When I shot my deer this year, I hit him a little far back. Close to center on his body. After gutting the deer I could tell that my arrow might have hit the liver, but didn't have a solid hit on it. I also didn't get any guts with it and it was a clean pass through shot. After shooting the deer, I waiting about twenty minutes before getting out of my stand. I met up with my brother, told him I shot a little far back so we waited about 10min and decided to walk a fair ways away from where I last saw him to see if we could see where he went, or where the other buck he was with went. When we walked, we heard a snort from behind us at the bottom of the gulley and heard a deer run off. We figured it was the one I shot and walked up to the last place I saw him, it was him entering a 5 yard wide strip of trees. As we approached we ended up spooking the deer up and he ran across a field towards another group of trees. So we left, waited about 4 hours and came back to see if we could track him. We ended up tracking him and finding him dead at a fence, probably 250yards from where I shot him. After talking my shot over with my dad, he was saying that when my deer got up to run away, his lungs were likely collapsed from the atmospheric pressure entering his chest cavity from the hole my arrow put in him. From following his blood trail we figured that he had to have died within a minute of when we spooked him up. Sorry about the rambling, but my big question is... Is it in someway benificial to causing a quicker death if you spook the deer up? But after reading some threads on here, I have noticed that other people have had the same experiences as I have. So I was figuring that if you make the deer get up and run, that their bodies will exert themselves more, causing their lungs to work harder and in the end maybe causing a faster death. This would possibly work in a case where you go through a shoulder and puncture possibly one lung where a deer could probably walk around or bed down and live off the ineficient lungs for maybe even days. Don't flame me as I know that 99% of the time if you spook a wounded deer that it will durastically decrese your chances of finding your animal, and you should always give the deer more time than you think you should to help the injuries kill off the deer. Also I know that this should not be something that anyone should rely on to help them recover a deer. Just trying to maybe make a light side out of messing up and spooking your animal.
I see where your coming from but to me a person never exactly knows where that arrow went In the deer when they shot It. What we see and what actually happens allot of times Is 2 different things. Heck I've had dead center liver hit deer live for 14 hours, had to shoot them the next day again. Pushing any deer to me Is a risk.
Yeah I agree, and like I said I would never want to push a deer and don't want this to give anyone any thoughts that spooking a wounded deer is a good idea. But given the situation where you accidentally do push up a deer. Would you think that it could in some circumstances help?
Exertion will cause the heart to beat faster, causing faster blood loss.... on the other hand, adrenaline from being spooked will cause vessel constriction, causing less blood loss and it will increase the stamina of the animal when it runs away. As you know, a deer can cover an awful lot of ground if it runs for even a minute straight. So unless you have a pretty good hole in the animal, the adrenaline boost will win over the extertion. There's an exception to every rule tho'. Hypothetically, if you have an unlimited tracking area, maybe some snow and you hit the animal in the leg... you could keep it bleeding if you push it enough... it may eventually weaken enough for you to catch up with it and put it down vs. if left alone it would clot up and recover.
Another problem for a lot of people is that the land they have permission to hunt is usually quite small. They don't want to risk pushing it off of their property. Also, the risk of losing the animal is greater if it is pushed.
They may expire faster. However, the action could also cause a clot to lodge into the wound and dry up your blood source. Sure, good could come from it, but that's like saying a rollover car crash is good because it'll keep you from driving too fast in the future. May be true, but I don't recommend purposefully rolling your car!
Some good points already brought up. In our world you have to play the %. Waiting is high % in nearly all cases. A certain single lung hit, if you have the room, I'd push. But beyond that, I'm waiting. I can't see any good coming out of promoting people to push deer. When you hit your deer, was it back and high? You may have caught that artery that runs down the spine? That bugger has bailed me out on more than one deer.
With any organ hit you wait. (20 minutes for a heart/lung..up to 12 hours for an intestine) If it's a pure muscle hit keep them moving as long as possible as quickly as possible. If unsure of the exact where-abouts of the hit ...WAIT!
Its never good to bump them ... you got lucky .... if you wouldn't have bumped him, you would have found him dead right there hours later...
On a back hit, you need to give the deer time. I can support a theory on shoulder hit deer and not giving them time to clot. My thinking is that, that deer is just as dead if you don't push. This time of year, meat spoiling is not an issue. I know it's hard, but it really is best on a hit that is back.
this is just a little in site on what happens when adrenaline takes over. from someone thats been hurt, like me in a atv crash when you lose a lung ,mine was punchered from the handle bar the broke a rib and drove into my lung,also broke three ribs off my spine at the same time, the adrenaline from the crash gave me some kind of super strength for about a half hour, i got back on the bike and kicked started it and drove it home. I thought if i could just lay down i would be ok, when i tried to get to the bed things slowed down and i knew i was hurt bad, told my son to get my wife, and got to the er, then a helicopter ride to a trama center where i spent a week., and for those of us to ever get a chest tube while four people hold you down while someone cuts a hole in your ribs and inserts a tube to let the air and blood escape from the very spot where your ribs are poking into your lungs well lets say next time i will just go to bed.they do these things without any drugs or shots for about the next six hours they need to watch and talk with you, so first as a deer they flee,lay down and watch there backtrail, if left alone they will get past the adrenaline stage and then not be able to move and die on there own,they can live a while on one lung but left alone they will stay put. the next day is you best chance.
If you tear the diaphram or hit in front of the diaphram, then the lungs can collapse due to pressure and you should catch the liver. Behind the diaphram is a true 100% "gut shot". Here is my theory on gut shots. They actually die from sepsis and not blood loss in many cases of gut shots. So, if it is a meat deer and I need the meat, then I am going in after them in 3 hours. If you wait beyond that, the meat will be ruined b/c the infection is in the blood and will travel throughout the body. Yes, I may recover fewer of them over my lifetime, but 1. I will still recover the vast majority and 2. I will not be wasting the meat. If it is a "trophy" deer then I am waiting 6-8 hours before I go after them. Any time you bump a deer you drastically reduce your probability of finding them. Even large holes can get quickly plugged up with clotted blood and therefore leave you with no blood trail.
When I hit him it was still within the diaphram, and I don't think that I tore it. Both entry and exit holes were within the diaphram marks on the rib cage. It was just on the back of the liver, but couldn't garountee a liver hit. My arrow hit a little above center on his body, but center in terms of front to back. The only problem with where we hunt, and it has caused us issues on previous hunts is that there is alot of coyotes in our area. And being within city limits they can't be rifle hunted, so they are multiplying every year. We have left a well shot deer for about 40min and it has already been spoiled by coyotes. Also with it being my first deer, and being stressed about a bad shot, it was hard to keep me away for longer than I had to be. But as I said, I am not trying to have this thread turn into one that will give anyone the idea to try and push their deer after a not perfect shot. It was more to provide some insight on what happens with bad shots, and to maybe give a little optimism for those who incidentally spook their deer.
