Arrowed a deer at 25 yards from my stand. Not much of an angle because the deer was on an upslope almost even with me. Thought I hit him good because the arrow passed through and there was lots of blood for 50-100 yards - blood that was in heavy streaks. Then he went on a gradual uphill track through thickets. Blood was slowing but had spurts of heavier blood now and then. He eventually knew we were on him because we saw his tracks start bounding. The blood kept getting spottier but then he went up a very steep mountain slope with rock. Very tough terrain. Blood became tougher to follow but kept finding it especially on shrubbery. He climbed and climbed and then went horizontal until blood became tough to find and we were wiped out from the climbing. I'm estimating that we went over 1 mile following him. Don't know what to do. That was about 4 hours of searching so far. I thought I hit him in vitals but not sure now and it all happened so fast. I thought after seeing the initial blood loss that he would have only gone a short distance. HELP! Did I hit him in a nonvital area? And what should I do now to recover him?
You are absolutely pushing it! You may have only hit one lung and they can go a long ways on one lung! Go back in the morning but mark last blood really good so you can find it!
Yikes man.....u might be in trouble pushing him that hard....good luck...next time if you dont hear or see a crash....leave it be Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2
Yes thanks. I think we did push too early and too hard. But the initial blood loss I thought was a lot so we thought he was down and close by. I will go back and try in the morn.
These threads that guys keep pushing deer never end well. Also a deer that is going uphill instead of down is never a good sign either. Good luck tomorrow but it will be very hard to recover a deer that has been pushed that hard.
Reading quite a few of these stories this season. I was a newbie once & did the same thing but hate to see people continually do it. Very good thread on here about "after the shot" that is a must read. I still get really excited when I shoot a deer but now I wait it out. If you make a good shot the deer will be dead whether you wait 30 minutes or 30 hours.
Well I went back to the last point I was the day before. Follow his tracks as best I could plus it rained a little that night. Went about 75 yards without seeing anything. Finally by chance I saw one last drop of blood. Searched for another hour in that area but nothing more. Started down the steep side of the mountain and again by chance came upon a bed. The bed had a little dried blood from where the hair rubbed the leaves but not much. No pool or large blood area. His tracks led away without blood. Had pellets near the bed as well. Seems to me he spent the night there and got up and left. I searched a little more but nothing. I am hopeful that he will make it as he went a very long ways and all up steep terrain. To ProV1: I may be a newbie on the site but that doesn't mean I'm a newbie to hunting. I am very ethical and the shot I took was good but a little high. From all the blood, we thought he was going to be down nearby. That was the only mistake. I was just looking for some insight from others.
