Fire1
Member
Well, I finally got to shoot a deer with my .44 mag, but everything did not go exactly as planned. I shot a doe at about 20 yards with a 270gr Gold Dot over a max load of H4227. She was standing broadside and I hit her perfectly behind the shoulder, getting complete penetration. When I got down from the stand to go find her, there was a good amount of bright red blood on the ground, indicating a good lung hit, but she had still run off into the brush. As I started to follow the trail, the amount of blood quickly diminished to where I was only finding a few little drops every few feet. I shot her near dusk, so when it got too dark to continue with the flashlights I had, I went back to the cabin to get a bigger flashlight and some of the guys, but my dad's friend and the land owner were like "don't worry about it, you will find her in the morning no problem". When I started looking again just after sun rise, I could find no more blood on the ground, so I just started walking in the direction the deer had run. She went into the thickest area of brush and dead fallen trees and down into a creek bed. After about 20 minutes of searching I found what was left of her. The coyotes had stripped her clean. All I found was some entrails, some pelt, some leg bones and the head, spine and chewed up rib cage. I was beyond pissed to have not brought that meat back. I'm still angry. So, I would like to hear constructive comments about what I could do differently in the future to increase my chances of recovering a deer more quickly after shooting it with my pistol. For instance, with a .44 mag would I be better off to try for a shoulder hit? Should I have spent less time trying to exactly follow the blood trail, and done more pattern type searching instead?