First crossbow deer need help

[swany66675]

A

8:15 this morning I shot a buck, the shot was slightly quartering toward me. He was at twenty-five yards and I leveled the scope on him and squeezed the trigger. I failed to notice a twig between us and deflected my arrow about three inches to the right into the shoulder blade. I haven't wounded a deer since I was a teenager, so I'm hart broke. I waited three hours before I started to track the deer. The arrow penetrated about 6-8" and left 2" of arrow and a broadhead in him and I think hit a lung, tons of blood for 400 yards. Then the blood stops so I called some family and friends and we've been searching. Everyone feels it is dead to much blood not to be.

So we are going back out in the morning, any advise or tips.

[8ptbuk]

Best of luck finding him . I'm afraid you just learned a few good lessons . First a deer facing you or quartering to you is a really bad shot ! There's little room for error ! And if you do get a hit most of the time you won't have an exit hole . So now your basically looking for the deer , go to the last blood and start looking in grid pattern . Checkout all creeks and water sources nearby and also pay attention to the crows and ravens ad you search . Good luck ! Hope you find him ?

[galamb]

The quartering towards shot is one of the most difficult to put the deer down quickly.

I know, my hunting buddy took the same shot last year. Deer went 640 yards before he finally layed down. Like you, good blood trail - lost it completely - zip, nada, nothing at 600 yards.

"Post mortem" on the deer showed (we found it eventually) a shot through the lungs also nicked the heart but the arrow didn't exit - hit the ribs on the far side and was directed backwards towards the butt end.

Anyhow. Deer will sometimes circle back around to where they came from, when wounded - even mortally. So there are two things you can do/try.

First, especially if you have help, find the last "blood" and start making concentric circles, growing ever wider until you find some more sign - the wound may be clotted up a bit.

Second, in your down time (now) do a little doodle sketch of where you shot from, where the deer was hit, and if you know (or can visualize) where the deer traveled up until you lost the blood trail.

If the circling from the "last blood" totally turns up nothing - no more blood, no track, broken twig etc, maybe the deer's "travel route" might give you some insight to where it was heading - at least the general direction.

Here is a gps track of the deer I mentioned that "just kept going". It looks like he was making it back to where he came from (kinda sorta).

[wabi]

What broadhead were you using?

[swany66675]

I have used a GPS to map the blood trail so far and extensive knowledge of the area. I thought I heard the deer go down but never was able to find what had fallen and slid into and this sound came from a up hill and away from the last blood track.

The broadheads were 125 grain slick tricks.

Also I still hunt, always have it seems to work for me. When I was working along a ridge I spotted him working his way towards me. At the time of the shot I had about ten foot of elevation over him, and he had that oh your not supposed to be there look on his face.

[wabi]

Reason I asked about the broadhead was that a replacement blade type (like you were using) may have lost some blades in the bone and not done as much damage as you would think.
I had a similar situation a few years ago. Arrow deflected and hit a shoulder. Plenty of blood at first, then nothing. Went back and looked for hours the next day but found nothing. Another hunter saw what I believe was the same buck a couple days later. Limping, but still alive & going strong.
I hope you find it, but if not don't be too harsh on yourself. That's an unfortunate possibility (the deflection) when archery hunting and if the deer was hit in thick bone it has a fair chance of surviving.

[dutchhunter]

you know anybody that has a hound dog you can call .we can us them in Ontario for the first time to blood trail .D

[rockyhollowhunter]

hope you find him ,im in the same boat

[swany66675]

Made a few calls to try to find a blood tailing dog and had no luck. Although I may try to train my next dog to do this.

[Sandman]

Hope you find him ... Good luck

[Riflemanz]

All you can do is get as many people searching as you can. Sometimes you lose them, it happens to us all.

[RexKay]

If you have access to a tracking dog, try it.i found a guy here in Michigan on a Craigslist ad, and his dog and website made a believer out of me.. The little dog tracked the deer like he knew where he was goin for sure... They smell the gland at the hoof as well as blood and matter.. But a distressed deer leaves a certain scent from that gland.. That's what the owner told me. His dog found 1 48 hrs after shot and no blood.. Worth a try.

[JUDGE]

What the heck are you doing here, get out there and search.

[swany66675]

While I had four friends show up to help me today on top of my family, wife, kids, mom. We started at 8:30 and just called it quits, everyone agrees he has to be dead just to heavy a blood trail not to have died (picture removing the cap from a two liter bottle and holding it sideways). We measured the trail at 1250 feet as the crow flies (love GPS), I'm heartbroken would have been my largest ever 10pt 20" spread. He was at 26 yards when I shot.
I'm thinking because there were bubbles in some of the blood had a friend point out where I had missed that. That the lung collapsed and plunged the hole.

Just up the one side thick rose bush the other thick grapevines and blowdownd from a tornado seven years ago.
we just figure he got into thick stuff and we were walking right around him.

I want to thank everyone.

[flinthead]

Sounds like you just got one lung due to the angle... lost a couple of deer like that myself. They can go for miles on one lung and sometime go the rest of their life with one lung.