What the heck happened??????

[Mark Christianson]

125 grain Thunderheads.
Fixed blades.
Aluminum arrow.

[mdeiley]

I switched to luminocks this year and without a doubt would not be caught without them. They are amazingly bright when you let them go. Makes seeing your hit, penetration, and finding your arrow Or even just the nock if it breaks off 150% better then not using.

[WB make the CUT]

I'm with JLm but you may have hit the brisket
The way the deer acted.

[Ben1022]

JLM,

there is such a device that came out quite a while ago. There is a small "barbed-hook" piece you screw in between the broadhead and the insert of the arrow. When the arrow hits the animal, the barbed piece is pulled out of the arrow relatively easily and gets hooked in the hide. That is the transmitter portion and then there is a receiver you can use to locate the animal.
They must not have been overly effective or people decided they didn't need them as they really never flourished.
If a guy could come up w/some such device I think it would be nice to have for this very type of situation. And even if you see the deer go down and find it w/o the use of the transmitter/receiver, you can still find the hook in the hide somewhere and reuse it.
Here's our next million if we come up w/it!!

[mabr]

i have to relay what happemed to me last thursday night .first off before i go any further let me say i have taken well over 100 deer in my hunting career ( used to live down south with liberal limits) of those at least 25 % were with bow ..well ive been hunting a particular buck for 2 years , last thursday i caught up with him at 6 pm . if you remember we had a front moving in thursday night and rain was predicted for all of fri which it did do .. well i had 10 min of watching him and a smaller 10 pt feeding within 20 yards all this time .. i had plenty of time to calm down think about the shot and where to aim ...the buck got to 7 yards clear except i had a branch directly in front of me ..i raised bow and was able to clear the limb with about 2 inches below my arrow at full draw ...before raising my bow i told myself to shoot low because of the close range the buck turns slightly quartering away and without remembering my mental note to shoot low an the limb being in the way and the excitement of the quest finally taking place i let loose where i would normally aim .. arrow hits directly4 inches higher than i would have liked with the lumenock lit up i watch him run right back where he came from into the swamp . i wasnt to conserned because of the angle and it looked like i had good penetration .. looked to be about 10 inches of arrow sticking out ...like i said this is thursday and ive got lightning in the distance (visible)worried about the rain i get down and on him right away i have bloood within 50 yards and im thinking its a no brainer ..its now 6:15 and i tell myself i have a hour of light to find him shouldnt be no problum .. well he does all the unexpected turns taking time to figure each turn is burning daylight . right at 7 i loose the blood i begin getting frantic searching faster and now looking back ruining any chance i had at finding him .. i was walking over all the area i needed to looking for blood . well it gets dark i head home to get my dog and hope he can help (yes i know its not legal but i dont care what the law says i owe it to the animal and i didnt have my bow at this time )after 6 hours of searching that night the deer was never recovered . ive been sick about the whole thing i climbed ever tree i could get high enough to see into the swamp thinking i would see the luminock to no avail .sorry this is so long guys but im still sick of it .. advice id give to anyone bow hunting think think think before you shoot and think think think after you shoot i made alot of mistakes that night and i regret it so much biggest was staying directly on the blood trail i know i disturbed the sighn i might have found had i not panicked oh it did rain as predicted and i went out anyways looking for DEER ( not blood anymore )400 acre swamp head high grass was no deer for me

[BLACKJACK]

mabr, thats a tough one, especially after you had been hunting that deer for a couple of years! Even after harvesting many deer, you got excited and rushed into the tracking job, but isn't that 'rush' why we hunt??! That 1/2 hour that most people say to wait after a shot/hit not only helps the deer bleed out and die but also helps you calm your nerves, you might have slowed up your tracking. Better luck next time and hopefully we can all learn from your experience!!!

On a related note, we've all heard that we should be out hunting (or fishing) when a weather front moves thru, the animals will be moving, but in the case of bowhunting, where we need the blood trail, makes you think that maybe we as hunters need to show some discretion. Not every deer gets shot thru the heart/lung and runs off 40 yards and dies in sight, you have to follow the blood trail, but then if it rains.... Makes you think.

[Pooh]

biglakeba$$
sorry to hear about the lost deer.
i hunt with a large group of other bowhunters, ifi remember right there is about 12 of us. on opener day alone the group lost 2 deer they know how u feel. one buck and one doe. but what i dont understand is that they can go out the next morning or night and sit on stand and be ready to shoot another deer. i have hunted, this is my 2nd year and wont shoot out past 30 yards, although i practice out to 40. my first deer i shot in the spine, layed and bellerd for a while for me to get down from stand. that sound was like trying to swallow my heart. i didnt go out for nearly a month. i dont know how some people, like my buds can go out 12 hours after completely losing a deer

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this is just my 2 cents
Pooh

[Mark Christianson]

mabr
As long as you don't have a weapon with you, there is nothing wrong with using a dog to track the animal.

That really stinks mabr. I feel for you.
I got the same way with my little deer.
I didn't find it, and now I start moving faster, and wondering what to do next, etc....

Crazy what a thrill it is, and in the same breath it can be so disappointing so quickly.

How big was this buck? Just curious.
Sorry to hear about it.
Lets meet and have a beer somewhere....

[jiggin' fool]

blb,

Have you given consideration to hitting too far FORWARD???? You said the deer was quartering!! You said the hit looked great!!! Please remember, when a hit looks good, you are looking at fletching. That fletching, that looks "right" behind the front leg puts that broadhead Waaaaaaay out in front of those feathers.
I would bet you hit that deer alright, and you hit it literally in the pit. The "leg-pit", (like our arm pit), and at best, you busted that front leg..., hence explaining that deer falling. The only thing that will drop a deer when hit with a broadhead is either a spine shot, or you hit the leg/shoulder blade. (I don't believe that you hit the shoulder blade, as a 125 Thunderhead would penetrate the shoulder blade of a FAWN far enough to kill it). Sooo, what knocked that deer down, and what made it fall down once it got back up??? A broken front leg!!!!!
Your "perfect hit", (remember, your using your line of sight with fletching on a quartering deer), was actually a hit too far forward.
No vitals were hit, but you knocked that deer off it's feet from a hit to the leg.
Only possible explanation.
And although the deer is hit, it will recover, and probably with a permanent "gimp".
Give it some thought, and remember that sightline you had of the fletching, on a quartering deer, keeping in mind that your broadhead was well in front of those feathers, AND angling forward on a quartering shot.

------------------
"You should have been here yesterday"....,

[jlm]

I would agree with this, particularly the part about the fletching. Your broadhead can be in a completely different spot than the fletching (any competative shooter will tell you this). However, I have to disagree that only bone was hit (solid hit) because BLB stated that he heard the distinctive hollow sound that comes with a good hit. When an arrow hit solid bone, it makes a completely different sound. Just my 2 cents!

[Mark Christianson]

I do feel I hit it a bit forward. Yes. The quartering away would make that very possible
Broken leg. No.
When it hit there was no "thwack" of bone. It was just like shooting a watermelon. (Well, no I have never shot one, but I think thats about the sound)

It bolted off on all 4 legs with the rocket booster adrenaline shot.
It was not favoring any limbs for sure.

I agree the typical falling over would be spine shot.
I did shoot a deer right through the heart one year, and it just fell down. I thought maybe the same thing happened here. Obviously not.
What an amazing animal.
Man, if I just got knicked by an arrow, I would fall down and lay their crying...

[EXTREME]

Try not to get too down on the situation. Last year I did a almost strait down shot on a nice buck and ended up wounding it. The real problem with it was that I thought the shot was perfect. I remember telling my dad that the shot was a "12 ring". What I believe happened was that the arrow went along side the body and came out the brisket and never touched his internal organs. There was very little blood and he did'nt bed in 500-600 yards. I was depressed for about a week strait. The best medicine is to redeem yourself on another deer. Punch one out this weekend and do it with confindence

[Mark Christianson]

Honestly, I am not down any longer.
Well, not happy about it, just not down like Sat night and Sunday last weekend.

I have to work this weekend, so the plans might be messed up for going north.

I can bow hunt behind the house, so I might do that, but the weather is looking so darn nice, fishing is for sure in my forecast.
I need a 20+ inch smallie on my line, and this weekend might just be the time.

Lots of great info in here for anyone archery hunting for deer.
The points and thoughts are invaluable to even someone that is experienced.
Expect the unexpected, and be ready to adjust your game plan. Keep cool. Think and rethink before you do something you might regret.

etc.........

[bigbucks]

I think bow hunting's a lot like baseball. It's definitely a physical sport, but it's a lot more mental.

[ChuckN]

These animals are extremely tough and they are capable of doing the unexpected.

Opening day in Wisconsin, a guy took a long, dumb shot across a field at a buck, the bullet shot the bottom half of the deer's leg clear off. The buck ran right at me where I was sitting and I took several shots while it ran at full speed, not limping! Another hunter killed it within minutes as it barreled through the woods. I saw the leg missing, but the deer ran like nothing was wrong.

Another incident, I stumbled upon a blood trail in the late afternoon hours, and I jumped a buck from it's bed. This deer had one rack and my friend shot at this deer opening morning and thought he missed. No blood, no indication it was injured. I told him about it, and sure enough he hit it. He shot the front shoulder blade and the bones/joint was fully exposed. That deer ran across the countryside for over 24 hours. We finally got it the following day (couldn't track/push it through the night), but it ran and ran... like it wasn't injured. It lost A LOT of blood, and kept going.

My first deer I ever shot, a 4pt buck in WI I butchered myself. I found 2 .22 bullets in that deer, near the organs. My friend shot a buck with a rusted arrowhead in it's chest! There are apparently hollow spots in the area of the vital organs!! Unreal.

Don't feel bad, bub.

[bigbucks]

biglake,

Unfortunately I know what you mean about the sounding like you shot a watermelon sound & being in the dumps all weekend about losing a deer. I shot a doe Friday night & heard that exact same sound as she bolted off crashing brush like she was well hit. We eventually found about half the arrow 75 yards down the blood trail. She bedded once after a 100 yards or so & she quit bleeding in the next 100. I'm confident now that the sound must somehow happen with some time of combination of shoulder & brisket shot.

We didn't find this deer. We trailed her till she jumped, which was when we'd decided we should leave & wait until morning. We searched everywhere we could go the next day & it's a place where there's only a couple of ways to go (open fields one way & lake the other). She had to have gone several hundred yards pretty fine. I'm saying your deer & the one I shot both live, most likely with a hitch in their step, very frustrating.

I couldn't see where the arrow hit. I waited forever for the shot, it was right at the end of shooting hours & she was in the shadows. It had to be forward as she was dead broadside & I held right behind the shoulder. If I'd hit farther back the arrow would have gone right through her. There was a fair amount of blood to start with, but you can get that from a flesh wound.

[jt24]

Tracking deer in alfalfa is very tough. Quite a few years ago i hit one and it ran down a alfalfa field and then into a corn field. Now the alfalfa wasnt as tall as what you had to deal with but i was on my hands and knees looking of tiny spots of blood on alfalfa leaves in the dark with a lantern. Was very time consuming but it finally paid off. I have learned that when you hit a deer and are not quite certain on the path the deer has taken, I find the point of impact and look for signs of blood or hair. Now if i lose the trail i ALWAYS mark the last spot with preferrable a hunting buddy and then procede in a half moon out around where i think the deer would have went. I would say you probably did rush the deer to much but its hard not to do seeing that you saw it fall over. Finding the arrow when hunting on the ground will be very hard to do unless there was something behind to stop it. But finding it should tell you if you hit it for sure.