marksman13
Member
Shot a doe on Halloween morning. First deer I’ve shot with a bow in nearly a decade. I was hunting from a ground blind and she was standing broadside with her head facing right, very slightly quartering away. She heard me draw and had turned her head to look straight at me. I touched off the release and admittedly hit her further back than I would have liked, but honestly thought it was a complete miss. She showed no reaction to the shot. She just ran forward about ten steps, turned to run straight away from me and then turned back left to cross the same trail she was standing on when I shot her about thirty yards further away, blowing the whole time.
I was convinced that I missed until I recovered my arrow with blood and meat on it about ten yards past where she had been standing at the shot. Knowing I had hit her and thinking it to be a very marginal hit, I gave her about 45 minutes to lay down and maybe die before going to look for blood. I found zero blood at the shot location and the area immediately around it. When I finally did start finding blood I was 65 yards or so from where she was standing when shot and it was very light blood. I followed blood until it ran out, jumping her once in the process and saw her run away seemingly no worse for wear.
I spent another two hours in the woods looking for sign and never found any, so I finally called it quits and went back to the house convinced that I must have shot under her and just nicked her belly.
Well, she showed up on camera a few hours later sporting a hole in her side that is indeed further back than I prefer, but honestly should have killed her graveyard dead in pretty short order based on everything I know about deer anatomy. I should have at least lacerated her liver and probably should have gotten part of her lungs, especially her left lung as she was quartering away. This photo shows the entry wound two days later. There’s no blood around the wound. She’s feeding on acorns like nothing is wrong in the world. Color me baffled on this one.
I was convinced that I missed until I recovered my arrow with blood and meat on it about ten yards past where she had been standing at the shot. Knowing I had hit her and thinking it to be a very marginal hit, I gave her about 45 minutes to lay down and maybe die before going to look for blood. I found zero blood at the shot location and the area immediately around it. When I finally did start finding blood I was 65 yards or so from where she was standing when shot and it was very light blood. I followed blood until it ran out, jumping her once in the process and saw her run away seemingly no worse for wear.
I spent another two hours in the woods looking for sign and never found any, so I finally called it quits and went back to the house convinced that I must have shot under her and just nicked her belly.
Well, she showed up on camera a few hours later sporting a hole in her side that is indeed further back than I prefer, but honestly should have killed her graveyard dead in pretty short order based on everything I know about deer anatomy. I should have at least lacerated her liver and probably should have gotten part of her lungs, especially her left lung as she was quartering away. This photo shows the entry wound two days later. There’s no blood around the wound. She’s feeding on acorns like nothing is wrong in the world. Color me baffled on this one.