How Far Deer Travel After The Shot

[Species8472]

Thanks for putting that data together. It was an interesting an informative read. Your conclusions make sense.

I wish I had started tracking my data sooner as it makes it easy to look back. Not quite a journal but almost.

Regarding the G5's and blood trail - yeah I have not had much luck. When examining this one should also cross reference which vitals were hit as they are most often double lung without hitting the heart or other arteries.

In the future I am going to add another column regarding the state of the deer. Two of the deer on that chart were text book double lung shots but with recoveries over 150 yards. One was a doe at 165 yards and the other a buck at 204 yards. In both cases the deer were on edge.

The doe heard a noise from my blind and stared long and hard at me for almost 2 minutes all the while stamping her feet before she calmed, put here head down and presented a shot.

For the buck I was on a walk and stalk wearing a ghillie suit. He saw my head move just as I saw him at about 40 yards from my position. He stared at me for 2 minutes while I stood still. He than started to circle down wind of me and while there was bush between us blocking his line of sight I snapped some twigs to stop him and prevent him from winding me.

He stopped, snorted twice and than ran 100 yards back the way he had come. He than stopped and did a 180 and stared at my position again. While he was running away I dropped to one knee and got the bow up. After 2 or 3 minutes he decided to come back in and presented broadside at 38 yards. When I found him it was clear he ran full tilt until face planting into the dirt. His mouth was open and actually pushed into the ground with leaves twigs and dirt in his mouth.

In both these cases if I had not found the bolt covered in bright bubbly blood from tip to nock I might have thought I missed.

[Horizontal Hunter]

Bob,
I debated about putting in the "Hit" data and opted to leave it out because I only had it for your stuff. Still, it is interesting as you pointed out. But, I think to get really meaningful stuff from that you would have to be very meticulous with what a "Hit" was. Arrows deflect off of ribs and do all sorts of weird things so every hit would have to be verified at field dress. I was thinking about this some today and came up with this idea......in case we wanted to collect more data

Instead of just 1 column of data with a "hit description", simply list separate columns for each organ/vital and check off each one that was verified forensically to be damaged.
Heart, Right Lung, Left Lung, Liver, Spine, Femoral Artery, Jugular, Other (with best description possible). I think breaking it down this way might put more sense to the data. Heart only versus Heart AND Clipped Right Lung might result in two very different distances. Just a thought.

I absolutely agree. I have been thinking about parsing out the data based on Broadhead cut size to see what it says.

IMO the perfect arrow/Broadhead/bow combination will result in an arrow that completely passes through the deer and falls to the ground after it exits the deer, thus using all of the arrows energy cutting tissue and making a bigger hole through the animal.

In other words, when your arrow passes through the deer and is buried in the ground up to the fletching there is lot of energy that was wasted digging a hole in the ground. I would rather use that energy cutting tissue.

Lots of variables address though.

Bob

[nchunterkw]

Bob
In the paper I did just that. I broke the data down by BH cut diameter as well as total cut. For that I took 1/2 the cut diameter times the number of blades. It all showed the same result. As for the energy remember that an arrow does damage by cutting so the most important thing is to get max penetration - total pass through. If a arrow passes through and only goes another yard or it passes through and goes 100 yards it does the same damage. But what you suggest is good because you should lose less arrows with that sort of setup. A bullet on the other hand does damage through shock so having a setup there where the bullet stays in the animal - like penetrates all the way to the off side hide but stays in will result in more energy transfer to the deer.

[Horizontal Hunter]

Bob
In the paper I did just that. I broke the data down by BH cut diameter as well as total cut. For that I took 1/2 the cut diameter times the number of blades. It all showed the same result. As for the energy remember that an arrow does damage by cutting so the most important thing is to get max penetration - total pass through. If a arrow passes through and only goes another yard or it passes through and goes 100 yards it does the same damage. But what you suggest is good because you should lose less arrows with that sort of setup. A bullet on the other hand does damage through shock so having a setup there where the bullet stays in the animal - like penetrates all the way to the off side hide but stays in will result in more energy transfer to the deer.

I didn't look at the paper you did until now. It is a lot to take in on the first read.

WOW you went way above and beyond anything I considered. Very nicely done; you must be a data analyst. I would appreciate it if you would post it over on the CT site as well when you get a few minutes.

Assuming a broadhead is well made, sharp, and flys right; a pass through is right at the top of my list of requirements for Broadhead performance. If I can't count on a pass through I won't shoot it.

I still believe any modern broadhead will do the job if you put it in the right place but it only makes sense to optimize the performance of your equipment.

Bon

[nchunterkw]

Bob,
I'll gladly try to post this wherever - but I'm not which site you mean by CT site. Do you mean Crossbow Nation?

[Horizontal Hunter]

I meant the CT hunting and shooting forum:
http://www.cthuntingnshooting.com/vBforum/index.php


Thanks Keith. I appreciate it and the broadhead nerds over their will appreciate it as well.

Bob

[nchunterkw]

Got it.
It's up in the Deer Hunting Discussion section, under the same name as here.

[nchunterkw]

Got it.
It's up in the Deer Hunting Discussion section, under the same name as here.

[Horizontal Hunter]

Thank you very much Keith.

Bob