One of my friends, the local deer search guy was in my store yesterday and we were talking about looking for deer that people wound. I asked him what his recovery rates were. He told me, with a deer hit using mechanicals has about a 20% recovery rate. When I asked him about fixed broadheads, He claims a recovery rate of close to 80%. He keeps documentation for all of his searches. He told me that he has about the same amount of searches with either broadhead with vastly different results. Just something to think about.
Just curious as to the reason that he gave for the differences in recovery rate? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Maybe what he should say is 80 percent of bad hit of with broadheads are not recovered. You can kill a deer with a field tip.
If mechanicals are so bad, how is it that I, and several friends and family members, have recovered over 99% of the deer we have shot with mechanical heads, including several bad hits? I'm talking several hundred deer here. His claim is either pot stirring, or based on very few searches. Shoulder hits are the ONLY time a fixed head will outperform a mechanical head, and in fact a shoulder hit was the only time I have not recovered a deer shot with a mechanical. On any other bad shot, especially liver or gut shots, I'll take a big cut mechanical any day.
Sounds like a lot of people need to practice more. Something is wrong when there is a local search guy for bad hits.
I recall reading a study last year either in a bow hunting mag or maybe a DNR publication where they found practically no difference in recovery rates for mecanicals vs fixed. In my opinion a bad shot is a bad shot period. I think most mechanicals are very reliable. I would say the biggest issue would be shooting a mechanical with inadequt poundage.I don't understand his number. There have to be other factors that come into play there.
Since he doesn't recover them, He figuires alot of people think a mechanical is a magic arrow and take shots one would not normally do. I myself have used grim reaper mechanicals and have had no issues. The mind set may be ( I have a 2" cut tip, I CAN be off a little) Who knows?
I just read a study that was done over a 25yr period on deer recovery that was done at a military base somewhere in the east. According to their study, there was no difference in the recovery rates between mechanicals and fixed heads. As a matter of fact, I believe the mechanicals may have had a slight edge. This study appeared in Bowhunting World. If I can find it I will post it here. I agree with most of the others here, it is all about shot placement. Blessings.......Pastorjim
It's possible and could just be an anomaly. I have one unrecovered deer since 1983 and it was shot with a mechanical...but it's the only deer I've ever shot with a mechanical as I switched back to standards after losing a 180 class deer. People often want to ignore it but mechanicals do have a lot that can go wrong like kickout (design in my case) and not opening as many many cases have proven. Size of cut is a non-issue if the head doesn't open...ie, malfuntions are more serious with marginal shots with mechanicals.
I read the same article. It all comes down to shot placement. You can kill a deer with a field point if you shoot it through the heart. If you miss the kill zone then its mostly a matter of luck and good tracking skills!
That study was conducted using experienced hunters as the focus group though so it's not a realistic real world simulation. In reality, many archers are not "seasoned hunters" and those will generally choose the mechanicals and throw out iffy shots because they "fly like field points" and their range assessment and shot placement is often questionable. That's all going to have an impact on someone who is a "local tracker" that everyone knows to call when they lose a deer. That guy is going to get a lot of calls from the dumbest sob's in the woods. Just sayin.
In the last 10 years we have had alot of people moving upstate from the suburbs, Just today I was at Gander and watched a guy buy a brand new bow that he never even drew back (it still had the zip tie on the string when he walked out the door) Our season starts Oct. 1. (I guess 30 days is good enough to learn to shoot) I'll bet most of the deer search requests around here are from newbee's like the guy above. An area with alot of seasoned hunters, will have a lot less recovery issues, my area has alot of 1st year bow hunters.
Yep...and wait till those same people go out and buy an X-Bow and start winging 100 yard shots with them, there will be even more unrecovered deer. I don't think it has much to do with how long guys have been hunting. It has more to do with whether you're ethical or not!
Most people, if they are taken with archery enough to stay in it for very long, seem to trend toward adopting much better ethics as they become seasoned hunters. There are very few people that love to chase deer that will continue to take iffy shots out of some demented sense of murder and keep losing deer. They generally tend to self educate or seek assistance to better themselves as time goes by as to avoid losing deer. Most folks have the same gut wrenching reaction to wounding non-recoverable deer as we do, it just takes people time to adjust to their individual learning curve and as they do their ethical stance and mechanics generally mature with them. Until that time, they will likely lose a lot of deer and make a lot of poor shots, necessitating someone like this "local tracker". I'm not at all surprised by the results he claims.
