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My Hunting Fail


Savvy Jack

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EDIT: Here is the full tracking video

 

Well I blundered. Just as I pulled the trigger, the buck took a step. Gut/liver shot! I didn't know what all had played out until I reviewed the video.

Winchester 73',

44-40

200gr cast 43-214A, Reloder 7 @ 1,350fps

11-22-2022, 2:04pm

Tuesday at 2:04pm.
Unfortunately I think I made a gut/liver shot. He took a step just as I pulled the trigger and I didn't realize why it was such a sorry shot until I viewed the video. He scooted/walked off the "cliff" (steep slope) and scooted down to a felled tree below. I waited quite a while but I jumped him by accident and he ran another 30 yards into a thicket. I thought I could hear him cross the creek. I backed out and waited till 4:45 to continue the track. I lost the blood trail in the thicket where I last saw him. I didn't, or couldn't find blood crossing the trail or the creek. I did another quick pass in the thicket but found nothing then it got dark. I am afraid the coyotes will finish him off tonight. I am shocked and embarrassed!

However, my plan did come together, my homework for a mountain buck hunt panned out but he was following his nose into the wind and came up from my back left. He was following the pine bench, walking the contour. It was a steady walk and about 10 feet from where I crossed to walk in. I was afraid he would smell my scent (could be why he stopped where he did) so I took the shot early.

Literally about a 25 yard shot. The scope is zeroed in for 265 yards so a 25 yard POA would hit 5 inches high. If I can see correcting during a slow motion video, hit looked center mass but aft of where I wanted it.


11-23-2022, Daybreak

I followed up on the blood trail and followed it to less than 1 foot from the road. I did not find any blood on or across the road nor near the creek. I did find tracks that crossed the creek and leaf disturbance that moved out across the mouth of another drain and up a steep slope. While in the creek searching, a deer blew at me for sever minutes from the area of the trail. Once I got a good ways up the steep slope, I lost all trails and called it a defeat.

I created a very long detailed tracking video but it did not turn out good at all. I made the videos to help me track but when I spliced them all together, the frame stutter is miserable.

 

Full Shot Video

 

Shot Placement Short Clip

 

Full Tracking YouTube Video

 

 

Search Pattern photo, Failed Recovery...no tracking dogs available. I am getting too old for this mountain terrain hunting!

 

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Sometimes it happens.

 

He was standing stock still in the middle of the road. I had a good bead just back of his right shoulder. A measured, afterwards, 100 ft. And just as I pulled the trigger he jumped. I heard the bullet hit. I found a half inch chunk of meat where it made full penetration and took a piece of the other side with it. He ran about 20 yards. I hit him in the panch but I blew his liver up and he bled out real quick.

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I've jumped them up a couple hours after a liver hit. My buddy and I tracked one over a mile on a good blood trail before we found it. That deer stayed low, in thick cover the whole time. 

I have never had a deer go uphill after being hit. They always stayed along hillsides or bailed into a swamp. Always across slope or down.

Sucks to lose one but it does happen.

Good luck,

Slim

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I've tracked a couple for a mile or two, after dark, in some crappy brush.

I carry a couple of good lights, including one that makes blood fluoresce and tagging tape to mark blood pools and specks.

Just the Algonquin Indian in me I guess. 

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 Deer will head for water with that hit. I would have taken a right turn where you lost the blood trail and headed down not up. Blood loss will make them tired and very thirsty.

 

Just my take .after 50 years of hunting  those critters.

 

Best Wishes

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10 hours ago, Texas Jack Black said:

 Deer will head for water with that hit. I would have taken a right turn where you lost the blood trail and headed down not up. Blood loss will make them tired and very thirsty.

 

Just my take .after 50 years of hunting  those critters.

 

Best Wishes

 

A right turn is up stream but I will certainly go look again. It is a real thick area on the far side of which I checked but no signs of activity...but I do plan on searching the creek banks and any other draws with running water again. If he was still alive the next morning, he may venture back down to the creek for water.

However, after further reviewing the video in slow motion, the POI was high back and not so much a center gut shot as previously thought. This would explain the temporary paralysis in the hind quarters and why he may have passed the creek and continued uphill climbs.

Definitely an experience never experienced in 35 years. Never hit one that bad either.

Hit Placement Video Explained

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20 minutes ago, SHOOTIN FOX said:

Always look downhill towards water and watch for a double back path. Usually in the direction of the wound.

 

I am hoping he goes back down to the creek and expires there. I will be able to go back and check mid next week. I was hunting two bucks, an eight and a ten point, but this looks to be a third buck in the same area.

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Good effort SJ, sucks to lose one, been there. It's the not knowing for sure that's irritating. But we make our best effort.

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edited for corrected data!

This is the only deer I have ever lost...and at only 25 yards!! I guess that is why this bothers me so much. I guess that is why I wanted to know so bad what I did wrong so I won't do it again. 

I keep seeing small details that I keep adding to the video clip. It would appear that I did actually try to readjust as the deer moved. This is not just one mistake, but actually a few domino effect mistakes.

Too little too soon followed by too much too late!

 

 

 

 

 

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A few weeks ago we came upon one of the largest mule deer bucks I have ever seen.  Given the terrain, a large canyon within a recovering burn area at 8800 ft with a wind out of the southwest at about 25 mph I/we  did some calculations after ranging the bedded down deer at 610 yards.  The shot was down hill, about 100 feet below to the southeast.  Shooting a Nosler  model 48 in 300 Win Mag, 180 gr Accubond (factory ammo) I felt confident I could make the shot.  With my daughter to my left and my best buddy to my right I found a proper rest, held accordingly given the conditions, controlled my breathing and I even shot in between heartbeats.  I then got very lucky....

 

The deer was bedded down behind a section of downed timber with  the lower half of his body  protected by the down timber.  Now I practice long range shooting but don't recommend it.  I saw the bullet hit the downed timber about 10 inches below my intended point of impact.  At the moment the Accubond exploded into the downed timber both my spotters said the same thing, too low by about a foot!  The last we saw of the deer was it packing the mail heading  southwest and a dead run.  I got lucky, a clean miss and  no more long shots for this western deer hunter.

 

Later on in the hunt I took a respectable mule deer at 110 yards with one shot.  Now that's more like it.  Another North Kaibab adventure.

 

 

Deer 2022 1.jpg

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Hey Jack,

 

Thanks for sharing this...your honesty and transparency are commendable (and fairly rare, I suspect).

 

Truth is (in my experience), there's two types of hunters: a) ones who have botched a shot at some point in their hunting career and b) those that haven't owned up to doing so. Hunt long enough and SOMETHING is gonna go wrong: hunting is an imperfect sport. 

 

We do our utmost to minimize screw-ups in the first place, work hard at recovery when a screw-up does occur, and try to learn the lesson provided afterward. We owe it to the game we pursue to do all three.

 

Proud of you...you're worried about the right things.

 

"Ad"   

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Dad and I lost a huge buck back when I was a teenager. Dropped like a sack of potatoes when hit. But after 5 minutes got up and ran off. At the point of impact there was a little blood and a large tuft of hair.

Tracked it for miles across muddy fields and through small stands of timber. Only got close twice. Both times it was beaded down in heavy brush with no opportunity for a shot. Eventually we lost the light and the trail. Rain that night removed any chance of picking it up the next morning.

 

If the buck died no one ever found any trace of him. Myself and a lot of the kids I went to school with rabbit and squirrel hunted all over the area where we were lost his trail and none of us ever came across a dead deer that fall. 

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Way back when State Troopers we’re required to physically check in at their local Post at the beginning of their shift.

 

Local Trooper on his way to his Post saw a very large buck cross the road.  Same time, same place the trooper saw the same buck every morning.  Trooper said you could set your watch by that buck.  Trooper schduled his vacation for the opening day of deer season and acquired permission from the property owners.  Opening day of deer season that buck was his!
 

The day BEFORE deer season and his vacation he was driving to his post to report in when he was given a call for a vehicle accident.  Accident involved a lady driver, her car and the buck the trooper had plans on bagging the next morning.   Buck was dead.

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1 hour ago, Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001 said:

I have failed to recover 1 , deer that I drew blood on , it still bothers me , to have wasted it 

 

 CB 

 

 

 

This is the only deer I have ever lost...and at only 25 yards!! I guess that is why this bothers me so much. I guess that is why I wanted to know so bad what I did wrong so I won't do it again. 

I keep seeing small details that I keep adding to the video clip. It would appear that I did actually try to readjust as the deer moved. This is not just one mistake, but actually a few domino effect mistakes.

Too little too soon followed by too much too late!

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Head scratcher on the farm this fall.  The Jones Boys were checking their cattle and in our pasture they found a forkhorn buck thrashing around. Look like a wound to the head. They went about their business and came back and the deer was dead. They loaded it up in the bucket of the tractor and dumped it across the fence in the creek edge.   

 

I didn't hear about it for a couple of days.  I went down just to check it out and maybe recover the antlers.   But I found nothing of it.   I later talked with Victor who was more specific as to where they had dropped it.  I went back and walked the creek side of the fence.  I found a few clumps of heir.  But nothing else.  I looked around the area and found nothing. I told Victor and he looked again and nothing.  Dead deer usually don't last long but often leave bone and hair and scraps of hide. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Warden Callaway said:

Head scratcher on the farm this fall.  The Jones Boys were checking their cattle and in our pasture they found a forkhorn buck thrashing around. Look like a wound to the head. They went about their business and came back and the deer was dead. They loaded it up in the bucket of the tractor and dumped it across the fence in the creek edge.   

 

I didn't hear about it for a couple of days.  I went down just to check it out and maybe recover the antlers.   But I found nothing of it.   I later talked with Victor who was more specific as to where they had dropped it.  I went back and walked the creek side of the fence.  I found a few clumps of heir.  But nothing else.  I looked around the area and found nothing. I told Victor and he looked again and nothing.  Dead deer usually don't last long but often leave bone and hair and scraps of hide. 

 

 

 

Maybe whoever shot it tracked it down.

 

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