nothing. Then I heard a bunch of shots below me and figured the deer had run right into a pile of hunters. I was just turning to go up the hill and saw a spot of red about half the size of a dime. That was the only blood I saw, but it was enough to make me go farther. About 10 feet away it was laying dead in a root hole where a tree went down. When I opened it up it gushed blood. I had hit it high in the lungs. There are plenty of examples like that. Sometimes there is just no sign of a hit. Sometimes it looks like a heck of a lot of damage judging by the blood and it is a minor wound. It just goes that way sometimes.
 
Shot the same deer in two seasons

I was bow hunting opening day and shot a doe. Watched the arrow go into her brisket and her kick it out with back leg. Tracked her for about three hours with minimal to no blood and to no avail. Two months later, I had a doe come out on me on the opening weekend of muzzleloader. This time she was not so lucky, even with me shooting left handed at a wierd angle. Upon retrieving her, I noticed a nice little scarred mark right behind her left leg. Seems one blade of my broadhead barely sliced her.
 
got up at 4 o clock when my father needed some help. car had hit a pig, massive damage to the car, not a whole lot of blood but the ditch had "drag marks" the pig was just 20 meters into the woods, pelvis completely
shattered, the dog was on it so I stuck it.

quickest, easiest and we will salvage the meat, best track ever:)

a quick shower and i could get to work but didn't notice my bloodied shoes, luckily I work at a rural school and the kids were mostly interested:D
 
Shot placement comes first, but everyone takes close call shot at times. If it doesn't drop on the spot, go drop off your guns, grab a beer and a buddy and do some hiking with your freezer in mind.
 
shamelessinct's post reminded me of a incident several years ago. Right after first light on opening day I had a small basket 6 pointer walk by with three does. Since I had gotten a nice buck with a bow and it was opening morning, even tho it was on public land, I let it walk. They hadn't hardly disappeared into the distance when I heard shots ringin' out and a few minutes later the buck comes limpin' back. It comes below my tree and licks it's front leg that is obviously broken just above the knee. I didn't want the buck for myself, but figured I help the shooter out and put him down. A quick shot to the neck and it was over. Thinkin' the shooter would be over soon, I stayed in my tree and waited for a buck of my own. Three hours later I got down and dressed the buck out. It was warming up and the deer needed to be taken care of. Wisconsin law says a deer must be legally tagged before field dressing or moving a deer. Reluctantly, I tagged the buck with my tag, dressed it out and proceeded to drag the deer the quarter mile across the swamp to my truck. Halfway across the swamp I hear shouting and see three men waving their arms at me. One of them starts walking towards me so I walk a ways away from the deer and wait. When the guy got close enough, I recognized him as someone I knew. He walks up and says "You stole my kids buck! He knew he made a good shot but didn't want to risk pushin' that monster to someone else so he waited till I came to help! Didn't think we had to worry about you stealin' it out from underneath us!". I told him first that his kids shot wasn't close to being fatal, but even so, I had just shot it thru the neck to save him a day's trackin' and frustration. I said the bullet holes would confirm my story. I then told him after three hours I figured no one was comin' for it and I wanted to take care of it before it went bad. From there I told him I wasn't about to take my tag off the deer and waste it, but his son was welcome to the horns, but if they wanted the meat too, if they called a warden and got me another tag, I would be more than happy to let them have the deer and drag it the rest of the way out. By then the son and the uncle got there and started the name callin'. After a few minutes of tellin' me how worthless I was for stealin' a deer of a lifetime, they asked where their monster was so they could admire it. I told them I'd show them the deer I was draggin' and if it was a deer of a lifetime and had been hit well with the first shot they were more than welcome to it as long as I got another tag outta it. To this day, the son has never spoken another word of the incident to me or any one else I know..........:D
 
People that are too lazy to track are one of my biggest hunting pet-peeves. I've only had do a hard track once, and that was from a doe who jumped the string and ended up with a Rage 2 blade through the neck. She probably ran about 250 yards through some real thick stuff before going down.

Had another that I took a running shot at with the shotgun, thought for sure she came out of it clean. Went down to check and found a single drop of blood and kept following the tracks down to a creek, figured I'd need to find a wounded deer and finish her. Didn't find any more blood until I found her piled up just over the creek in a huge pool of blood. Upon inspection I found a single buckshot pellet had hit her and done the job. When she jumped the creek it did something nasty inside her and that was the end. Lucky end to a shot I probably shouldn't have made.

Someone who shall remain nameless came back from a hunt one night, said he took a shot at a big doe but missed. I asked if he went out and followed her tracks to make sure........nope, no need, it was a miss and there was no doubt. I went out the next morning and found her tracks in the field, and followed them in to the woods about 15 feet before finding blood. Deer was piled up about 20 yards in, with multiple buckshot having penetrated the vital area. Took me all of 10 minutes of effort. Lazy, lazy, lazy :mad:

Bottom line, if you're gonna shoot, you better be willing to track.
 
I couldnt agree more. I made a bad shot on a doe during archery season and felt horrible. I searched for 6 hours with two of buddys only to find out from the warden at the check station she ran up under another hunters stand and he finished her off. As much as I hated loosing the deer I was glad she didnt get turned into buzzard food.
 
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