Today was my first experience, with the trill of bow hunting. Yet I am feeling pretty darn sorry. I am not new to hunting, in fact with firearms I have only ever taken trophy bucks, my best is an 18 pointer. However today, I had the option of 3 yearlings 1 does and an 8 pointer. I opted to harvest the smallest youngest looking one thinking the meat would be great and I can always take a buck in rifle. My heart was pounding as I released my arrow; I saw a solid well placed hit. New to this I then immediately got out of my stand and started to track my first kill. I was astonished at how easy it was to follow the blood trail and kept thinking with this much blood on the ground he's bound to be just a few more yards away laying died.. Yet this wasn't the case. I followed it for what seemed like hours. Twice I had caught up to him only to have him take off leaving me with a new trail of shiny blood to follow. Yet to my amazement, the blood trail ends, and in the most peculiar of places. No, it didn't stop bleeding. The last drops I found where centimeters from the waters edge on a rock ledge of a 10 acre lake. I spent over an hour hoping to see evidence that my first deer did not run straight off the ledge and drowned. But I couldn't. I am 99.99% sure that as he was trying to run away from me that he flat ran off the edge and sunk. Now the only think I can think of is to wait a few days to see if a deer starts floating. Has anyone else ever heard of this happening?
Wounded animals will sometimes go to water. I have read it, and seen it firsthand. When you bump a deer that is wounded and bedded, don't keep after it, back out and give it time to expire. Keep us updated on the deer though if you're still looking.. I have seen a wounded deer (my brother's in 2006) swim across the White River in central Indiana .. Deer can swim pretty dang well. Good luck, let us know!
Wierd.....Hope ya find the little guy... Yup...Its not uncommon for deer to swin the bays and ocean here in NJ, apparently. A few years back, 2 guys rescued a button buck that was like 3+ miles out in the water, still swimming. It swam right at their boat, until it saw them, and then turned away. They got it and brought it back to shore. Pretty wild, 3+ miles !! You can probably search the article. There was a decent write up about it, with photos.
The shot must not have been as solid and well placed as you had thought as he wouldn't have still been alive. Gut shot deer ussually head to water...not saying that's where you hit it. Was the blood dark? Liver hit? I would have stopped pushing him and given it a few hours at least after jumping the buck the first time. Good luck finding it.
Nathan, welcome to archery and sorry to hear your first experience was not as planned but education is the best advice I can give you. Here's some good reading. http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/bowhunting/259690-recovery-what-do-after-shot.html I did post this here but it got lost in the abyss and I'm not going to look for it.
Thats the one, Jeff... You can also locate probably 5 or so videos on YouTube that people posted from the NJ shore and bay of deer swimming.
I am happy to say I found him. My daughter and I set out this morning and followed the blood trail again. He did in fact go straight into the lake. But luckily he didn't sink. He had swum all the way across to the other side and it looks like he couldn't get up the bank on the other side. He was lying in about 1.5 foot of water. Tiny little button buck, and my first bow Kill. No Dowd that, hunting with a bow is much more challenging than a rifle. All my other deer have always just dropped; this was the first time I had to track. I think I'm hooked it's a lot of fun. Thanks for the Comments Guys.
I packed my camera, with me and remembered to take a few shots of the blood where he had been standing but then when it got to the interesting stuff like the blood on the shore and the deer in the water I was so into what I was doing that I completely forgot. I will photo the little fella today hanging in the tree and put it up tonight.
Nathan-- Congrats on the recovery and your first one with a bow! Looking forward to pics, way to continue looking and not give up..
