I've been watching Bowhunt Or Die recently, and in one of the episodes they mentioned that you should give the deer enough time to "expire" after your shot, and not go looking for it immediately. When rifle hunting in the past, I've always gone looking for the animal immediately after the shot - is approach different with bowhunting simply because the animal would take longer to die from an arrow than from a bullet? When rifle-hunting, I've sometimes found the buck up to 100m away from its original location. How far can I realistically expect an animal to travel after a vitals shot with a bow?
It all depends if you know where you hit. Good practice is to atleast wait an hour or two even if you know it was a good lung/heart shot. If you in anyway unsure sure of the hit, its best to back out and give it 4-8 hours depending on what kind of blood you see. Bright red blood is usually heart or lung which 3-4 hours which is a good sign. Dark red blood alot of times is liver. If its a liver hit then back out and wait like 6 hours or overnight. http://www.realtree.com/deer-hunting/shot-placement-on-deer
I hit a buck a little far back in the liver once so I gave that one a couple hours before finding him dead. But if I know the shot is good and I see the deer go down I don't wait more than about 10 min before walking up to them. An animal can't live long if you take out their lungs regardless of what weapon you use. If I do not see or hear the animal go down I'll wait longer depending on how the blood looks.
I think its a good habit to get into. Inexperienced hunters have a tendency to get down and start tracking right away. This isn't a problem if a really good shot was made. The problem is if a marginal shot was made your going to push the deer around lessening your chances of recovery. If I heard the animal crash or it fell in my sight I will still take my time getting down, go back to the truck to drop off gear, call in a favor and wait for some dragging assistance. If it's down its not going anywhere. Delayed gratification is tough for many.
Also read this link. It's a pinned thread on this forum because this question gets asked so much. Really good read. http://forums.bowhunting.com/showthread.php/52643-quot-Official-quot-What-to-do-AFTER-the-shot-Please-Read
Give the link posted a read. But to answer this question I have had them run anywhere from a few feet on a double lung to 200 yards on a liver/one lung hit. Honestly if I know it's a double lung I only wait 30-45 minutes. They usually either fall in sight or just out of sight anyway with that shot. I use lighted nocks for this reason, no more wondering if I hit where I thought. I have had a deer taken by another hunter once on public land, so now I don't wait hours if I know it was a good shot.
For me, it all depends on the shot location. If I see them go down I wait as long as it takes to gather my stuff up and get down. If it is like 2 years ago when I hit a buck back a little I waited until just before dark to go to the point I hit him at. I found blood but didn't find the arrow immediately. The blood was dark so I marked the spot and came back the next morning. Found the buck about 80yds away. As a general rule, if you are confident about the shot location and hear the deer crash, an hour or two, imo, is plenty.
I made the mistake this season of only waiting an hour after what I thought was a good shot. I pushed the buck 2 times, never found him, and the blood trail looked like someone painted the ground red!! Give it some time, dont push the deer!!
It is very, very different with a bow IMO. If you know the shot was good and you visually see and hear the animal go down, then you don't have to wait long. If you don't see the deer fall, then I'd wait 30 minutes before sneaking down and checking the arrow. Do this quietly. If good blood is found, example lung blood, then you can start tracking the animal. Again, do EVERYTHING quietly and in stealth mode. Be very aware of whats in front of you at all times. If you have any doubt about the shot placement at all, give the deer at least an hour before inspecting the arrow, shot site, etc. Don't go after the deer unless the arrow and or blood at the shot site suggest the hit was good enough. If you don't have much experience reading arrow blood and blood tracking in general, you're best to back out and wait. Many deer are lost because of anxious, impatient hunters going after them too soon. You have to remember that the trauma of an arrow isn't near the trauma of a bullet out of a high powered rifle. Less than stellar shots with a bow are just that, less than stellar. No magical shock, like you see with a bullet to make up the difference. The rule of thumb with a bow is simple. If you have no visual or you do not hear the deer crash, wait, give him time and in some cases, back out entirely for a few hours. A dead deer is just as dead 3 hours later as it is 1 hour later.
Even when I see the deer go down, I will always wait in the stand for 15-30 minutes composing myself from the shakes. Log the time and date into my phone for harvest details. Get down and walk back to my vehicle (I'm not miles in like some) get all my main gear and clothes off....switch into my recovery clothes and rubber boots sometimes and head back for the animal. In all that usually means an easy hour has passed and usually more. That is when I've seen the deer actually go down even....however that habit is done if the shot looked good and all signs from the deer as she/he ran off point to a good shot. If a iffy shot...I'll be waiting 3 hours minimum.
The absolute worst mistake you can make is to bump a deer before they expire. Whether you are bow hunting or gun hunting you need to have an understanding of what type of hit you got on the deer. I actually find that easier to do bow hunting than gun hunting. You need to try and locate the point of impact and then locate the arrow. The arrow should be examined to determine what type of hit you got. Just because you think you know where you hit the animal, doesn't means that actually what happened. The arrow can do funny things on impact. Inspect the arrow for blood. Determine what type of blood it is. See if there's anything other than blood like guts or meat. Use all those clues to piece together what type of hit you got. Double lung or heart, that deer will be dead in 30 seconds typically. One lung, could take hours. Liver could take hours. Paunch could take days. Deer also react differently to each type of hit. Lung/ hear shots, the deer will typically bolt off as fast as they can. Liver shots look different, they will sometimes only run a short distance and just walk off. Same with the paunch shot. With a liver or paunch shot, they will typically bed down within a short distance and if left alone, most of the time they will end up expiring right there. If they are pushed they could travel a long distance and lots of times the blood trail disappears and this results in a lot of lost deer. You really need to be like a crime scene investigator, putting together the pieces of the puzzle so you know how and when to take up the trail. To me, what you do after the shot is the most important thing you can do when hunting.
I try to make myself follow this but it can be tough. See it go down-30 minutes if nothing else just to calm nerves and make texts/calls so you don't fall out of the tree on the way down. Hear a crash with good blood at impact and perceived good shot-1 hour Hear a crash without good blood regardless of impact-3 hours Known bad impact with good blood-6 hours Bad impact with bad blood 8-12 hours.
This reminds me of the first deer I ever shot with a .270 rifle. It went right down dead as a doornail and I don't even remember getting out of the tree. I might have jumped out for all I know.
In my opinion this is one of the most enduring myths in bowhunting. If you shoot a deer through both lungs or the heart, it is dead in 7-10 seconds and will go anywhere from 25-100 yards depending on the cover and how spooked it is. There is no reason to wait to recover the deer. A deer shot anywhere else will bring up a whole new set of rules.
You must have Justin's Magic 8-ball that tells you exactly where and what your arrow hit. Midwest Whitetail had a good show this week where a guy took what looked like a great shot, but the arrow ended up deflecting out a lot further back on the deer and didn't at all hit what was initially thought. Here's a link to that show: http://www.midwestwhitetail.com/gallery/181/media/6813/midwest-whitetails-latest-show.html
I was thinking about that same thing. You just never know. The only time I'm going after that deer in the first 30 minutes is when I see him piled up in front of me.
Exactly. What's another 30 minutes or an hour in your stand if you've been sitting there all season anyway? Just sit and reflect on the shot and enjoy the moment. There's nothing that will make you want to quit bow hunting or start second guessing yourself every time you draw back your bow more than chasing a wounded deer through the woods. Give that deer the respect it deserves.
Thankfully, the vast majority of deer I've shot have died in sight. If I know it was a good hit I will wait 20 mins to a half hour. I once shot a buck and climbed down as fast as I could to take up the trail. I had him tagged within 5-10 minutes of the shot... but it was in a downpour and I was much more worried about losing the bloodtrail than the deer. I knew it was a heart shot too. I will wait four hours to six hours on an iffy shot. I once hit a nice buck in the liver. There was blood at the impact, I could see blood pumping out as he ran... but I didn't go after him for about five or six hours. Turns out he went to the edge of the river, died and slid off the bank into the water. He washed away or sank in the flooded waters by time I got there. Never saw him again. That's a rare case... but I sure wish I had only waited an hour.
