I would guess coyote's bumped him out...sure they were able to take him down..are you able to get tracker? Any of your dogs help find ?
That's discouraging but, that means he didn't expire when you saw him. Hopefully he's not far away. Keep at it LC.
There is no blood trail leaving where he was bedded. Right now the best thing we can think of is to follow the low path to the big creek and walk that.
The entry hole plugged up before he got of his bed. I have seen this scenario several times with a shoulder hit and minimal penetration. Checking the closest water is about all you can do. Getting a dog on him will just run him out of the country at this point. Deer can can survive some crazy bad injuries and still live.
Yes, we found the bed. There wasn’t a ton of blood in it. Im really thinking now that arrow probably didn’t make it to the lung. Josh said the blood in the bed looked like muscle blood. Still. We walked the drainage down to the big creek. I’m walking north and he is walking south. If he was mortally wounded I figure that’s what he would do, but I don’t think he’s going to die.
Id also check where you heard the coyotes this morning, but from the lack of blood it sounds like he may survive. Hemorrhaging is all that’s going to kill him when he still has one good lung. He may have returned to the bedding area too. But going in there would just disturb it and possibly make them abandon it. If he’s not along the creek or where the coyotes were he’s likely still alive. If you don’t disturb the area too much you may very well see him again and get another chance at him. Probably need to move your stand a bit though.
I’m pretty sure I jumped him walking back through the edge of the bedding area where I saw him day before yesterday. We had walked the creek both ways and checked the area where I heard the coyotes. We found nothing at all. I was walking back along the overgrown road I had been hunting which goes right through the bedding area. I was only about 50 yards from my stand when I saw him jump up and take off. I can’t say for absolutely certain it was him because I shot him on his right side and I only saw his left, but I’m pretty sure. It was a huge 8 point. If it was him then the way he took off he’s not hurt too bad.
