Have You Lost Game You've Shot?

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Have You Lost An Animal You've Shot

  • Yes

    Votes: 18 85.7%
  • No

    Votes: 3 14.3%

  • Total voters
    21
  • Poll closed .
Yes, using a Powerbelt Bullet, first time and the last time, used to rest to make sinkers out of them. Hit a 170-180 class buck square in the chest facing me at less than 50 yds, bullet hit and went straight to the ground. They should rename them the WEEKERBELT BULLETS. :lol: :lol:
 
I failed to bring one home that I shot with a 30-06. I shot and it ran off. As my father taught me, sit down, relax and let the deer bed down. So I gave it about thirty minutes or more. I found where it had been gutted and pulled out. So in a sense, I found where it was recovered, but not the deer itself. So I count that as a did not recover.

With a muzzleloader I never failed to recover one. I did some long tracking. Even late into the night. But if there's snow on the ground and its bleeding... unless that deer is not mortally wounded.. I will get it.
 
Yes last weekend. It was the last day for our muzzle loader season. I shot a doe at 50, maybe 60 yards. I was shooting a 250 grain TC shockwave.

I hit it right in the shoulder and knocked it down. It even kicked around for 5 or 6 seconds. Then it got up and ran off! I went to the point where she went down and all I found was hair. Not a single drop of blood. Searched for hours but could not recover.

Emrah
 
Kind of sort of. I found one archery buck and one shotgun buck but both several days later. Pretty thick cover, no real excuse. Neither hit badly but obviously not dead right there. I pretty much now use a smokeless muzzleloader and high shoulder shots and have not had any problems of late.
 
I will say this.....If you have hunted deer long enough with all weapons you will have lost a animal at some time. If not your time is coming. Just don't let it get to you bad enough you give up hunting. It happend's to the best sooner or later.
 
Yep, a red stag when I was 16 I hit high, a and two fallow that were poor shots. Did everything I could but never found them
 
Lost a buck when using Bow. Shot hit high. Don't think that he was hurt all that bad, saw him chasing a doe before totally loosing track of him. Still hate it though.
 
Lost a buck I shot up a steep hill. Forgot to compensate for the high angle and hit him high. Had a lot of blood to follow at first but I pushed too hard and it got away from me. Two lessons learned.
 
Lost a real nice buck once when I made a bad shot ( buck fever) with a real accurate Knight disc rifle. Rifle was checked later and was dead on. Tracked blood until too dark to see backed out and waited till morning tracked through a ravine till it crossed a logging road then lost blood trail. Makes you feel kinda bad, but have since decided to not take a risky shot even if I don't get the deer, at least I won't feel that way again.
 
Not that I remember, But I hunt half the time with a group, usually all around the same area, somewhere. There has been a few times myself and 2-3 of the more able members spent the day or night on a trail. More than once we circled for miles. One time we even circled around a big WMA chasing down a limping 8 pt that we finally finished. later that night I get a call, the only shot in it was the finisher, it had an old broadhead in its shoulder and a few inches of arrow that didnt even look like from this year. (deer are tough) we drove back the next morning and started again at the beginning and found the real 8 lying very nearby the original shot. It apparently made a small circle and laid down near the beginning while we were off chasing the wrong limper. there has been a few times Ive backed out and went in the next morning a found it. I DO remember loosing ducks that were crippled. They will do some amazing things to their last breath to escape...I guess like anything would.
 
Shot a small buck at about 90 yards in a corn field back in 06 or 07. It dropped in its tracks. I reloaded and stayed in my ladder stand as I had a antlerless tag also. A couple of minutes later I hear a rustle out in the field and its the buck getting up. It heads for the tree line I'm in and starts walking down the tree line towards me. I wait as its coming down the tree line until its about 15 yards away, aim and pull the trigger. The deer doesn't react. There I set with an empty Savage 50 cal. The deer continues along the tree line and stops about 20 feet away from the tree. Stands there a minute then looks up at me for a bit, does like what it sees and takes off down the tree line into the timber. As it stood there I could see a bullet wound high in its back. I sit there and think what the heck. I look around and see a branch hanging with fresh break in it about 5 feet in front of me but didn't see it in the scope. I wait about 30 minutes and head into the woods to follow up on the deer. I find blood but it runs out pretty quick so no deer found until 4 months later while coyote hunting. While sitting up on a high bluff over looking a large weed bed I see a big spot of white out in the field. After calling for awhile I head into the field to check it out and low and behold there lays the bones of the little buck stripped clean. It was about 400 yds or so from the scene of the hunt. It bothered me not being able to recover that deer. Hate to wound one like that.

Don
 
Lost one very large black bear, when I was about 15. He was so close, I just raised my gun and fired. He went down and I thought it was a done deal. Then he ran, and I fired again a few times as he left the ao. Hours of searching later, I got back to the vehicle and attempted to unload my completely cartridge-free, Winchester model 94, six-pound club. Learned several lessons that day. 1) Aim. And follow through with marksmanship basics, every time. 2) Carry more ammo than you think you'll need. 3) Make sure your quarry is really dead - before you sling your rifle back on your shoulder. 4) Re-load as soon as practical. 5) Never, Never, NEVER, chase a wounded meat-eater through the black timber with a six-pound club!
 
emrah said:
Yes last weekend. It was the last day for our muzzle loader season. I shot a doe at 50, maybe 60 yards. I was shooting a 250 grain TC shockwave.

I hit it right in the shoulder and knocked it down. It even kicked around for 5 or 6 seconds. Then it got up and ran off! I went to the point where she went down and all I found was hair. Not a single drop of blood. Searched for hours but could not recover.

Emrah

I hate to say it but there is no way to hit a deer in the shoulder at 60 yards with a 250 grain slug and not have blood and broken bones.
 
Oh it had a broken shoulder. It was hanging in the air limping as the other 3 legs did their damnedest to scoot out of there.

Emrah


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Count me in on a lost deer. Back in 2013, I shot a doe one late afternoon with my 30-06 at about 30-50 yards off to the left of my tree stand if my memory serves me correctly distance wise.
She did not go down right away and ran off and across what would be directly in front of my stand at about 60-70 yards away. When I finally climbed down, I thought I would find her lying dead within not too far a distance because of finding blood where I made the shot and also being able to follow the blood trail to where I lost sight of her. When I was not able to find her easily, I called a buddy to come help me look. Sadly, after several hours in the dark and clear sign from how the blood spotted the leaves the trail went cold and we simply lost her, and I felt sick. But knowing that the weather was cold enough that night, I thought I might get lucky if I looked at daybreak the next morning. Unfortunately, despite finding the same end of the blood trail we found at night and picking up further sign now that I could see better in the daylight, I could not find the deer after many hours again that next day. I even trespassed and looked on the neighboring field to see if she might have gone across the fence line to their place, and no luck finding blood over there. Sad to say, I still see her blood trail of spots on leaves, then a splatter of blood like where she paused and some blood gushed out as she stopped or when she started up again to leave only more spots on the leaves again till I lost her.

I am still trying to devise a plan to avoid this from happening a 2nd time. With morning hunts leaving lots of daylight to find shot deer, they minimize chances for losing one. But as we know, late afternoon hunting also brings the deer out. This leaves my conundrum. Afternoon chances vs potentially lost deer. I hunt with bow, Muzzle and firearms and welcome any advice on minimizing a lost deer due to darkness etc.
 
Chillypepper- one thing that has worked for me in the thick woods of northen MN that is loaded with wolves where any deer left over night is wolf food plus tracking in those woods in the dark is pointless. From morning till about 3 in the afternoon I take the traditional boiler room behind the shoulder shot. Anything getting towards dark I take a high shoulder shot to break them down on the spot. Yes it does waste a bit of meat but if they run off at dark and you cant find them they'll be eaten by morning before you can resume the search. This has been my game plan for years and works.
 
PS. On a follow up to lost deer, I almost forgot a story about our "found" deer.
Hunting the same spot in the woods about 7-8 years ago, my buddy and his little son and I were done for the day and didn't see any deer in the woods.
As we walked out and hit the field, we saw something about 100 yards away like a dark spot in the middle of the lighter corn or bean harvest remnants.

Obviously curious to see what the heck it was, we headed directly up to find a dead buck with a gunshot shattered leg wound. Not seeing any hunters tracking it, and being able to tell it was a fresh enough kill, we field dressed it and called it our lucky day.

We can only guess it came from across the road, or a different property over behind us that is rented out for hunting during the hunting seasons.
 
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