• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

United blood tracks data on fixed blade vs mechanical

S

stone1

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2019
Messages
220
I know everyone is on the FOC and Ranch Fairy craze right now but the data that is being used as a benchmark doesn't even compute.

According to United Blood Trackers (Which other than personal rhetoric, is the only data I've seen documented).

"-Mechanical broad head recovery rate is 41%
-Fixed blade recovery was 46%
-Mechanical pass through rate of 41%
- Fixed blade pass through rate of 74%
-Recovery rate for pass through a was 59%
-non-pass through a was only 21% "

If the recovery rate for a pass-through is 38% higher than a non-pass-through, and a fixed-blade passes-through 33% more than a mechanical; how does it only yield a 5% higher recovery rate?

I'm not disputing whether or not it's beneficial to have a heavier arrow or which broadhead should be used; rather, does this make sense to anyone?
 
I think of it as out of 100
Mechanical recovery rate 41 out of 100
Fixed recovery rate 46 out of 100
That's a total recovery of 87 out of 200

Pass through recovery 59 out of 100
Non pass through recovery 21 out of 100
That's a total recovery of 80 out of 100

So 7% more recovery in the one stay line then the other. Seems like in this data the recovery rates should be the same......
 
Interesting article from a different source

"Mechanical vs. Fixed-Blade: Stratified by broadhead type (including both compound bows and crossbows), hunters using fixed-blade broadheads recovered 82 percent of their deer (874 recovered out of 1,066 hit). Hunters using mechanical broadheads recovered 91 percent of their deer (209 out of 230 hit). Note: Total numbers of deer are lower for mechanicals because they have only been approved for use on the base since 2007, although the majority of deer shot since then were shot with mechanicals."

I think a big key to this trend is not to listen to one source as the end all be all. Another is to challenge the information you are hearing rather than accept it is true.
 
It’s possible that there is missing data or at least data that wasn’t included for us to see. It’s easy to say that I was using broadhead x but it’s not always easy to discern whether there was a pass through or not if the animal or arrow aren’t recovered. I could see why the numbers wouldn’t add up.
 
The largest disparity is recovery rate between pass through and not. Simple - most important thing you can do related to recovering a shot deer, is maximize odds of poking two holes. Once you’ve done that, the difference in type of sharp metal thing going through the deer matter much less.

this isn’t news.
 
IF the UBT data is anywhere near accurate, regardless of which head is used, I don't like those percentages of recovery.
But, a non recovery does not mean lethality.
I guess we really can't determine the statistics of how many deer recover from being shot.
I suspect the number is substantial.
I gotta think that, recovery or not, a pass thru is better in all cases. An animal with an expandable lodged in them will have a lower survival rate.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 
kyler1945 said:
The largest disparity is recovery rate between pass through and not. Simple - most important thing you can do related to recovering a shot deer, is maximize odds of poking two holes. Once you’ve done that, the difference in type of sharp metal thing going through the deer matter much less.

this isn’t news.
Click to expand...


You're looking at a portion of the data that we are considering skewed. What the data is actually showing is the broadhead that is supposed to penetrate more is not resulting in substantially more recovery.

The most important thing you can do is double lung or heart shot your animal. Whether there is 1 hole or 5 doesn't matter. Internal bleeding is still bleeding and will kill.
 
stone1 said:
You're looking at a portion of the data that we are considering skewed. What the data is actually showing is the broadhead that is supposed to penetrate more is not resulting in substantially more recovery.

The most important thing you can do is double lung or heart shot your animal. Whether there is 1 hole or 5 doesn't matter. Internal bleeding is still bleeding and will kill.
Click to expand...
But does it lead to a recovery?

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 
Hopefully this makes more sense. Just because the hunter got a pass through doesn’t mean they found the deer. Yes a fixed blade yields a higher percentage for pass through than a mechanical but doesn’t mean it leads to a found deer. Shot placement is of course more important than getting a pass through. Although I have always used a heavy arrow and fixed blade.
 
Allegheny Tom said:
But does it lead to a recovery?

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Not always. 2 years ago my brother shot a buck perfectly behind the shoulder with a Rage broadhead. Had small amount of blood but never recovered. The next day he checked his trail cam and had a picture of the same buck with an arrow sticking out in what appeared to be the 10 ring. the only thing we can think of was his broadhead didn't expand. Needless to say he doesn't shoot rage anymore.
 
A deer recovery? Or a hunters recovery of the deer? Or does the hunter ever recover if a deer recovers?
Sorry just thought I’d say something funny to follow this post LOL.
 
stone1 said:
You're looking at a portion of the data that we are considering skewed. What the data is actually showing is the broadhead that is supposed to penetrate more is not resulting in substantially more recovery.

The most important thing you can do is double lung or heart shot your animal. Whether there is 1 hole or 5 doesn't matter. Internal bleeding is still bleeding and will kill.
Click to expand...

I thought it went without saying that you want to hit the deer in the chest cavity. If that needs to be spelled out for someone, wrong hobby.

now, working on the assumption that everyone is trying to hit there, yes the two holes do matter. Deer die by two mechanisms bowhunting - hemorrhaging resulting in drop of blood pressure, resulting in loss of flow to brain/cardiac arrest(Lack of oxygen to the brain), and pneumothorax - the inability to inflate the lungs and breathe(lack of oxygen to the brain). Deer die when they don’t get oxygen to their brain and/or their heart stops.

if you get lucky, and you pierce the heart, or sever the major plumbing coming out the top/back of it, one hole will probably do just fine. But if you get unlucky and just get lungs, and don’t sever any big pipes, you’re gonna be in for a long night without that second hole.

i should havebeen more clear - if you intend to shoot a deer in the chest cavity, and succeed, two holes will lead to more recoveries than one, for the reasons outlined above.

You can toss in increased odds of a decent blood trail, but i imagine this doesn’t move the needle as much as we might think. This is anecdote, but I think pretty helpful most times.
 
It’s very important to note that these data come from mostly complicated difficult tracks or marginal hits that led to a blood tracker reference. With such a small sample size, and most well placed or executed shots eliminated, I would be very leery about drawing conclusions from this either way


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
There is so much more to recovery aside from shot placement and broadheads but having the equipment as good as it can be is important, what is missing from all these stats is what happened after the shot because these are the most important factors to recovery, was the deer followed up correctly, IE left to couch up, did follow up happen straight away and push an animal on?.
was there a trained team used before somebody just grid searched or used a dog, slightly different for you guys in the US as I believe you can't use a dog off leash when it's bumped or seen, here in Europe we can and the stats go so much higher in recovery, but the same issues are always present, if the hunter goes in too early and the deer is pushed on the chance goes down without a trained team, shot placement has a bearing on if the deer couches or carries on, find the shot sight and determine where the shot placement is helps dramatically on recovery before follow up.
I agree that having an exit helps no end in recovery but many factors are missed out on why a recovery was made, regards wayne.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top