test your tracking knowledge

[Gissert]

Sure sounds like a liver hit from the blood description. With dark colored blood, perhaps some vein going from the liver, or possibly stomach?

I hit a deer once high in the back, but missed the spine, lungs, and liver. It went for a looonng time and was shot as I pushed it into an adjacent property.

Your description sounds a lot like my scenario, except I remember my blood being fairly bright.

[Arctic]

The important thing is that you made every reasonable effort to retrieve the animal, and no doubt will learn from it. Too many folks out there don't bother to put in much of an effort to look for an animal, writing it off as a "miss" or "graze". Plenty of deer go off to suffer and die as a result.

Last year a buddy and I retrieved TWO gut-shot fawns that a visiting hunter had shot and thought he had missed. He didn't even bother getting out of his stand. This same guy said he had been deer hunting for over 40 years... F..king sickening.

[New2TheFly]

AHLHAWK81

Tell your son no worries. Sounds like you guys tried your best. If it makes your son feel any better I ran into the same situation on my 3rd season as well. In fact, it was a solid 10 pt buck walking straight at me. The nicest deer I've seen in my stand to date. Only a 30 yard shot. I knew I hit him but he just ran off. Found fur, fat, and little blood, but never found the deer. I felt terrible, not just for wounding him but also because he was such a beauty. At the time I blamed the inaccuracy of slugs, looking back on it now I blame buck fever

[Basseyes]

Great post.

The concern and frustration in the questioning of what was done and how it was done is a sign of a true sportsman not being content with just running away from a hard situation. Means your steering your son in the right direction.

Hunting in many ways is about finding out about our own character. When all is said and done only you and your son knows what was done. The fact of trailing it for as far as you did says mountains about the commitment to honor the animal even when things didn't go according to plan. The plan for the most part is to hit them in the vitals and have them go down quickly. That doesn't always happen even if you've done everything in your power to try and make it so. Everything might have been done right. From the sounds of it with an open honest heart you and your son tried to do your best. My best guess is it seemed like a good hard hit. How many go up on a good hard hit and find they should have let it lie down for 2 hours? Very hard to do when you've hit an animal with a high powered rifle any where on its body. There are so many things out of our control. That is something we as hunters learn through the experience of hard knocks. This is a lesson learned deep with in ourselves and there is little anyone on the outside even those who are closest to us can do to help other than let time heal our injured ego and our pride.

This is how hunters build their own set of ethics and how their character is built from the foundation of our experience's that in time we grow to be more than we thought we could be. In today's world we look at coming out of the woods without harvesting something as a failure. Besides all the fun of watching the tweety birds and enjoying nature the end purpose of holding on to a rifle and having a deer tag in our pocket is to punch that tag. If we don't we can still enjoy all the rest but we have still failed to fill that tag. If we can learn from each failure or perceived failure we have accomplished something more than failure. We have grown. With that growth comes some pain.

Pain you and your son experienced.

That pain is part of a growth spurt. A stepping stone towards more woods wisdom.

Sounds like he's following you and you are leading him down the right path.

My hats off to you for that.

[lungdeflator]

from a little experience i think a liver hit is almost as good as a heart/lung hit? still not something to strive for but that deer shouldve been down within 200 yards if it was shot in the liver with a .06. sounds more like a muscle hit. low brisket. likely that deer will limp for a few days to a week and then will be alive to pop out a few fawns this spring

[delmuts]

I agree that it reads as if you did everything you could to recover the deer! My hat's off to you and your son for that! Unforunately it happens to all of us. It is a bitter pill to have to take, but it happens.

[bigbucks]

Agree that I think the deer lived, possibly with a limp. I don't think I've ever had a liver shot deer go more then 75 yards. With a firearm it usually just plain kills them in my experience. It's kind of one of those, well I didn't mean to shoot it there, but it sure worked.

Would have to agree low brisket seems the most logical. They will usually bed fairly soon at least until pushed on a gut shot. I've tracked way to many deer in my life, some of my own & many others. If you get beyond 200-300 yards don't give up until you have to, but your odds are probably below 25%. The best thing you can hope then is it's opening weekend of gun season & it walks by someone else or they find it warm & take it.

[AHLHAWK81]

To all:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this post. The comments were very helpful, not only for me, but mostly a young hunter who needed to hear perspective from someone other than the old man. In the long run, the best we can do is build the foundation and hope it carries on for each generation.

[folke2000]

AHLHAWK81, You and your son exemplified what hunting is about. IMO, it sounds like the shot was low briskit...it happens. If mistakes were made in the track (it also happens), but you 2 made an honest and sincere effort to recover the animal. By posting here, it appears that you have taken this one step further and are learning from the situation. This is what we owe the animals that we hunt, and it appears that you are passing on this respect to your son.

Thank You for posting this. Your candor in re-telling this story makes even the most seasoned hunter take pause to think the situation through and we are all better for the discussion.

May your son's next deer "drop in it's tracks", and if not, I'm sure the track will be flawless to recovering it.

Hunt Safe,

Folke

[Basseyes]

AHLHAWK81,

This has really been a great topic.

Thanks for sharing.

[ChuckN]

I can relate. I had the same thing happen to me a week ago.

I took a shot as a deer turned around in an open field and hit the left rear hind with the bullet entering the intestines.

Long story short, tracked this buck for 2 miles with a mostly steady blood trail, but it would disappear at times. I observed the same blood evidence as you did.

This buck was on a steady walk/gallop for that length of time until it finally bedded down in it's safe spot....along the edge of a lake at the bottom of a very steep grade. The last place I was expecting this deer, and he was alive and seemed well until I stalked him from above and ended it with the proper lung shot. Heck of a drag uphill though.

I've never had to track a deer I shot, I usually "know better" and take the correct shot. Mistakes happen, and I felt terrible over my ordeal even though I recovered the deer. I got over it.

[BigWadeS]

To all:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this post. The comments were very helpful, not only for me, but mostly a young hunter who needed to hear perspective from someone other than the old man. In the long run, the best we can do is build the foundation and hope it carries on for each generation.

Great read and tell your son to keep his head up. I have been deer hunting for 21 years and this year it was ending shooting time and I shot a doe, broadside, she face planted I got down and she got up and stumbled to the woods, looked for an hour in the dark and went back the next day. I looked for another 4-5 hours and finally found the doe or what was left by the wolves, it was a crule reminder that you don't always get every animal....

[Gas Man]

Eventually all bleeding stops. Sometimes in the favor of the hunter and sometimes in the favor of the hunted.

Gas Man