Let's see those blood trails!

[cliffordBRT]

Guidelines: Tell us your bow setup, arrow setup, shot placement, post pictures of the blood trail, and tell the story. Goal is for people to see the results of different setups. Also, who doesn't love sharing hunting pictures.

Bow setup: 63# (maxed out for the bow: Diamond SB-1), 29.5" draw length.
Arrow: 28.5", 350 spine, 385 gr, Montec G5 broadhead
Shot Placement: Entry-upper half of deer around the top of the lung. Exit-behind the opposite shoulder. Full pass-through

I was posted about halfway up a hill looking down the slope. The deer snuck up behind me walking downhill. The deer was about 10 yards away. I put my 20 yard pin and the bottom of his belly and shot. I heard the thwack and he ran about 50 yards across the hill, stopped, collapsed and rolled another 50 yards down the hill. It was very cool to watch.

 

[Exhumis]

I'll include two, one successful recovery and one not as a cautionary tale.
Both were shot with a mathews htr, 70# @ 30" draw, 32" 300 spine bloodsport bloodhunter arrows with one slight difference: top pic doe was shot and recovered with a G5 Montec. Bottom pics buck was shot with a Rage mechanical broadhead and not recovered.
Doe had just crossed a stream and was walking towards me, took a step to her right and began walking from my right to left. She stopped again and began walking toward me, then took a step to her left and presented broadside. I had already come to full draw and right as I loosed the arrow she took a step away from me which turned my shot to slightly angling away. Arrow passed through a rib, rear of her right lung and continued on through the front of her left lung and out another rib and into the dirt in front of her so a through and through. She ran about a hundred yards and expired. I waited 45 minutes to start tracking. This shot was about 25 yards.
This buck was shot with the same setup except a Rage mechanical broadhead was used. I was contemplating life when I heard what sounded like a bar fight coming from my rear about 100 yards off. I grabbed my bow and had just enough time to get settled when a doe came crashing into the clearing I was sitting off of with a basket 8 in hot pursuit, from behind me and to my left. I blew at him with my call as they ran by and he didn't stop. I yelled HEY at the top of my lungs and he came to a screeching halt, throwing up dirt everywhere. Again I was at full draw so when he stopped I released. Shot was 38 yards. I use lumenoks so I saw where the shot hit him, right behind his right shoulder. Heard a thump and he donkey kicked and took off like a scalded cat. I waited for a bit mostly cuz I was shaking, grabbed my crap and climbed down. I got to where I shot him and there was no blood. I thought huh that's weird never had that issue. I searched around and found frothy blood but sporadic. At this point it started to rain and it was getting dark. 35 minutes had passed. I kept tracking and kept finding drops of blood. I tracked that buck for 2 hours across 30 acres of land and never found him after he hopped a fence into a pasture. In hindsight I know now I either pushed him or he was so full of adrenaline and testosterone he ran into the next county. The blood trail wasn't strong enough I feel. I should have let him bed down and expire as the spot where he jumped the fence was saturated both where he launched from and where he landed. Just some tales from the woods.
To recap, the first pic is with a fixed broadhead, last two are with mechanical. I'm in no way bagging on mechanicals. More pointing out the different blood trails so other will see if you don't have a ton of blood you may want to wait longer.

 

[Stags]

Thank you @Exhumis for sharing both stories. It is truly heart wrenching to learn the lesson of not pushing. I have had an experience similar, where the post-shot behavior of the deer seemed good (donkey kicked, panic-ran with tail down, etc), but because I pushed within 30 min, after 2 days of recovery attempts i didn't find the deer.

I wish I had a photo to share, but what sticks out the most was I was getting really consistent but small blood (about the size of your second picture) every 12 inches. Then I found a big clot, and the whole blood trail stretched out to 5 10 yards between single drops. I knew I was in for a rough time after that.

 

[SEPA@73]

The discipline required post shot is the toughest part to master. We all learned how to sight in a bow, hang a stand and hopefully how to be safe. We've all been told don't push it. It'll still be dead in the morning.

But for some reason, the discipline to just walk to your vehicle has to be a RAW lesson learned on your own.

For me, its about seeing the deer go down, hearing the deer go down or finding my arrow to inspect. If one of those don't happen, I wait atleast an hour to check for blood assuming the shot looked good. And even then I may only go about 30 yards and back out again for the night.

I love it when a friend is all amped up and asks what should I do? Its almost always the same answer. Go home and look in the morning! Because if you're asking, it means something just didn't feel quite right!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[Carter6e]

As a new hunter who has yet to get a shot opportunity on a deer it’s good to hear both sides of a success and failure and see the types of blood trails. Will help me in the future to fight the urge to go see too soon and potentially screw up.

 

[Weldabeast]

As a new hunter who has yet to get a shot opportunity on a deer it’s good to hear both sides of a success and failure and see the types of blood trails. Will help me in the future to fight the urge to go see too soon and potentially screw up.

 

[dalton916]

I’ve been hunting deer 45+ years and bow hunting for 28 years and I’ve followed a LOT of blood trials. Before this year I would have wholeheartedly agreed with the discipline after the shot comments and laid out a if/then scenario list, but I’m beginning to think this Ranch Fairy fellow is a wise one. Initially I watched one of his videos to get some info on an EZV to help decide if I wanted one. He was a bit over the top for my liking, but the info was good.

Then I got to watching his heavy arrow stuff since I’m a heavy arrow guy myself. In the midst of all this I saw where he was recommending shot placement. At first I thought it was awful risky, but then I got to thinking about the first deer I killed with a 2 blade broadhead. She was quartering to and I pulled the shot into the front of the shoulder. Damn near bowled her over and she didn’t go 50 yards. I remember thinking that I got a lucky break.

Then I got thinking about the deer I killed that died within sight and every one of them were shot where he recommends. So I went back and watched more of his stuff and amazingly now the formerly over the top stuff doesn’t bother me and I’m of the belief that this guy deserves to be heard, lol.

Moral of the story? Fret not about being inexperienced because a) you’re never too old or experience to learn something and b) you’re living in an age where there’s so much information available that I truly hope young guys and older guys just getting into hunting embrace that and not take it for granted.

 

[dalton916]

And c) Ranch Fairy has got it going on.

 

[Carter6e]

That was a strange watch but once you get past the strange talk and such it’s super enlightening and informative.

 

[dougell]

What he posts is not wrong but there is a difference between shooting hogs at a feeder and deer that can show up anywhere.I was a committee for a managed hunt for several years.During that time,I had the opportunity to shoot piles of deer and I was also on a committee that got called out to recover wounded deer.I've been on hundreds of blood trails and have had the opportunity to kill boat loads of deer.I've seen deer shot with every broadhead and arrow combo and I agree with him for the most part.I see no advanatage to any mechanical and many disadvantages.On average,my records show that deer run farther on average when hit with a big mechanical,especially if they're gut shot because it's obvious to the deer that something bad just happened.That isn't always the case when you stick a sharp fixed head through them.A heavier arrow with more FOC with always penetrate better but when it comes to deer,I like to strike a balance between having enough momentum and having a fairly flat trajectory.I shoot a 415gr arrow with about 15% foc and a 100gr slick trick standard.My bow is quiet and tuned to perfection so it's shooting lazer beams.Without that,nothing else matters and screwing a mechanical onto a wobbly arrow just makes the situation that much worse.To date out of the past 60+ deer I've shot with this combo,I haven't had a single deer run out of sight except for two that were hit too far back and never didn't have to pull my arrow out of the dirt.I had my 14 year old son shooting a lighter arrow with 100gr 2bladed vioper tricks and he's shot completely through the last dozen deer he's killed.He killed 4 deer with that tiny BH last year and none made it more than 50 yards,including one that he hit in the liver.I like having one pin at 30 yards because you just never know exactly where that deer will show up and I don't want to think about when the time comes.