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Growing frustrated / single bevel broadheads

I’m with @kbetts, shot placement was your enemy here. Since you’re shooting them I’m guessing you know the advantage of single bevels which is rotation. This is especially advantageous on larger game or game with thick hides or lots of layers so the wound channel is larger and great possibility of bone breakage. Your shot placement has me thinking you clipped prolly one lung, perhaps both but probably the top. Deers are resilient little critters and if that’s what happened it’s possible the blood sealed the wound. I’ve double lunged deer that ran 200 yards and barely bled before they expired as the cavity filled up with blood. I’ve heart shot deer that didn’t even know they were hit, walked 30 yards and fell over and bled out a piñata where they fell. I’ve also shot deer and they bled like crazy upon initial arrow entry to where they expired. I too like probably most of us have had a deer that was not recovered. I shot an amazing buck a few years back that I tracked half a mile into a pasture and lost him due to the short cut grass, impossible to blood track(this is before I knew va has blood tracking dogs). Neighbor mile down the road found his carcass a year later with the arrow still in him, a mechanical that didn’t fully deploy with one blade open and it was a very low almost in the brisket hit. I figure the shot was too low and mostly in fat so the broadhead didn’t have enough pressure to fully deploy. This is NOT a bag on mechanical broadheads. It is a bag on my crappy shot placement. I have no doubt had I been 2” higher he’d be on my wall.
I’d say if your set up works for you by which I mean you’re having good arrow flight and can consistently hit center of target at your desired yardage then you’re good. Work on your shot placement going forward. With your poundage a cut on contact broadhead is a good choice.

Edit: just saw your update. I’ve shot prolly 20 different broadheads and what I’ve personally observed is shot placement every time, even with mechanicals. Sure some early mechanicals had issues with collars not popping off but they’ve come a long way. A quality mechanical seems to do the job as well.
 
HuskerInIowa said:
Curious how far out the shots were. I might have missed it but didn’t see it in the original post. I am also new to bowhunting and saddle hunting so I am interested in more experienced opinions. I’m shooting 65 pounds but I don’t think that’s a huge difference from what you are at and both my shots have been pass through and buried halfway into dry dirt, they were 19 and 15 yards.
Click to expand...
One opinion here, most folks are “comfortable / confident” in shooting farther than they really should.
 
Cobra said:
Hi all,

thank you for all the responses. First I 100% agree with the shot placement improvement. I wanted to emphasize that in my opener to this. It’s not my accuracy it’s where I put my pin in the heat of the moment. I have never been as accurate as I am this year. It’s my placement possibly target panic. I know that needs-to be fixed. I paper tuned my bow this year and it’s the best it has shot ( the bow). I obviously need to add some sort of check before I release for exit wound.
Other info people wanted: it was 25 yards I shoot victory vforce sport 400 with 100 gr gold tip insert and 125 gr grizzly stik samurai overkill. Right bevel and right fletchings.
As far as the search I hung tape up until the road. The road is about 10 yards wide the field is about 100 yards wide we checked each deer trail in the field and 50 yards up and down the road and the forest on the other side of the field for hours with nothing. I am in MA where dogs are not allowed which would solve so many problems.
the main point of my question is I feel as though the lethality will come down to the shot. But I have seen buddy’s with high shots with rage bh and it’s looks like a blood bath and they have a good blood trail. As someone who doesn’t have years of testing bh I didn’t know if the single bevel don’t leave as much room for error (blood trail) on a bad shot.

Again this is not looking for a fix for bad shooting. It’s 100% on me. I just feel as though I have seen a lot of dead deer with wound holes where my arrow went. Yet the blood trails make it almost impossible to track and I didn’t know if a bigger hole which might sacrifice penetration is a better trade off because you may track longer but atleast you can track.
In the end though I want the most ethical kill possible.
Click to expand...
It's not the style of broadhead it's the shot location. Those high shots are notorious for lousy blood trails. Second only to gut shots as far as blood on the ground. No exit wound with a high hit means little blood. Next time try to imagine that the deer is not the target, the top of the heart is. I always aim for top of the heart. How sharp was the bh? Was it out of the package sharp or was it "I spent 2 hours touching them up to hair popping scary sharpness" sharp?
I think you may have gotten a little more blood initially with an expandable but with those type of hits most of the blood stays in the body cavity. I do think regardless of what bh you were shooting that your deer probably didn't survive the shot but may have gone quite a ways before dropping.
You also didn't mention how high up you were unless I missed that.
 
Cobra said:
Hi all,

thank you for all the responses. First I 100% agree with the shot placement improvement. I wanted to emphasize that in my opener to this. It’s not my accuracy it’s where I put my pin in the heat of the moment. I have never been as accurate as I am this year. It’s my placement possibly target panic. I know that needs-to be fixed. I paper tuned my bow this year and it’s the best it has shot ( the bow). I obviously need to add some sort of check before I release for exit wound.
Other info people wanted: it was 25 yards I shoot victory vforce sport 400 with 100 gr gold tip insert and 125 gr grizzly stik samurai overkill. Right bevel and right fletchings.
As far as the search I hung tape up until the road. The road is about 10 yards wide the field is about 100 yards wide we checked each deer trail in the field and 50 yards up and down the road and the forest on the other side of the field for hours with nothing. I am in MA where dogs are not allowed which would solve so many problems.
the main point of my question is I feel as though the lethality will come down to the shot. But I have seen buddy’s with high shots with rage bh and it’s looks like a blood bath and they have a good blood trail. As someone who doesn’t have years of testing bh I didn’t know if the single bevel don’t leave as much room for error (blood trail) on a bad shot.

Again this is not looking for a fix for bad shooting. It’s 100% on me. I just feel as though I have seen a lot of dead deer with wound holes where my arrow went. Yet the blood trails make it almost impossible to track and I didn’t know if a bigger hole which might sacrifice penetration is a better trade off because you may track longer but atleast you can track.
In the end though I want the most ethical kill possible.
Click to expand...
In the end, it all comes down to what you believe in, and what you have confidence in. I have a buddy who used to shoot large mechanicals and aim for the liver. His reasoning was that with the big cut he'd avoid bone and get a good blood trail. Asinine if you ask me. I want to shoot the heart every shot I take. I'm trying to kill the deer as quick as possible and it also gives me room for error. If the deer ducks, I should still get double lung. If the deer steps forward, I should still get double lung. Worst case I'm getting liver. I want a broadhead that's not going to fail on impact. Expandables can do an amazing job at opening a big hole and providing a great blood trail. For some people, there's nothing better, but that's not me. I've tried to use them before and no blood trail is worth the blades failing to deploy or bending on impact. I've had more than 1 arrow redirect in the animal resulting in far less than desirable outcomes even while getting the deer. Not what I want. I'm now shooting heavy, strong, sharp broadheads that I know are not going to fail me. If I put the arrow where it should be, the deer is dead, no doubt about it. Not having any doubt is where the confidence I mentioned has a big role. It allows me to put that arrow where it should be and results follow. Others in this thread already nailed the points to reflect on, yourself included. Shot placement is more important than the broadhead. Lower your point of aim and you'll likely see better results. Maybe you can come up with a phrase you say when you're in your shot sequence to help calm your brain when things are going crazy. I like to say: "draw and aim" obviously while I'm doing those things, "float the pin" to remind myself to pick a hair and let the pin float around it, "squeeze" to remind myself to just slowly pull through the shot and not punch the trigger (I used to have terrible target panic). Honestly I don't think it matters what your process is. Just having one draws your brain off the excitement of the shot and makes you think of the process. Maybe yours could include a reminder of shooting for the heart. Good luck and sorry about not finding your deer!
 
The percentage of hits that are not what we swore they were is probably a lot higher percentage than we think.
Shot angle is one that guys misjudge a lot. Estimates of broadside, quartering-away, or quartering-to, are often much different than the reality at the time. Nerves and eagerness to make the shot can make us misjudge angles, which leads us to place the pin (or aiming pint for us instinctive shooters) in the wrong spot. We might be champion, dead-eye shooters but we gotta aim in the correct spot. Sounds really obvious but in the heat of the moment, a lot of guys get it wrong. We sometimes get our eyes locked on the the correct aiming point but the deer will change it's angle before the release, and we don't adjust for that change in angle. That happened to me a few years ago. I drew, aimed and hit exactly where I originally intended to hit, but during the draw the deer changed his angle and I did not adjust. I one-lunged him. Luckily I did recover him but that's another story.

Another issue is guys sometimes shoot on an alert deer. The animal may sense something...hears, sees, or smells us and goes on semi-alert. The deer is keyed-up and ready to react to any type of threat. Those are the deer that often "duck the arrow". They hear the bow and in a millisecond they begin to drop in order to prepare to escape. Our arrow goes exactly where we aimed, but the target has moved before the arrow reaches the target. Sometimes it's a clean miss right over the back and sometimes it results in a high hit. Our mistake wasn't poor shooting, our mistake was aiming a little too high on an alert deer.
 
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jonkytron said:
Deer that are shot with anything, even a field point, in the right spot, will bleed. A good single bevel will bleed just as good as any broadhead in my opinion. Will it bleed as much as an expandable or a broadhead with bleeders? Sometimes yes and sometimes no.

Deer often do not bleed for a lot reasons. Sometimes fat gets plugged in the hole. Sometimes the blood fills up the body cavity below the entry and exit hole and doesnt come out until its 100 yards away..

First off, in this situation.. You should get some friends and do progressively larger semi circles from the last blood you found. I find deer that run after a hit will often instinctually run in a semi circle to try to get upwind of the danger they percieved and look back at somepoint to see where the danger came from. That or make an L shaped movement, taking a hard turn.

I have shot deer with single bevel in the heart that barely bled and found it 60 yards off in a bush piled up because I just kept doing larger and larger semi circles in the direction it ran.

Second... You may have hit the area above the lungs and below the spine where there isnt any vital organ and not much blood is produced from that shot.. its likely the deer survived that shot.

Also.. I dont think aiming center mass is a good shot. You should always be aiming for the heart. Left and right, up and down, a few inches away from the heart is always a quick kill.

Lastly, We all have or will someday make a bad shot.. Go back home and practice and learn from your mistake. Drive the next deer in its heart. A heart shot deer dies and it dies quick..

Dont get too hung up on it, retune, and get back out there!
Click to expand...

Thank you for this. Really.
 
Bigfoot522 said:
Without a pass thru you get scant blood trail. The deer runs far as it fills up the chest cavity.
Liver hits are like this as well.

One time my son shot a doe gun hunting in snow from a treestand.
He got down and couldn't find it.
I went over to meet with him and he told me he thought he missed because he had already looked where the deer should of been.
I had him climb the tree and direct me to the deer. It was there. He drifted off course as he walked out.
Anyhow I tell everyone, if you do nothing else watch that deer run away and pick a tree or bush any marker where you LAST saw the deer.
There are times of little blood trail where this pays off big.

Time to go to work.
Good luck hunting guys.
Click to expand...
There is a lesson to be learned here. I try to mark something visually where I last see movement, but just as importantly, I take a compass reading on that mark.

Multiple deer now I could have found simply by walking that bearing to the mark.
 
huntin_addict said:
There is a lesson to be learned here. I try to mark something visually where I last see movement, but just as importantly, I take a compass reading on that mark.

Multiple deer now I could have found simply by walking that bearing to the mark.
Click to expand...
I do the same thing and I'll usually take pics with my phone to mark trees/brush/landmarks where the shot happened, the direction the deer ran, and the last place I saw the deer. I'll also put pins on OnX.
 
MSbowhunter48 said:
High shoulder shots are tough especially if it didn’t exit, they never bleed much cause the chest cavity has to fill almost all the way up for blood to come out of the entrance hole. I agree with others, the broadhead isn’t the problem.

Also if you’re having a problem hitting deer high, remember to “aim for the exit”meaning don’t think about where you’re gonna hit the deer on the entrance side, think about where that arrow is gonna exit the opposite side and that’s your aiming point. Also remember to pivot from your hips when aiming, do not drop your forward arm once you’re at full draw. That could also be contributing to you hitting high.
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That was my problem. I shot my doe from the ground and she was .aybe 10' below me,maybe more. I make a point of drawing straight when I am in a saddle and then bend but forgot all about that when I was on the ground. I got lucky though that I aimed low enough and she didn't drop much.
 
Allegheny Tom said:
There is no such place as "no man's land", or a dead spot as some believe. It's a fallacy that there is an area below the spine that has no vitals. Inflated lungs actually go slightly above the spine.
I'll find the link to the YouTube video from Masterpiece Targets. They dissect a deer layer by layer and actually inflate the lungs.

Need more info from the OP but my guess on the limited details is he barely clipped one lung. If that's the case, that deer could survive. They can survive a one lung hit.
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Basically you’re saying what I said :).. a spot that doesn’t kill the deer (or kill it right away) above the lungs (or top of the lung) and below the spine
 
Cobra said:
Hi all,

thank you for all the responses. First I 100% agree with the shot placement improvement. I wanted to emphasize that in my opener to this. It’s not my accuracy it’s where I put my pin in the heat of the moment. I have never been as accurate as I am this year. It’s my placement possibly target panic. I know that needs-to be fixed. I paper tuned my bow this year and it’s the best it has shot ( the bow). I obviously need to add some sort of check before I release for exit wound.
Other info people wanted: it was 25 yards I shoot victory vforce sport 400 with 100 gr gold tip insert and 125 gr grizzly stik samurai overkill. Right bevel and right fletchings.
As far as the search I hung tape up until the road. The road is about 10 yards wide the field is about 100 yards wide we checked each deer trail in the field and 50 yards up and down the road and the forest on the other side of the field for hours with nothing. I am in MA where dogs are not allowed which would solve so many problems.
the main point of my question is I feel as though the lethality will come down to the shot. But I have seen buddy’s with high shots with rage bh and it’s looks like a blood bath and they have a good blood trail. As someone who doesn’t have years of testing bh I didn’t know if the single bevel don’t leave as much room for error (blood trail) on a bad shot.

Again this is not looking for a fix for bad shooting. It’s 100% on me. I just feel as though I have seen a lot of dead deer with wound holes where my arrow went. Yet the blood trails make it almost impossible to track and I didn’t know if a bigger hole which might sacrifice penetration is a better trade off because you may track longer but atleast you can track.
In the end though I want the most ethical kill possible.
Click to expand...
We all make bad shots and have target panic. Some of us get lucky and some of us don’t.
All broadheads have benefits and weaknesses. Single bevels penetrate bone better, expandables pour blood out better. But single bevels might have less blood and expandables have **** penetration of bone. If my shot was too far back I’d want an expandable. Too far forward I’d want a single bevel. There’s also something to be said about a balanced broadhead. Like a magnus stinger or a muzzy. Or maybe a hybrid. I choose single bevel because I shoot a heavy bow and I’m pretty accurate and I want to be able to break bones
 
jonkytron said:
Basically you’re saying what I said :).. a spot that doesn’t kill the deer (or kill it right away) above the lungs (or top of the lung) and below the spine
Click to expand...
I just reread your post. Maybe its the wording but you seemed to say "above the lungs and below the spine" didn't you? Pardon me if I misunderstood your point.
 
jonkytron said:
Basically you’re saying what I said :).. a spot that doesn’t kill the deer (or kill it right away) above the lungs (or top of the lung) and below the spine
Click to expand...
No he is saying such a spot does not exist and he is correct. The mythical "no man's land" is in fact above the spinal cord and through the back straps.
 
BTaylor said:
No he is saying such a spot does not exist and he is correct. The mythical "no man's land" is in fact above the spinal cord and through the back straps.
Click to expand...
what I meant was that hitting the backstraps is often a deer that lives, or dies days later. grazing the top. just above the spine or below the spine is a shot that most oftens makes a deer often unrecoverable. hiting the vitals to me is two clean lungs/heart.
 
I'm pretty sure it's been covered here, but aim for the off-side elbow. That will typically give you the best angle you can get through the vitals. It's a hard thing to remember sometimes in the heat of the moment, but entry point isn't near as important as exit point, IMO.
 
jiwhite86 said:
I'm pretty sure it's been covered here, but aim for the off-side elbow. That will typically give you the best angle you can get through the vitals. It's a hard thing to remember sometimes in the heat of the moment, but entry point isn't near as important as exit point, IMO.
Click to expand...
Agreed. We are shooting for the exit. But the exit point dictates the aiming (entry) point.
 
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