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Deer Hunting and Tracking Deer: To Shoot or Not to Shoot?
Below is an email correspondence I had with a member of www.Free-Deer-Hunting-Tips.com
Marty,
Have you ever hit a buck directly in the shoulder with a rifle and not recovered him?
I hit a big buck this past Saturday. I found a quarter size piece of bone in the blood and lots of blood. I am talking paper plate size areas for about 100 to 150 yards and plenty of other drops for about a 1/4 mile and then it all stopped. The blood was bright red. The deer ran but was all hunched down to his right side and ran 2 circles in one field crossed in front of me ran 2 circles in another field and then headed into the woods. I am sure his left shoulder was gone.
Do you think a major artery was hit and this deer is dead somewhere. I can tell you that my friend and I spent 10 hours in total looking for this deer in the thickest briars you could ever imagine and covered every inch of those thickets. We were even on our hands and knees crawling through the thickets looking for any blood we could find. We have the shredded hands and legs to prove it. We did search every inch looking for just the deer also.
Please let me know your thoughts. I am sick about losing this deer. It is the biggest deer I have ever shot or seen in person.
Thank You,
Curt
Curt,
Thanks for your question.
I have hit deer and they have run off, but I have found every one I hit. I have only had to let one deer go over night before picking up the blood trail the next morning. I found that deer 30 yards from where I stopped the night before.
Without seeing the blood trail and bone fragment it is hard to say what happened for you.
Was the deer standing directly broadside to you when you shot? Could your shot have glanced off a shoulder bone and not hit any vitals? Was the blood trail on both sides of where the deer was standing? What distance is your rifle sighted in for? How close was the deer when you shot? Did you graze its back bone? Could you have hit low on a front leg?
There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before I can answer effectively.
Is the deer dead somewhere? Possibly. Again it is hard to say without seeing the fragments and blood trail.
If you can, send me the answers to the above questions.
Marty Prokop
www.Free-Deer-Hunting-Tips.com
Marty,
The deer was standing in parallel with me. His rear was facing me. I definitely hit his shoulder, because the piece of bone I found looked like it was part of a socket. I could not find the original impact area, because it was in a cut down cotton field and hard to find any blood or the exact location to mark it. My rifle is sighted in for 100 yards. The deer was about 50 -60 yards when I shot. I did not hit the back bone at all. It is very possible that I hit low on a front leg, but I believe that I hit more of the shoulder than anything, because of the bone fragment found. I found the fragment in a blood soaked area after he had already ran about 50 yards and 4 circles to the right. The blood trail that I found seemed to have blood on both sides of the deer.
I hope this helps.
Thank You,
Curt
Curt,
Thanks for getting me the answers to my questions. I appreciate having a dialogue on this.
If the deer’s rump was facing you and you aimed for a shoulder, then your shot most likely did not hit any vitals.
I don’t think you would have hit a main artery either due to the angle at which you shot.
Under no circumstances should this type of shot be taken. The likelihood of wounding the deer are too high. If all you are presented with is a rear end shot, let the deer walk.
The best shot to take is a direct broadside shot. This puts the deer’s whole body in front of you, and gives you a clean shot into the vitals of the deer. A quartering away shot is also a good shot to take. A quartering away shot will expose a good portion of the deer’s vitals.
For this particular shot you would aim a bit farther back on the rib cage that is facing you. Correct shot placement would have you hitting at least both lungs which would result in the deer falling fairly close to where the shot was taken.
From what you described, the shot most likely hit a leg bone and caused some soft tissue damage resulting in blood loss.
I would like to make a suggestion. Only take broadside shots at deer. Your chance of hitting the vitals is much greater and you will be able to follow the blood trail to the deer.
If a deer doesn’t present itself for a good broadside shot, wait until it does.
If it doesn’t present a broadside shot at all, let it walk.
Allowing a deer to walk away for another day is better than having a wounded one running around or worse yet a wounded deer running off and dying later.
Marty Prokop
www.Free-Deer-Hunting-Tips.com
Posted by Marty Prokop
