Lost a ten point

[SaddleUpPartner!]

Welp it happened, I shot a pretty nice 10 point….but I never found it. He was standing probably 15 yards away and I hunt pretty high up. He had no clue I was there, standing slightly quartering to me. I put the shot on his vitals and let it rip. Below is an example of the angle the deer was standing at with a red dot of where my pin was. This IS NOT the buck I shot. Found my arrow, covered in blood one blade deployed and two blades up, found drips of blood, splotches of blood and then drips again. Dried up over 250 yards from the shot location. He went onto the neighbors property and the blood dried up. Never found him. Judging by my shot placement, I would have thought I was good but I’ve been wrong before. My lessons learned so far are switch to fixed blades and go heavy arrow set up. My other lesson is maybe ever so slightly moving my shot placement more forward than I was. Thoughts?

 

[Timberdonkey_059]

You found your arrow, was it a full pass through then or did it back out and you only got an entrance hole?

 

[NMSbowhunter]

Man, I hate to hear this happened to you.

With a heavy (550 to 650) arrow and a single bevel head, if I were going to make that shot, I would bring the aim point forward and try to get an exit just behind the armpit on the offside. I aim for the exit. Ideally, I would wait for a more broadside presentation or quartering away but sometimes you have to take what you get or let them pass.

You may have gotten liver with that hit.

 

[roosterstraw]

Same as above. Fixed blade with a heavier arrow (mine is around 500) and wait for a better shot. If he didn’t know you was there I’d personally wait for a broadside shot. We’ve all been there so don’t beat yourself up, learn from it.

 

[Seekbigger]

I hunt really high as well like 30’ to 35’ and I never attempt to aim low like the dot you show in the picture. Like others said I aim higher on the entrance and shoot for the exit, at 15 yards I would be aiming high mid body and armpit exit, but unfortunately it happens to everyone if they shoot enough animals. What mechanical broad heads were you using?

 

[SaddleUpPartner!]

I hunt really high as well like 30’ to 35’ and I never attempt to aim low like the dot you show in the picture. Like others said I aim higher on the entrance and shoot for the exit, at 15 yards I would be aiming high mid body and armpit exit, but unfortunately it happens to everyone if they shoot enough animals. What mechanical broad heads were you using?

NAP spitfire 100 grain. 400 spine arrow with blazers.

 

[colin.704]

Yeah I didn't recover a 12pt from last Sunday. so far I've gone from thinking about it every 5 seconds down to maybe every minute and a half. learn from it, make the changes you feel are needed and do better next time. me, I'm going up from 444gr total arrow weight to 469 and a chisel tip fixed to cut on contact fixed for the rest of season. next year will run some ranch fairy, iron will 150's after I play with/tune my setup for them

 

[SaddleUpPartner!]

You found your arrow, was it a full pass through then or did it back out and you only got an entrance hole?

That’s what I don’t know, if I had to guess I’d say full pass through because the blazers were soaked.

 

[SaddleUpPartner!]

Yeah I didn't recover a 12pt from last Sunday. so far I've gone from thinking about it every 5 seconds down to maybe every minute and a half. learn from it, make the changes you feel are needed and do better next time

Yeah I’ve done some in depth research on arrow tuning lol. I talked myself off the “I need a new bow!” cliff so I’m just going to focus on my arrow tune and really dial that in.

 

[redsquirrel]

Some honest feedback here. You most likely did not hit where the red dot is. If you hit right there you would have either hit the shoulder and seen him run away with an arrow sticking mostly out or found an arrow with only a little blood and hair on the end. If you missed the shoulder right there you would have gone through all sorts of good stuff, at least one lung, possible some heart, definitely some liver, probably some guts. In that case I would lean towards him being dead pretty quick. That being said a miss just a few inches off from that spot and back opens up a whole world of possibilities involving liver and gut shots and the deer not dying quickly with the potential of being pushed. I don't know how long you waited to track so I can't comment on that possibility. 2 more possibilities are that you hit low and just caught brisket or hit high and caught above the spine where it dips. All of those options after hitting in the shoulder are most likely being that you have blood on the arrow. If you have any pictures of the arrow and pictures of the blood trail it would aid in helping to determine what happened.

Ultimately the shot angle wasn't the best one to take. As much as shooting a heavy arrow has become a new fad I haven't bought into it. I have preferred to shoot an average weight arrow and big mechanical broadheads and stay away from the shoulder. The blood trails and wound channels I have are amazing and I have no reason to switch. I shot magnus stingers for a long time before I had enough KE to reliably shoot these big mechanicals and while I loved them and they worked great they really don't compare.

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. It takes analyzing situations like these to learn from experiences and it happens to everyone at one time or another.

 

[SaddleUpPartner!]

Man, I hate to hear this happened to you.

With a heavy (550 to 650) arrow and a single bevel head, if I were going to make that shot, I would bring the aim point forward and try to get an exit just behind the armpit on the offside. I aim for the exit. Ideally, I would wait for a more broadside presentation or quartering away but sometimes you have to take what you get or let them pass.

You may have gotten liver with that hit.

Yeah I maybe could have waited, he was right in my shot window and he was standing at a known distance so I made the decision.

 

[Seekbigger]

I shoot the 100 grain grim reapers because I have never had one fail to open all 3 blades, even busting through bone and steep angles. Like others said, it happens to everyone, and if your like me you will kick yourself from now on and wander what could I have done different. Keep your chin up and keep trying. God Bless

 

[SaddleUpPartner!]

Some honest feedback here. You most likely did not hit where the red dot is. If you hit right there you would have either hit the shoulder and seen him run away with an arrow sticking mostly out or found an arrow with only a little blood and hair on the end. If you missed the shoulder right there you would have gone through all sorts of good stuff, at least one lung, possible some heart, definitely some liver, probably some guts. In that case I would lean towards him being dead pretty quick. That being said a miss just a few inches off from that spot and back opens up a whole world of possibilities involving liver and gut shots and the deer not dying quickly with the potential of being pushed. I don't know how long you waited to track so I can't comment on that possibility. 2 more possibilities are that you hit low and just caught brisket or hit high and caught above the spine where it dips. All of those options after hitting in the shoulder are most likely being that you have blood on the arrow. If you have any pictures of the arrow and pictures of the blood trail it would aid in helping to determine what happened.

Ultimately the shot angle wasn't the best one to take. As much as shooting a heavy arrow has become a new fad I haven't bought into it. I have preferred to shoot an average weight arrow and big mechanical broadheads and stay away from the shoulder. The blood trails and wound channels I have are amazing and I have no reason to switch. I shot magnus stingers for a long time before I had enough KE to reliably shoot these big mechanicals and while I loved them and they worked great they really don't compare.

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. It takes analyzing situations like these to learn from experiences and it happens to everyone at one time or another.

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I can almost guarantee I didn’t hit where the dot was, that’s just where I aimed. If he dipped far down, maybe high lung like you said, there wasn’t ANY stomach matter and the blood wasn’t super deep red like liver. It was just standard red blood. Two of my blades were up when I found the arrow and one was down. No idea what that means but just an observation. Blood trail was very inconsistent and I waited maybe 30 minutes to get down and look. I didn’t take any pics unfortunately. My first theory was that my blades didn’t fully deploy.

 

[MattMan81]

Do you have any pictures of the blood? Did you appear to have blood spread to both sides? Or just one? What did the arrow look like? Any more pictures to go with it?

 

[DB4x4]

Welp it happened, I shot a pretty nice 10 point….but I never found it. He was standing probably 15 yards away and I hunt pretty high up.

How high are we talking? If you are high and he is close, you need to factor in the angle. I took a shot like this when I was younger and forgot to compensate for steep downward angle. I aimed for entry and not exit, like someone had mentioned previously.

Arrow went in low and out lower, basically bottom of brisket. Didn't really hit anything of significance.

I did the opposite once before too. Close shot, steep angle, hit high... Or so I thought. Initial reaction was, oh no way too high. Deer ran 30 yds and died. High entry, low exit, heart and lungs.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I can almost guarantee I didn’t hit where the dot was, that’s just where I aimed. If he dipped far down, maybe high lung like you said, there wasn’t ANY stomach matter and the blood wasn’t super deep red like liver. It was just standard red blood. Two of my blades were up when I found the arrow and one was down. No idea what that means but just an observation. Blood trail was very inconsistent and I waited maybe 30 minutes to get down and look. I didn’t take any pics unfortunately. My first theory was that my blades didn’t fully deploy.

One thing I have noticed, even in videos where the shot is captured is that more times than not the hit will not be exactly where the shooter said it went. It's a weird phenomenon.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

Some honest feedback here. You most likely did not hit where the red dot is. If you hit right there you would have either hit the shoulder and seen him run away with an arrow sticking mostly out or found an arrow with only a little blood and hair on the end. If you missed the shoulder right there you would have gone through all sorts of good stuff, at least one lung, possible some heart, definitely some liver, probably some guts. In that case I would lean towards him being dead pretty quick. That being said a miss just a few inches off from that spot and back opens up a whole world of possibilities involving liver and gut shots and the deer not dying quickly with the potential of being pushed. I don't know how long you waited to track so I can't comment on that possibility. 2 more possibilities are that you hit low and just caught brisket or hit high and caught above the spine where it dips. All of those options after hitting in the shoulder are most likely being that you have blood on the arrow. If you have any pictures of the arrow and pictures of the blood trail it would aid in helping to determine what happened.

Ultimately the shot angle wasn't the best one to take. As much as shooting a heavy arrow has become a new fad I haven't bought into it. I have preferred to shoot an average weight arrow and big mechanical broadheads and stay away from the shoulder. The blood trails and wound channels I have are amazing and I have no reason to switch. I shot magnus stingers for a long time before I had enough KE to reliably shoot these big mechanicals and while I loved them and they worked great they really don't compare.

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. It takes analyzing situations like these to learn from experiences and it happens to everyone at one time or another.

I think that a lot of what gets misconstrued in the debate over heavy vs lite arrows is that people assume that when people shoot heavy arrows, they are advocating taking any shot they get. I don't think this is the case. I shoot a heavy (I would argue normal weight arrow for draw weight of bow up until the last few decades) arrow so that when things go wrong, I have the best chance of getting enough penetration through the parts of the animal that are in the way of the vitals I intended to hit, that I recover the animal. It is an insurance policy for when things go sideways. It is not 100%, like most things in life.

I have a different perspective. I don't see heavy arrows as a fad. Quite the opposite. If you look back to pre-compound days and also to trad archery of today, most advocate between 9 to 12 grains of arrow weight per pound of draw weight. So a 60 pound bow would be well matched with a 540 to 720 grain arrow with that formula. I see "heavy" arrows as a return to normalcy after a couple of decades of chasing bow speed. With the efficiency of modern bows why not use that advantage to move a little more mass toward, and hopefully through the target?

 

[Plebe]

How high are we talking? If you are high and he is close, you need to factor in the angle. I took a shot like this when I was younger and forgot to compensate for steep downward angle. I aimed for entry and not exit, like someone had mentioned previously.

Arrow went in low and out lower, basically bottom of brisket. Didn't really hit anything of significance.

I did the opposite once before too. Close shot, steep angle, hit high... Or so I thought. Initial reaction was, oh no way too high. Deer ran 30 yds and died. High entry, low exit, heart and lungs.

Yep.

Close steep shots require precision (or possibly some luck). It's amazing how high some shots need to be to get the opposite lung and there isn't much room for error.

 

[DelaWhere_Arrow]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I can almost guarantee I didn’t hit where the dot was, that’s just where I aimed. If he dipped far down, maybe high lung like you said, there wasn’t ANY stomach matter and the blood wasn’t super deep red like liver. It was just standard red blood. Two of my blades were up when I found the arrow and one was down. No idea what that means but just an observation. Blood trail was very inconsistent and I waited maybe 30 minutes to get down and look. I didn’t take any pics unfortunately. My first theory was that my blades didn’t fully deploy.

I think you backstrapped ‘eem. Sounds like the last deer I backstrapped. She’s still alive two years later, as of August.

 

[Plebe]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I can almost guarantee I didn’t hit where the dot was, that’s just where I aimed. If he dipped far down, maybe high lung like you said, there wasn’t ANY stomach matter and the blood wasn’t super deep red like liver. It was just standard red blood. Two of my blades were up when I found the arrow and one was down. No idea what that means but just an observation. Blood trail was very inconsistent and I waited maybe 30 minutes to get down and look. I didn’t take any pics unfortunately. My first theory was that my blades didn’t fully deploy.

Without recovering the animal, it's going to be hard to know wether or not your mechanical failed to deploy blades. I've picked arrows up after pass through shots where blades were folded up, and it was clear on recovery of the deer they deployed effectively.

I've never used NAP Spitfires, but handled one made for crossbow hunting and was surprised at how much work was needed to open the blades. Makes me a bit leery of them, but I know as well some folks have good results with them.