Shot a deer but could not find it.

Don't feel to bad, I had something similar this year.

I had my scope on a nice three, possibly 4 point. As it walked in between some trees I took the shot for the front shoulder. Deer took off like a shot, no noticable hit when I shot, as the deer did not hunch up.

Went over, found a big clump of deer fur, no blood or tissue. Looked where it ran, found one small drop of blood on an old branch on the ground, a little further I found where it layed down and there was another small red patch in the grass. Did a grid search for several hours in the cold pouring rain with three other guys, never found a thing. I even went back the next day and searched again.

Was quite upset with myself. But it happens. Ended up getting another buck 5days later.





spenom said:
Well today was bar none the worst hunting experience of my life. I have a LEH mule deer doe tag and went out today to get that doe. Sure enough I found one and took the shot. I was about 70-80 yards away and had a solid rest. I used .308 150 grain federal blue box ammo. I had the perfect shot lined up and I took it. It was a smaller animal and was just what I was looking for since I already got my buck this year.

The shot put the doe down and I figured that was that. I had aimed and shot right where you are supposed to for a solid kill shot, just behind the shoulders, in the center of the body. Anyway the doe got up after the shot and took off behind some trees. I did not have time for a follow up shot. No big deal I figured it was a done deal. So I waited for a while before heading into the woods. I always do this because they usually lye down and die VS running scared and then dieing farther away.

So once ready I headed down to were I had knocked the doe down. No blood was the first thing I thought was a little weird. But the deer was only down for a half second before getting up and there was no snow at the spot that I had made the shot. Long story short I looked until dark (a solid 3 hours or so) and could not find the doe. I feel like Sh@t! I started to second guess myself thinking maybe I had bumped my scope at some point in the hunt and when I had fired the shot the deer slipped and fell and I was wrong in thinking I had even hit it (deeper down I knew that this had not happened). Still I took a break from looking for the deer and set up a target right where the deer was and re-took the shot from the same rest adjusting nothing on my scope and the shot proved my gun was bang on.

So I searched until I was soaked with sweat and in the dark. Nothing. I drove home and pretty much decided I was never going to go hunting again because I felt like garbage knowing that I basically killed/wasted a deer. I think at one point in the drive I even planned to sell all of my guns and take up squash or just get really into fishing. I have gotten more reasonable now and and going to keep hunting and shooting but god is this an awful feeling. I am probably going to go back tomorrow and look some more because now that I am home all these scenarios of where it might have gone are popping into my head. Plus this happened in an area that there has been some problems with criminals shooting animals and leaving them (mature moose etc).

I guess the whole point of my post is to ask if this has happened to anyone else? I am hoping that .308 150 grain right in the kill zone means that even though I didn't/don't find it, at least means that it won't suffer to much. The no blood thing was weird though.
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Good advice, and I did that as I hunted the same area for several more days.

In my case I think I just nicked his chest ( as it was chest, brisket fur I found) and did not kill it.


Spruce Grouse said:
Try again, you may still be able to recover it. Look for ravens and crows in the sky, listen for coyotes at night, they could help you find it.
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I shot a buck one morning that did a runner on me.
I spotted two bucks feeding their way across a logging cut.
He and his partner decided that they had had enough of me across the cut from them, right about the same time I hit the trigger. Result, a low, farther back hit than what I wanted.

I found hair, blood, and stomach contents, and had stood and watched as he ran across the cut block and into the river bottom at the edge. I knew I had hit him, and figured him for gut shot quartering forward, from the shot that I saw.

I followed tracks as best I could, until I lost the blood trail. Flagged the blood, circled, generally searched.

I went for a walk. About 5 hours later, I went back, and homed in on the Ravens that were clustered in the river bottom.

The buck had gone out of my sight traveling in a straight line, made at least one hard 90 degree change of course immediately after, and crossed the small river, before thundering in, in between some fallen trees. Gut shot or not, he'd have been a job to find at all, in there.

By the time i got there, I chased off one coyote, and about three dozen ravens, The coyote had opened up the side of the stomach area, and had chewed a hole in one rear quarter, and there was raven crap everywhere. What a mess.

I got the buck out, to camp and skinned it, then started trimming. Overall, I figure i lost less than 10 percent to the critters, and got it cleaned up well enough that I had no qualms eating it.

I felt lousy enough about it that I cut a 5 day planned hunt down to just a two night stay, and bailed out for home.

Stuff happens. How you deal with it, is up to you.

Glad you got your deer.

Cheers
Trev
 
good for you! i'm glad you found your deer and put it out of its misery! Thats true sportsmanship! You we're smart ennough to care about it and not just leave it for the yotes
 
I've shot many, and I lost 2 over the years, tracked one or 2 for hours till I got them, and learned a lot.

The big buck I shot this year was a perfect example of how to lose an animal. Very little sign of blood or hair just a few drops. I would find a drop then guess the line the deer was going tie a little piece of flagging ribbon over the drop and then go a few meters and start making concentric circles till I found the next drop. Did this for about 30m with very little sign, must of taken 15 min the bush was fairly thick.

Now at this point I was starting to get fustrated at the lack of blood because I knew it hit it hard, 300WM 200grn Nosler Accubonds and it was only 150m away and I had a good steady rest. And when it ran off it made one of those funny little stumbling jumps that deer make when they are hit.

Then a bonus the blood trail turned into a huge smear, about 18" wide and almost continous for about 10m, and the trail was curved and at the end there was the deer.

I've noticed a lot of the time when the animal is hit hard they will run in a straight line but seem to do a death spiral at the end of their run, I even watched one so a full 360 before it piled up.

So if I was less experienced I may have givenup after looking for 15 min or less, then my nice big buck (5x5) would have ended up feeding the coyotes. Take your time be methodical.

The ones I lost well I did find one of them days later tucked up under a fallen tree but the coyotes didnt leave much.

I guess you could say I lost another one after gutting and tagging it late in the day and it was dark and the trail was bad so I decided to haul it out the next morning when it was light. I dragged the deer away from the gut pile and left 2 spent cases and my T-Shirt to give it some human smell and ward off critters. Next morning I went back and everything was gone, just a big smear on the ground.

One I wounded and tracked for 4 hours before I got a second shot.

It happens

But I try to only take the easy shots and let the others go because its not worth all the fustration and pain of looking for and tracking a wounded animal.
 
It sucks beyond description when it happens, but I don't know anyone that has never lost an animal, eventually. I went almost twenty years myself without doing it, and it really, really hurt when it happened. Honestly, I cried; I was shamed and disgusted with myself. And, like lots of moral men, I very seriously considered packing it all in. The next day I had a conversation with two of the guys who assisted me in searching for the lost animal and they had a totally differenct perspective on it. They couldn't understand why I was so upset. They were locals to where I was hunting, farmer/trapper types who are on the land all the time. What they told me was so unexpected -

"Don't be so selfish. That moose won't be wasted. If the wolves didn't eat it last night, then a bear will today. And then the ravens will finish off the last bits. Just because YOU didn't get to eat it, doesn't mean it's wasted. NOTHING gets wasted out here. Nothing. It's not all about you." Wow. I totally would not have looked at it like that.

Something to think about.
 
Well it is all said and done as of last night. I butchered this deer as my first deer. It was actually pretty easy. I got an unexpected bonus. I was going to watch those youtube videos as I went along butchering. Well I did the butchering at my parents and their neighbor is a professional chef. He saw me in the garage about to start and came over to help. We pumped some tunes had some beers and gob er done pretty quickly. I went over everything at the end getting every last bit of silver skin and fat off everything so it will be tasty and tender.

My dad even jumped in and made up some brine to make jerky in his fish smoker. He is going to let it sit in the brine for 24 hrs before starting the smoker up. Hell my mom even ground up all the little stuff and made us all dinner. All in all after seeing the end process I will probably do this every year. My wife didn''t really help out with anything (guess who's not getting any jerky).

I was thinking I might even take the bones and left over scrap and silver skin trimmings out into the woods for other animals to eat if I have time. Plus it would be neat to see what tracks come around for a taste. Anyway that is the end of this story.
 
spenom said:
Well it is all said and done as of last night. I butchered this deer as my first deer. It was actually pretty easy. I got an unexpected bonus. I was going to watch those youtube videos as I went along butchering. Well I did the butchering at my parents and their neighbor is a professional chef. He saw me in the garage about to start and came over to help. We pumped some tunes had some beers and gob er done pretty quickly. I went over everything at the end getting every last bit of silver skin and fat off everything so it will be tasty and tender.

My dad even jumped in and made up some brine to make jerky in his fish smoker. He is going to let it sit in the brine for 24 hrs before starting the smoker up. Hell my mom even ground up all the little stuff and made us all dinner. All in all after seeing the end process I will probably do this every year. My wife didn''t really help out with anything (guess who's not getting any jerky).

I was thinking I might even take the bones and left over scrap and silver skin trimmings out into the woods for other animals to eat if I have time. Plus it would be neat to see what tracks come around for a taste. Anyway that is the end of this story.
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That's a good idea in my opinion, but be careful about that. Some places there are fines for dumping any kind of left over animal parts, a stupid law of course.
But really, it only makes sense to put that out to attract wolves and coyotes... I mean to feed the poor starving wildlife.
 
I hope it is a mighty weak brine that "dad" is going to soak the jerky in for 24 hours! If it is a normal salt brine, it will end up a way too salty.
OK, OK, OK. So he has been maiking jerky for 47 years and knows how to do it.
Sorry for the interuption.
 
H4831 said:
I hope it is a mighty weak brine that "dad" is going to soak the jerky in for 24 hours! If it is a normal salt brine, it will end up a way too salty.
OK, OK, OK. So he has been maiking jerky for 47 years and knows how to do it.
Sorry for the interuption.
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got a mix to pass on?:D

As for the deer, good work, never ever give up, go super slow, I tracked a buck for a fella after a 6 inch snow fall, I would have to dig into tracks to find blood, and did notice a bit of a drag on the left rear tire:D we got 'em. covered with snow , and still warm, no meat loss. Nuts were shot off, buddy hit a branch which caused the bad hit..:)
 
Long story short... about 8 years ago I tried black powder hunting for the first time. Sitting watching a chopping I heard the deer coming. It came out enough just to show its head and neck. I was about 10 yards away so didnt move. It looked at me then looked into the choppings. I slowly raised the gun and pulled back the flint... " CLICK " when the flint locked into firing mode. The deer looked at me and did one of those instand 15 foot jump straight ahead. I had a bead on its neck where it connects to the body. The split second it took for the flint to ignite the power to ignite the charge.. well, the bullet landed abit off target. The deer went down, got back up and its front leg (hit the shoulder) just flooped around while it tried to run away. For the life of me with buck fever pounding through my chest I could not reload fast enough. Yes.. it was in view and fireing range for about 30 seconds but could not load the black powder fast enough. Anyways... it took off and it was getting late. I looked for about an hour after dark with flashlight then called it quits. Went back out next morning with the same black powder (big mistake) and came upon the deer while walking about 300 yards away from where I shot it the night before. We seen each other at the same time. It was about 5 yards in from the field where I was walking towards the field through some thickits. We stared at each other for a few seconds before it took off. Great I thought.. a perfect side broad shot 50 feet away. Took aim.. cocked flint.. followed through... " CLICK".. NOTHING. God damn misfire. Pulled back, not enough powder in holder, poured about 1/3 of cup of powder into holder as I was shaking like crazy but by then deer dissapeared. Same deer as it was dragging its front left leg. I followed it for hours. Even seeing it a couple of times during that time but no time for a shot. I eventually lost track, no more blood and no snow to track. I ran it/followed it for about 4 miles from where I seen it the following morning. I had to give up. No doubt it was coyote food that night or soon after, but still to this day it pisses me off I didnt find it to get another shot. That was the only and last time I took a black powder out with me. I still today shoot BP regulary, but will never hunt with it.

Thinking back in the old days of the Revolutionary or Civil war.. how those soldiers kept thier cool standing there trying to reload while the enemy was advancing and shooting back is beyond me. 3 shoots a minuite was standard practice back then... christ... I couldnt get a second one off in over 30 seconds while buck fever was pounding. hahaha
 
H4831 said:
I hope it is a mighty weak brine that "dad" is going to soak the jerky in for 24 hours! If it is a normal salt brine, it will end up a way too salty.
OK, OK, OK. So he has been maiking jerky for 47 years and knows how to do it.
Sorry for the interuption.
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Thanks for the tip.I think this is actually his first time making jerky actually. He has smoked a ton of fish over the years though (47 years is probably accurate lol). I am pretty sure he used the recipe for jerky that was in the little chief smoker instructions. I will let you all know how it turns out. If it rocks I will post a copy of it on here.
 
Great story with a happy ending. Good on you for going back and looking again. I've had a couple of deer over the years that took some serious searching to find, but I've only ever lost one wounded deer. As many others have said - it happens. You do your best but nothing is certain.

One thing I'd like to add to the conversation. I had an experience a couple of years ago where I shot at a deer but I misjudged where she was standing when I shot. Point being that I spent half an hour looking for blood and hair in the wrong spot. There were two game trails about 50 or 60 yards apart, and I went up and down the closer one not understanding why there was no sign. When I finally went back and started a circle search I quickly found blood and hair on the right game trail and we got the deer. I was certain I was on the right trail, but luckily I was more certain that I'd hit her or else I would have lost the second deer of my hunting career.
 
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