if i make an am shot i am going to lunch then come back and pick up the trail i do the same in the evening i will head back to the truck eat dinner and read some stuff online. This year i have a great cam so i will be able to play back shot placement so thats an added bonus
Great post for sure, any new hunters out should take those steps religiously Just an addition to this stellar post On a poor or unknown shot I always wait the hour, after I quietly check for a blood trail to determine my next step ( I do not look too hard or for too long, if the blood trail is not obvious I would leave for a couple hours ) I remember when I first started bow hunting, many years ago. I took a 6 point buck high through the body, close to the hind quarters. I had hit the femoral artery, the blood trail was 2 inches wide and thick as someone pouring a can of paint. Clearly the deer was not going to make it very far and because I took the time too check quietly, I recovered the deer within the hour. I do this because any butcher worth his weight will tell you it is around 4 hours after and animal expires that they start decomposing, so I always make sure I am making the best decision on poor or unknown shots. Not recovering your animal sucks, and depressing for ethical hunters, finding green meat is not much better.
Great point Deer Magnet.. give the deer time no matter how great you think your shot was. Just like everyone else, I want to jump out of the stand and go get my deer ASAP. Luckily for me, my state allows harvesting as many deer in a day as you can. So, after I hit a deer, I watch it until it is out of sight then put on another arrow and sit back down to go back to hunting. Just because I hit one, doesn't mean I can't get another. I had a triple last year.. all from same pack and the year before I hit a big doe, watched her rip thru the woods, looked back and see another deer smelling the blood covered arrow.. hit her too! I 100% agree with watching the deers reaction. I would add though..always consider the hit to not be as good as you think. If you think you need to give it 15 minutes, wait 1/2 hour. I hit a 6 point buck a few years back. I thought the shot was great, he did the "death kick" with is rear legs going almost verticle. I gave it 1/2 hour and started tracking. Ended up tracking him for over 300 yards with the blood trail getting more and more faint and ended up not recovering him, even after I spent several hours searching for a body after the blood trail ran out. As for no recovering a deer.. unfortunetly it does happen. Give it your absolute best effort. Always be sure to look about waist level for blood on plants, trees, branches, ect. If the blood trail stops, start really looking for sign of passing.. over turned leaves, ripped up grass or dirt, broken branches or small plants, ect. If all else fails, start making small circles and get a little wider each time around and look for the white of underbody. Deer will sometimes back track or be going straight and then stumble sideways into a ditch or creek, or climb under overhanging briars and expire.
Just to echo here - I had a shot earlier this season on a doe that I could swear to you was perfect. Lungs and heart without a doubt. The doe collapsed maybe 50 feet from where she was shot and stayed perfectly still. I was excited and hopped down right away. When I walked up to the doe, she had enough left in her to get up and run right off the property. Turns out she only went another 100 yards before dying in the neighbors' yard - but it was enough that I couldn't go recover her. Police were called and took away the carcass before I could get permission to recover it myself. It was a big mistake and turned my success into a failure.
This is very useful information, I've always heard the 45 minute rule. I was lucky enough on my first buck to get both lungs and then because of what was maybe a faulty arrow, the arrow moved all the way through the deers body (found the arrow in 3 different pieces inside the deer, with the 4th piece being 4 inches of the arrow with my fletchings and knock which I found 5 yards from where I had shot the deer), straight through the liver, stomach and amazingly found the broadhead in it's hind quarters on a perfectly broadside shot (still a mystery to this day how that happened). The deer ran 70 yards tops and dropped within 50 yards of where I was sitting and watched the deer go down. Seeing blood coming out of it hind quarter was one confusing experience when I could clearly tell I hit just behind the front leg, but I hit the rib cage hard (I heard that loud crack from my arrow cracking the bone). As the deer turned and I could see blood coming out of the hind leg on the opposite side I shot the deer, I thought I made a bad shot and must have been mistaken by where I seen the arrow penetrate. Then the deer started to get wobbly and eventually dropped, it still took the deer a good 10 minutes before it finally quit moving and fully expired, I had a 1 foot trail of blood 15 yards from where I shot it, all the way to where the deer laid. Even after knowing the deer the down, I still waited the full 45 minutes, got of my treestand, went back to my house got my girl friend, dad, some coffee and a 4-wheeler to drag it out of the woods.
I like this post!! It is good information for all of us. When I started bow hunting my Grandpa would always tell us to give the animal (assuming it was hit good) roughly an hour and then sit down take your boots off, unlace them and then throw one boot to the right as far and hard as you can. Then take the other boot and throw it in the other direction as far and hard as you can. The logic was the same as already given by other here, that being it did two things. First, it bought the animal more time to settle down and expire and second, it kept the hunter busy for a while trying to tip top through the brush looking for boots and re-lacing them up. None of us to my knowledge ever followed the advice, but it did make sense.
As a new hunter, I really appreciate you taking the time to write this up. I had no clue. I guess I was expecting the deer to just lay down lol. Thanks for the great information.
One big thing is clearing your head and making wise decisions based on facts, not emotions or feelings. This is true in all decisions..emotions can cloud the head and make commons sense.. less common. Go through the facts of what just happened, air on the side of caution. One way to enter in some wisdom is to include advice of some non-emotionally attached people whose hunting wisdom you trust. Listen to their advice about what to do as they are not as invested as you and can be more objective with the facts of what happened. Be honest with yourself on the hit, the reaction of the deer, and this will help you know what to do next. Be wise! www.soundbarrierhunting.com
A lot of good information posted to this thread on this topic and wanted to put a link to it here since it's a pinned thread. http://forums.bowhunting.com/showthread.php/76995-How-long-to-wait-after-a-shot
I know not what to do, the "pro hunters" on TV shoot a deer and then go home hoping to find the deer the next day, half the time they find it half eaten by predators.
Half the time it appears as though they gut shoot it (oops...I mean "a little far back") and likely need tracking dogs to find. Not the stuff I want my boys to learn from.
Great information as a serious bow hunter, I love anything that will help give me improve my success and experience in the woods. Everyone should read this and follow this post shot information.
