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Shot a Buck at < 10 yards with a Slug - and I hit shoulder... and he ran off is still alive. (Question)

Thanks for the reply guys.

Haven't heard from anyone that they've seen him - nor has he shown up on my trail cam.

There is another 8 pointer that's quite nice to look at showing up, but I'm not sure if it's the "right" thing to do to hunt him knowing that the buck I wounded is dead.
 
Came to SHcom a few years back with a similar issue, likely a single-lung hit on a doe, got bumped during track (didn’t wait long enough before we started tracking), found hella blood the next day but by all signs, the deer was long gone from anywhere we had permission to track (all neighbors within a mile or so radius). Felt like crap, thought about punching tag as a punishment to myself for screwing the shot up, property owner and SH users all made me get back in tree the very next weekend and though I didn’t shoot anything else that year, I saw a lot of good deer. Two years ago, backstrapped a doe with a pass-through, she trickled blood for 400 yards and several hours, tracked her well into the next day, ended up finding a mildly bloody bed in the middle of a cornfield where I assume she let her “flesh wound” heal, no blood trace of her anywhere after that, no pics or sightings at neighbors…
A week later she was out in the alfalfa, a little hunched and wobbly but keeping up with other does without issue. Scarring visible right over her lungs. I pledged to shoot her if she came under my tree, but I think she is still alive to this day. Saw what I think was her this summer with a fresh set of twins.
Nature balances itself, despite how crappy these instances make us feel. I think you should get right back into a tree and shoot the first, next, any buck that makes you happy, same guy or not. Don’t let it hold you back from moving forward.
 
that's too bad about your buck, I'd like to share an experience I had several yrs ago. I arrowed a fairly large mature buck late in the season, we hung the deer for a few days prior to butchering and when we commenced to cutting the deer up it was noted that the ribs on both sides of the deer appeared to have been broken and healed. Under the tissue on one side there was a lump of encapsulated tissue and when we cut into it there was a lead slug flattened like a pancake.
We couldn't believe the deer had survived , the location was right where it should have been (I can imagine the hunters reaction to the deer escaping) , the injury appeared to have been several yrs earlier.
With any luck maybe he survived.
Good luck.
 
Thanks for the post.

I haven't seen him on my trail cams - so he's either dead by another hunter (or me), or spooked so badly he's found another safe area.
 
It sounds like you hit him low, beneath the lungs and behind the heart. Probably did him no favors but he may be fine. Listen, there are a million ways a deer can get killed,cars, fences,(the worse imo) coyotes, dogs, other deer, cliffs, and people. We don’t want it to happen but it does and that deer was gonna die for sure of something from the day he was born. It may bother you but don’t let it stop you. Would you quit driving period if you hit one in your truck? Intentionally or not the deer would be just as dead. Learn from what happened and next time if one doesn’t drop in sight give him 30 min before even getting down and looking, if you bump him leave the area immediately and wait 6 hours before looking again. Do not repeataly bump a wounded deer, that’s the best way in the world to lose it unnecessarily.
 
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