Well, I shot what I thought was a pretty nice 8 pt at 11:30 this morning in SW WI. Hadn’t seen a deer until then. Two does came in with the buck in tow. It all happened really fast. I had to almost yell at the buck to get him to stop. Got him stopped at ten yards and I shanked the shot. Think I hit him a little far back. I thought he was completely broadside. The arrow stayed in him. Watched him run to the top of the ridge. Approximately 300 yds. Gave him 4-4 1/2 hrs before I started tracking. Dark red blood, no bubbles, and no guts. The arrow finally broke off at the top of the ridge close to where I’d seen him last. Checked the arrow out and no bubbles or a smell of guts. I’m thinking liver. The blood trail was sparse the last 100 yds. I finally found a spot where he’d bedded down and the blood wasn’t fully dry. I may have bumped him. I immediately backed out of there. I’ll be heading back in in the morning to pick up the trail. I spoke with a woman with blood tracking dogs, may have her out in the morning pending the weather. Unfortunately, rain is in the forecast. She told me if it rains too hard there won’t be enough scent for the dogs to track. We’re gonna talk in the morning and make the call. Might kids are all excited for Dad to bring a buck home to them. I hate to disappoint them. Here’s to a sleepless night.
good luck with your search. It's a horrible feeling when you cannot find the animal you shot...been there
Ahw man. That's terrible. But right now there's no sense in beating yourself up about a lost or dead animal. You just don't know yet. Schrödingers cat comes to mind. Good luck my man!
Found him! It ended up raining last night and this morning, but I thought give the dog a chance anyway. Unfortunately, the dog (Crisna) could never catch the scent. The rain had washed it all away, but Crisna’s owner Linda Bennet never gave up. Linda had an idea to work the dog on the wood line and see if Crisna could catch a scent going back into the woods encase he went across the open pasture. We were moving along and Linda says,” hey you gotta come look at this “. The buck bedded down a couple yards inside the woods, and died right there less than 100 yards from where I had found his bed yesterday afternoon. I’m glad I backed out when I did. After inspecting the shot I found that I’d hit one lung, spline, guts, and the arrow stuck in the back leg. Big thanks go out to Linda for not giving up on it. I was able to find her on www.unitedbloodtrackers.org
