Blew it

[ksgobbler]

Had a yearling doe come in this morning. Arrow was light pink with fat flecks and didnt smell bad. I watched her bed down then another doe showed up, started stomping and blowing, and they walked off together slowly. Good blood even the wife (who has never blood trailed) could follow. It just quit after 100 yds. Makes me sick knowing I blew that shot.

 

[Tap]

Had a yearling doe come in this morning. View attachment 20668View attachment 20670View attachment 20671Arrow was light pink with fat flecks and didnt smell bad. I watched her bed down then another doe showed up, started stomping and blowing, and they walked off together slowly. Good blood even the wife (who has never blood trailed) could follow. It just quit after 100 yds. Makes me sick knowing I blew that shot.

Need more details.

 

[Peplin Creek]

Where do you think you hit it?

 

[Bill]

Well at least " you" didn't push her. Sounds like that doe did what we sometimes do when we get in a hurry. Bumped her out of her bed where she may have died.

 

[Telemark]

Did she leave your property? Same thing happened to me once. No idea how that deer survived so long without its blood, but it wandered over to the neighbor's property and died the next day. White-tails are tough animals.

 

[ksgobbler]

I thought it was a good hit until I got to my arrow. They were on my property the last time I saw them but headed towards a neighbor. Light pink arrow with flecks of fatty tissue.

 

[Tap]

Still need more info. You thought it was a good hit...why? What was the deer's angle to you. Broadside? Quartering-to or away? Steep downward angle?
Were the blood specks directional? Maybe the blood didn't really quit, maybe she doubled-back and changed direction. Blood spatter shows the direction of travel.
What was the height of the blood? Any high enough that would show it was blowing out of the nose/mouth? Was the blood on both sides of the trail or just one side, and how far off the trail was the blood? Arterial bleeding tends to spray out farther but those deer usually die quickly...just a few things to look for when blood trailing.
Did you use peroxide to help locate blood?
How many people were trailing and were they walking on the blood? Too many trackers is not good and never walk on the trail.
This a a prime scenario for using Luminol as a last resort. But even with that amazing stuff, it won't find blood if it isn't there. If a wound gets clogged with fat or guts, no external bleeding may occur.

 

[pnulty66]

If the deer died last night, there might be birds/vultures telling you where she is today. Good luck if you go back looking today.

 

[Catscratch]

If you have the yote population I do and she died last night you won't find anything but a skeleton and a head with some skin on it.
I had a kid shoot one once that sounded a lot like what you have described. Looked like a good shot and had decent blood for a while. She had a goofy hoof so we could still trail her once we stopped finding blood. She traveled a long ways (we looked hard for 2 days, and then did grid searches the next weekend) and we never did find her or her remains. I assumed she survived.

 

[ksgobbler]

Still need more info. You thought it was a good hit...why? What was the deer's angle to you. Broadside? Quartering-to or away? Steep downward angle?
Were the blood specks directional? Maybe the blood didn't really quit, maybe she doubled-back and changed direction. Blood spatter shows the direction of travel.
What was the height of the blood? Any high enough that would show it was blowing out of the nose/mouth? Was the blood on both sides of the trail or just one side, and how far off the trail was the blood? Arterial bleeding tends to spray out farther but those deer usually die quickly...just a few things to look for when blood trailing.
Did you use peroxide to help locate blood?
How many people were trailing and were they walking on the blood? Too many trackers is not good and never walk on the trail.
This a a prime scenario for using Luminol as a last resort. But even with that amazing stuff, it won't find blood if it isn't there. If a wound gets clogged with fat or guts, no external bleeding may occur.

I was 15 ft up a tree. She was almost perfect broadside maybe just a hair quartering away. I sat in the stand and watched after the shot. Thats how I found the last blood. It wasnt high enough for nose or mouth. I watched them walk out of sight so I know where the blood should have been and it stopped earlier. Only myself and the wife tracking and I marked all the blood as we went with flagging tape. It was only one side of the trail which was her right side (the side facing away when I shot). I thought the shot was good because it was. Known range, I knew what to do, and when she went 30 yards and went down behind a patch of brush I thought she was done. Then the older doe showed up and made a scene and she walked off very slowly.

 

[Tap]

I thought the shot was good because it was.

You didn't get both lungs so the shot couldn't have been that good.
Not criticizing you.
It's surprising how often the shot location is not where we thought it was. Sometimes after we recover a deer, we look at the actual wound and wonder if that from from our arrow or some previous hit.

 

[Red Picqua]

looks like liver blood to me. that deer is dead 100%. that is NOT lung blood. go back and it's dead within 50 yards of last blood, in its bed.

 

[Tap]

looks like liver blood to me. that deer is dead 100%. that is NOT lung blood. go back and it's dead within 50 yards of last blood, in its bed.

If he got the liver its dead. But they can go a long way on marginal liver hits. It happened to a friend several years ago. That deer probably went almost a mile.

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[bigbendmarine]

If you're close enough to hunting spot to keep regular eye on it keep eye out for buzzards... within a couple of days they gave up the location of the only buck I've ever shot that I didn't find within hours (was only about 150 yards away but on neighboring property and it had run a near perfect semi-circle to get there).

Have had two others run that gave solid but brief blood trails and found both those fairly quickly by walking expanding circles... used a gps program on my phone to be sure I stayed true on my circles, spacing them about 20 yards apart each time I expanded them. Both deer were less than 200 yards from my stand but stopped in spots challenging to see them (one in a briar thicket and the other in a swampy creek bed gully).

Not that it'll make you feel much better, but bet bulk of us on the forum know that sickening / haunting feeling of immediately finding blood but not the actual wounded deer. Good luck on getting an answer in the coming days.

 

[Red Picqua]

If he got the liver its dead. But they can go a long way on marginal liver hits. It happened to a friend several years ago. That deer probably went almost a mile.

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dark red... let it go to bed..
bright pink.. its dead as the kitchen sink

 

[Tap]

That's not exactly true. A deer hit in one lung will produce the bright pink, frothy blood we all hope to see. But deer can and do sometimes survive one lung wounds. So It may not be dead as the kitchen sink.
Dark red? I would agree that the hit was most likely fatal. What I meant by a marginal liver hit was not all liver hits a equal. A broadhead right through the center of the liver where the vessels are located, is not the same as a liver that was barely clipped out on the edges, yet they both produce dark blood. The former hit will kill the deer reasonably fast but the latter hit may take many hours to die.
The same can be said for "gut" shots. The farther back into the intestines, the longer it will take for the deer to die. And again, those 2 locations also produce darker blood.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

How did this story end? It wasn't a double lung since they don't get up after hit there. If you watched it get up and walk off slowly I would agree that it's likely a liver shot. I've had liver shot deer die in a couple hours and I've also bumped from their beds still alive the next morning. They always die though. If the deer just walked off slowly I'd guess that it didn't go too far before it bedded down again and died.

 

[ksgobbler]

Never recovered. We searched and searched. Even brought in a dog. Dont know where she ended up. Ive seen no vultures around so dont know. Thats only the 4th deer Ive ever drawn on.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

That sucks, but it happens sometimes. Could you find where it bedded down after it walked off with that other deer? Was the dog able to find much of a trail after the blood trail ended?

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Sometimes what you think is a good shot turns out to be nothing but a wound through the brisket or a grazing wound through some leg muscle. The OP mentioned light pink blood. Light pink is not liver. With light pink blood only on one side of the trail and some fat on the arrow that to me sounds like a light grazing wound...leg muscle or brisket maybe. If that's the case, there's a strong chance that deer is just fine.