I got out in my stand this morning and was feeling awesome!! The best morning of the year.. I was feeling confident I was sitting waiting for a doe to come in for some meat in the freezer. Temperature was at a perfect 30 degrees slight breeze in my face I was in a comfortable stand in a spot I knew there were deer! It was perfect! I sat about 2 hours and I hear 2 deer.. 2 does came in and I chose to shoot the bigger one.. I got ready and the only shot I had was crouching at a weird angle to my right and I stopped her and shot.. This is where my day took a turn for the worst.. When I stopped her I took the shot too fast thinking she would spook if I didn't shoot right that second and just.. I didn't aim the best I rushed the shot., I saw it hit high and back a little.. I backed out for about an hour and when I went to look for it I didn't find any blood where I shot but i found some down the way it ran along with half my arrow with only half blood on it,, I don't understand how it couldn't pass through it was less than 20 yards and I pull 70 lbs. but anyway I tracked it for about 150 Yards with some lung blood so I'm assuming I hit top of back lung and eventually blood trail was lost.. I search surrounding area 200 yards in all directions and didn't find her.. I feel sick to my stomach this was the first deer I shot and didn't recover.. It's a horrible feeling! I can't believe I rushed the shot like that!! This perfect morning turned into a horrible day.. I cannot get over how upset I am..
It has happened to me to last year with an 8 point... I still cringe at the feeling of rushing the shot and not being able recover an animal I killed. It sucks.
Here's a sticky from the top of the forum with some guidelines on shot placement and wait times. I'm not posting this to bust your chops at all, I'm posting this so that maybe someone else will see it and possibly be able to recover the deer. We get quite a few of these posts during the season, if someone sees this sticky prior, maybe they'll have success tracking. Sorry to hear about your shot. Have you given up the search at this point? The first two posts of this sticky thread are really good reading. http://forums.bowhunting.com/bowhunting-talk/52643-official-what-do-after-shot-please-read.html
You did the right thing in backing out for an hour. I think where you may have gone wrong was searching more after you lost blood. You best bet there would have been to back out again and come back the next day and start your grid search. Chances are, she bedded down and I'm thinking you may have bumped her unknowingly. Rule of thumb, if you don't see or hear the deer go down, give it an hour minimum before picking up the blood. This is of course if you think the shot was OK or close. If you hunt long enough and shoot enough deer, this will happen. I don't care how good of a shot you are, how good of a hunter you are, etc. It happens. Anyone who claims they never lost a deer is either lying or hasn't shot enough of them.
Yeah we looked from 730 this morning all day until 5. I can't blame anything else except I aimed more for "deer" then vitals because I panicked and thought it was going to run.. I know what I SHOULD have done I just.. I screwed up.. All I can say.
Live and learn. I'm sure we'd all love to beat you up a little over rushing a shot and not finding the deer but honestly, there's nothing that can be said that you don't already know at this point and you feel bad enough as it is. Just learn from it, it happens to the best of us. There are lots of deer and they'll be other chances, apply what you learned and be all the better for it. Now get your butt back out there and do it right. We'll expect to see a booner on the ground by tomorrow evening.
adrenaline is your enemy and going in all amped up can have negative results. But in reality the "wort hunt ever" is going to involve some medical attention or something, not just a poor shot. So shake it off and get back out there, only way to get over the adrenaline.
Same thing happened to me last year - sat in a ground blind near 4 apple trees, I smoked a doe and had a solid blood trail for 100yds then it just vanished. Is the corn still standing? I bet she ran into a huge cornfield which is very hard to find. Nothing you can do about it but put on a good shot. It happens.
I feel your pain bro. It has happened to a lot of us. I believe you when you say it won't happen again. Keep hunting brother!
As many others have already said. You don't become a good hunter until you have done this IMO. Because now after its happened to you, you will take that extra breath from now on. When I started hunting I was on a roll. I was taking down bears and deer with my bow and was getting a reputation from all my friends and family as a "great hunter". Well one day I saw the biggest black bear I have ever seen. Being so inexperienced I made a shot I shouldn't have taken. I hit exactly where I aimed, but it was a stupid place aim. We lost that bear in a swamp. By far the biggest bear I have ever seen then and still to date. After that I learned to take a second and think before drawing that bow. Don't worry. This deer should stick with you forever, that's normal. And if it doesn't... then you didn't learn nothing and will happen to you again.
I'm kind of confused here, I've seen some of the folks who posted here jump all over others in other "shot but didn't recover" threads for not putting any effort into it, but on this thread everyone just keeps patting the OP on the back saying keep at it when his post doesn't point out any effort to look for the deer?
His post said he spent 9.5 hours searching for this deer. We have all made bad shots!! As long as you realize what you did wrong and learn from it that's all you can do. I know I really have to focus on going through my progressions or I will rush sometimes myself. Better luck the rest of the season.
