bueller
Moderator
from my buddy who was out hunting some public property in IL. I introduced him to deer hunting a couple years ago and he is still looking for his first deer. He had gone out midday yesterday and set up his stand along a field edge. Shortly after 5pm my phone rings. He tells me that he saw a doe with two bucks "following" her. In his words, the first buck in line is a "a big one, 8 or 10 points". The second buck is a fork or a six pointer. He watches as the larger buck works over some brush/smaller trees with his rack. The doe leads both the bucks into a broadside position approximately 32 yards out. He shoots an arrow at the larger buck. He hears a "smack" and watches the buck jump/kick and run maybe 75 yards. The buck then slows his pace and walks out of view. He calls me while still shaking in his stand. It's getting dark so I tell him to slowly and quietly get down and look for his arrow or blood. He finds some blood but no arrow. I instruct him to back out of there and wait. Another buddy and I respond out there to help track.
Three hours pass from the time of the shot until we begin the track. He brings us to the blood he found, a couple bright red drops. With no sign of the arrow we follow blood trail down a low growing grassy area with thick brush to the left and tall thick grass to the right. The buck stays on this "easy" course for approximately 200 yards until it dead ends at a brushy ditch with steep banks. The color of the blood trail looked good but it wasn't the easiest to follow. Mostly small droplets with a spot here and there about the size of a dollar bill. Just inside the woodline at the brushy ditch we find the arrow snapped off. Penetration with the rage broadhead (not my choice) looks to be about 6". We discover that the buck went down the ditch crossing property lines while doing so. We back out and are able to make contact with the land owner bordering the public property. He gives us permission to enter his property to continue our track.
We hope that the buck is piled up in the bottom of the ditch or the thick and nasty brush in the immediate area. We find that the buck made it down the steep bank with no signs of falling or crashing. After that he went right up the other steep bank. Our hopes are starting to diminish now. We find the other end of the arrow with the broadhead. I don't have a whole lot of experience with bow hunting, is this common? After finding the arrow snapped off I didn't expect to find the broadhead end unless we were pulling it out of the deer. We continue the track through another 150 yards of thick and nasty brush. The blood appears to get better at times but then we wouldn't find anything for 20 feet or so. Another bad sign IMO was that this buck was traveling on small trails rather than just busting and crashing through the brush. The blood trail takes us to the edge of a cut corn field. We follow the blood into the field and pick the trail up 150 additional yards off of a wooded point on the opposite side. We lose the track at this point. 500 yards from the shot. The buck was for the most part on a track taking him due south. Continuing on this track would take him another 200 yards across a farm field and into a large block of woods owned by a different person. He didn't appear to bed down anywhere along the track even though he was never pushed. It's after midnight at this point and we calls it quits. The blood trail is lost and the sign is not leading us to believe that this buck was going to lay down and die anytime soon.
So what the heck happened here? We are all new to bow hunting and still have a lot to learn. My feeling is that he must have hit the front shoulder which severely limited the penetration. My guess is that he may have got one lung and that this buck is going to live to see another day. I believe if he was hit good he would've immediately seeked the thick cover instead of staying on the grass path. And even so once in the thick cover by the ditch that he would've bed down and expired there. I'd like to hear some thought from those with more experience, even if you are going to be critical of something we did or didn't do. At this point we would rather learn from this rather than walk away quietly like it never happened.
Three hours pass from the time of the shot until we begin the track. He brings us to the blood he found, a couple bright red drops. With no sign of the arrow we follow blood trail down a low growing grassy area with thick brush to the left and tall thick grass to the right. The buck stays on this "easy" course for approximately 200 yards until it dead ends at a brushy ditch with steep banks. The color of the blood trail looked good but it wasn't the easiest to follow. Mostly small droplets with a spot here and there about the size of a dollar bill. Just inside the woodline at the brushy ditch we find the arrow snapped off. Penetration with the rage broadhead (not my choice) looks to be about 6". We discover that the buck went down the ditch crossing property lines while doing so. We back out and are able to make contact with the land owner bordering the public property. He gives us permission to enter his property to continue our track.
We hope that the buck is piled up in the bottom of the ditch or the thick and nasty brush in the immediate area. We find that the buck made it down the steep bank with no signs of falling or crashing. After that he went right up the other steep bank. Our hopes are starting to diminish now. We find the other end of the arrow with the broadhead. I don't have a whole lot of experience with bow hunting, is this common? After finding the arrow snapped off I didn't expect to find the broadhead end unless we were pulling it out of the deer. We continue the track through another 150 yards of thick and nasty brush. The blood appears to get better at times but then we wouldn't find anything for 20 feet or so. Another bad sign IMO was that this buck was traveling on small trails rather than just busting and crashing through the brush. The blood trail takes us to the edge of a cut corn field. We follow the blood into the field and pick the trail up 150 additional yards off of a wooded point on the opposite side. We lose the track at this point. 500 yards from the shot. The buck was for the most part on a track taking him due south. Continuing on this track would take him another 200 yards across a farm field and into a large block of woods owned by a different person. He didn't appear to bed down anywhere along the track even though he was never pushed. It's after midnight at this point and we calls it quits. The blood trail is lost and the sign is not leading us to believe that this buck was going to lay down and die anytime soon.
So what the heck happened here? We are all new to bow hunting and still have a lot to learn. My feeling is that he must have hit the front shoulder which severely limited the penetration. My guess is that he may have got one lung and that this buck is going to live to see another day. I believe if he was hit good he would've immediately seeked the thick cover instead of staying on the grass path. And even so once in the thick cover by the ditch that he would've bed down and expired there. I'd like to hear some thought from those with more experience, even if you are going to be critical of something we did or didn't do. At this point we would rather learn from this rather than walk away quietly like it never happened.
Last edited:
