Father hit a buck need opinions?


bghunter777

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Ok i will make this as short as possible. My dad is using a crossbow this year and shot a buck this morning around 1130 am. My father was hunting on the ground the buck was 30 yards and he shot him with his 40 yard crosshair. according to him the hit was high right behind the shoulder with a loud smack sound. The arrow broke off about 15 inches leading him to believe it was the off side shoulder. My father waited until 1 pm and found dark red blood but not alot. He trailed the deer for about 150 yards with a sparse blood trail. He came to an area the buck was beaded there was not a huge amount of blood but what was there was dark red!

He left the area i am going to help him look in the morning. What are your thoughts on what happened? should the deer be dead? any other info you would like to include?

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If he hit the other side shoulder...he should have went through lungs...in that case should have good blood and the deer shouldn't have went too far.

Best guess...he hit higher than he thought or a little further forward? Hard to say really...I'd would bet he'd be dead if shot through the lungs though. Usally within 100 yards! :(

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Yes, I believe the deer will be found dead. The sparse blood is only due to a high shot. That deer was bleeding plenty more internally, and still finding some after tracking him that far is a good sign.

I also think you were really wise to back out until morning.

Can't wait to see the pictures. :)

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Hopefully you're able to find him... I shot a doe a couple weeks ago that bedded down twice within 20 yards of each other... had dark red blood in both beds. I shot her a little back but hit liver and a bit in the stomach. We eventually found her still alive bedded about 30 yards from those two beds in some pretty thick cover. I had to put another arrow in to finish her off. Problem is if he hit him high, the blood trail will be pretty thin. Take your time and mark your trail.

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I'm going to be the NEGATIVE one (I do hope that you find him). I have seen deer hit high in the shoulder area where the arrow enters on side of the shoulder blade and embeds in the opposite shoulder blade. THIS CAN BE DONE WITHOUT HITTING THE LUNGS OR SPINE. Very little blood will be found with this type of hit. If this is the case he will live.

I hope that I am wrong and that you find him.

good luck to all

the dog

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I was not familiar with the farm my father was hunting. One thing i found out though is it was very thick I was on my hands and knees crawling getting cut up for prob 2/3rds of the search. We did not recover the buck I searched for about 3 hours and my dad looked for about 6. I do not know if the deer will live or not. I would like to say we covered everywhere but this land is just a maze of scrub trees and thorns with no blood it was very difficult searching.

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I was not familiar with the farm my father was hunting. One thing i found out though is it was very thick I was on my hands and knees crawling getting cut up for prob 2/3rds of the search. We did not recover the buck I searched for about 3 hours and my dad looked for about 6. I do not know if the deer will live or not. I would like to say we covered everywhere but this land is just a maze of scrub trees and thorns with no blood it was very difficult searching.

sounds like the old overgrown cow pasture I had to search for my doe in a couple weeks ago... we ended up finding her in one of the bottoms where two hills come together... forms sort of a ravine. Check out the lower areas.

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