How to track a Deer with a questionable shot.

Описание: How to track a Deer with a questionable shot.

Let's go over this for a second....

A deer you chose to harvest steps into view, things start to happen very quickly. As you see the deer, you make a decision "Yes I am going to harvest this deer." You reach for your bow, all while trying to remain, calm, quiet and start focusing on where you plan to take your shot based on the direction the deer is traveling. If you are in a stand, you slowly set your feet, you start ranging the deers current location. You range and double check the location where you want to take your shot. This adding confidence because you have ranged this location numerous times. All the practice hours on the range are about to pay off.

The deer starts working towards the selected shot location. You draw in the deer's blind spot...hold, hold, hold, hold and the deer takes the perfect step. Front leg forward, opening up the vitals, you settle the pin, squeeze the release, arrow flying and at this point everything is out of your control. The deer ducks, wheels in an opposite direction to spin its vitals away from the arrow it can see coming with a fiery red lighted nock. You hear the hit, it sounds good, the shot felt good. Your eyes focus on the direction the deer is running. You keep track of it until it runs out of sight. You hear some thrashing as the deer is still running and what sounds like a large crash.

SUCCESS or NOT? What do you do? What is your first thought? Celebrate?

The Instant Replay of the shot in your head starts over and over for the next 15 minutes to 60 minutes? Lets talk about this exact moment in our hunting adventures and the steps we use to start tracking our deer.

There are exceptions to these steps (i.e. you see the deer go down, blood is prevalent right from the start and you see it exiting the deer’s body at a fast rate as it leaves your view, then the large crash).

These are the 10 questions we all need to ask ourselves before pursuing a deer where the shot is questionable!
1. What kind of shot was taken on the deer (Quartering to/away, Broadside)?
2. Did I get a clean passthrough?
3. Did the deer leave with the arrow?
4. How far did I see the deer run?
5. Did the deer attempt to lay down within sight.
6. Did the deer run with tail up or tucked between its legs?
7. Did I see the deer crash?
8. Did I hear the deer crash?
9. Am I confident in my shot and where I hit the deer?
10. How long do I sit here before taking up the track?

Some of these questions are hard to re-count after an exciting encounter. Majority of us don't have the luxury of "reviewing video" of our shot on the animal to see exactly where our arrow hit in slow motion. This is why it is very important to stay focused on the "task at hand," when taking a shot and what happens immediately after. We need to observe and take in as much information about the condition of the animal as it is leaving and its direction of travel.

Sometimes the sounds we hear when a deer is out of sight are very misleading. This hunt is a perfect example of this. The deer was under so much stress as it left the field it was actually crashing into brush and going through brush it would not normally do if not injured or "in fear for its life." The sounds we heard after my shot in this video lead us to believe because they were so loud on a still evening hunt that the deer was down. This was in fact not the case and as we took up the track, found the arrow the questions started to roll in even more. I started questioning my shot, what I saw on the video and what we heard in the still evening setting sun.

Experience and failures throughout my hunting career has taught me so much. After taking up the track and finding the arrow covered in blood confidence started to grow. Although I knew the lack of blood was evident of how high the shot was and the areas it hit when traveling through the deer. I knew the deer was not immediately dead and therefore did not want to jump this deer after tracking it 50-75 yards. A deer can travel this far within 2 seconds if not faster. So I knew the way the deer was running and as fast as she was running the deer was farther ahead of us and we had not jumped the deer.

Rather than pushing the envelope I elected to back out rather than push the deer with blood spread every 5-10 feet (RUNNING DEER). Backing out is a very tough thing to do, lots of questions fill your mind (i.e. predators, suffering animal & ethical shot placement). This leads to sleepless nights as our mind starts to wonder and stress mounts. Backing out is also a more ethical decision than pushing a deer who is going to die, but at a slower rate than we would have liked. As you gather your tracking party after it is pushing it to a point where it may not be found especially at night while on little drops of blood really worth it?

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