Stumped

[broken line]

Great morning to be on stand yesterday. Saw a small 8 pt, two does and a spike. I then watched another deer approaching my stand, and it suddenly ran away, tail up. Seconds after came the coyote that scared it.

Anyway, the coyote passed my stand at 13 yards and I took a shot. Got complete pass through, blood on arrow, the yote stumbled slowly away and I listened to it wheeze and cough for a minute. After a half hour I went to retrieve him. There was an amazing blood trail, spraying on both sides, it laid down and there was literally a pool of blood. To my amazement, it then got up and went in to the swamp 10 feet from where it laid down (saw very light blood on the swamp grass).

How could this critter have gotten back up and moved after losing so much blood. I am confident I had a good hit. Also, after checking the swamp, I could not find it. If injured will they bury themselves in the water or reeds. Disappointing - I sure wanted a picture of an archery coyote!!

[mabr]

I did the same thing earlier this year. Never did find it. But im not bothered by it at all. At least hes not there to bother fawns in the spring.

[mrklean]

how far in the swamp did you go and look, some wounds can close up pretty fast, my guess is hes laying dead not to far in

[broken line]

I crossed the swamp - it is small, maybe 50 yards across and knee deep water / reeds. I lost blood and there was no way to tell which way it went. Under water??

No sign on high ground on the other side either.

[walleye365]

i shot one couple years back and same deal happened tuff critters.

[Bear55]

A little blood can go a long ways but it sounds like you hit him solid, guessing he is down in the swamp somewhere thick.

[tunrevir]

Yep, like others have said, the critter was nearby. I had a similar incident a few years back, never found the yote untill a few weeks later when trailing a deer and I saw something lying in the brush about thirty yards from where my search ended.

Tunrevir~