Lets Talk - wounded deer / tracking

I think it was the third deer I shot that gave me trouble. I hit him in the lungs and he took off... being an idiot I chased after him. He kept laying down and I'd spook him repeatedly. He ran in to my neighbor's yard so I followed him in to the woods and someone started shooting a gun at me. I could hear some bullets hitting branches and the dirt close by. I wasn't really sure what to do so I bunkered down behind a log and rock. I yelled HEY and my neighbor appears with his gun. Lots of things crossed my mind for a second or two and then he said without a care in the world that he thought I was a coyote.

I found the deer, shot it in the head, and left with it. That neighbor gave me permission to hunt that land a week or so before. I never went back.
 
I hit a deer real good one time, blood spray everywhere, knocked it down and it got up and ran. It was a 30-06 180 grain on a small 4 point and I figured it was done. I waited 5 minutes and went after it, it was down and when I walked up it got up and ran. Huge pool of blood where it was laying down, I couldn’t figure out how it could run. I waited 5 minutes again and followed the blood trail and again it went about 100 yards and was laying down. Well you guessed it, it got up again and I sure felt stupid. There was a good pool of blood again and this time I didn’t care how well I thought I did I waited a half an hour. The blood trail was easy to follow and it was down for good this time. The heart was hit, the lungs were hit, I couldn’t even guess how this deer kept going. Lesson learned, give the deer half an hour if you can’t see them, if you can see them I give them 20 minutes no moving.
One thing no one has mentioned is bullet failure, I have seen bucks go far and found later the bullet didn’t work as it should when we recovered the deer.
 
Found said:
One thing no one has mentioned is bullet failure, I have seen bucks go far and found later the bullet didn’t work as it should when we recovered the deer.
Click to expand...
In over 50 years of hunting I have experienced just one actual bullet failure and that was a 145 grain Speer PSP out f a 280 at 135 yards on a large bodied white tail.
Killed lots of animals with those bullets before that too..
This one broke up into two pieces, one of the pieces skidded along the flank between the hide and meat then broke the right rear hock. Strangest thing I have ever seen.
recovered it the next day.
Cat
 
One thing no one has mentioned is bullet failure, I have seen bucks go far and found later the bullet didn’t work as it should when we recovered the deer.[/QUOTE]

Falls under the category of “$hit happens “.
 
If you recover a bullet from a dead animal, explain how the bullet failed? :confused:

I used to have a bit of an issue with Nosler Partitions, the way the front section of lead will separate from the rear half of the bullet. But all these were being pulled out of dead moose, and I realized the darn things were doing exactly as described.

I have 1 situation, with 2 bullets that 'failed'. But this was really operator(re-loader) error. The bullets were 400gr Speer Softpoint RN, and they are intended for .45-70 velocities, likely max of 1400fps (but I'm not dead certain what Speer MV claims on these).
But I had loaded them to a ridiculous 1900fps.

I shot a real nice black bear, point-blank range, like 25' sorta distance. And at that close range, with those bullets loaded to velocity that was WAY TOO FAST, the bullets literally vaporized.

My first shot hit it back of the ribs, left side and the bullet angled with into the spine, which knocked it down. I then shot it in the neck, right behind the head, so it wouldn't suffer.

When I did the forensics on that, there was a huge wound channel(s) right into the spine, but I couldn't even find fragments of copper or lead from those bullets. I've never seen anything like it. They literally vaporized!

It was a good lesson for me, and now I make a point to understand bullet design and intended velocity, with the plain-Jane cup and core stuff. Speer, Hornady.

Noslers not such a big deal, Parts or Accu's.

And Woodleighs, which I love to use, are very specific with the intended velocities of all their bullets.
 
Demonical said:
If you recover a bullet from a dead animal, explain how the bullet failed? :confused:
Click to expand...

See the photos that I posted, that's the jacket found in a roast. That was not a particularly large deer, I found the core in multiple pieces under the hide skinning out the shank.

So that bullet certainly failed since the buck had no sign of injury and was likely shot the previous year.
 
Lots of replies don't feel like reading them all. You lost the trail in a clearing. Do circles until you find the trail. You got snow that's a plus. You got an idea of direction another plus. You will eventually find blood
 
I do not want to stir the pot here, but as far as I am concerned, even if the animal was collected,
a bullet that loses it's jacket or disintegrates completely is a failure - a failure to perform in the manner
that a hunting bullet should. That is why I tend to champion bullets that do not "fail" in the sense
I described. Lots of dependable bullets out there....use them in confidence. Dave.
 
Longest deer tracking job I have had was 40yrds. It took me over an hour and had to go get the rancher that I was hunting on their property. Quartering towards. Shot with a 375 ruger 235g tsx. In the scholder out the last rib on the opposite side.

Deer disappeared into 6ft tall uncut hay field.

Definitely sit and wait. Don’t push a wounded animal.

Best blood trail was a 243 100g partition. Both lungs and the top of the heart.
Deer went 20-30yrds. But it looked like a fountain of blood on the trees to follow.
 
Longest and worst hunting day of my life was over 2 miles and most of a day tracking a gut shot doe. How she went as far as she did. I was out for 2 hours after the shot and found a few traces of blood. Overburdened by heavy hunting clothes and a pounding headache, I went back to the house to eat, rehydrate and try and sleep. After an hour i couldn't. Redressed with movement in mind and set out again. Back to the last spot i'd seen blood and started again. Across a creek... up a steep gully. More blood... found where she laid down... even a part of her intestine. Finally put her up, moving too fast for a shot. Put her up again and this time she went over a damn fence... like she wasn't even shot.... across a field into another wooded gully.... starting to snow... luckily some on the ground already but i knew i was running out of time.... followed to the spot where she entered the treeline... found blood.... another hour of looking for for her trail.... over and over again i circled.... finally i found a drop... she had cut across the field again to another gully... she was loping... somehow... but now the blood was fierce.... i had a feeling she was running out of gas... found her piled up at the bottom of the gully... still alive.... she looked at me as if to say... i give up.... you win... I put the crosshairs on her forehead and sent the shot home... I sat there a long time after... years later i still replay that day in my head. How she went as far as she did, as messed up as she was...
 
All these stories have me convinced I did the right thing, every time I passed up on a sketchy shot at a deer. That sick feeling you get when you can't find a deer, is a major bummer, even when you do eventually find it. A lot of wasted physical and mental energy.
 
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