I was hunting this weekend and I took a shot at a nice 8pt on Sunday afternoon that was 150 yards away. We discovered I hit him in the leg, and were going to call a tracking dog, but none was available. My dad and brother walked around in the woods maybe 200 yards, but didn’t find anything. All we found was some bone, meat, and a few drops of blood in the field. After that, nothing. We left and had intentions of walking a little creek not too far away in the morning, but it’s been raining since then. So now, it looks like our only chance of finding this deer would be to look for buzzards. We do have a lot of coyotes in the area, so I assume they will probably kill him eventually, if they haven’t already. Do any of y’all have a guess at about when you think buzzards will find him and be circling?

That’s gonna be a tough one to recover there. About the only chance was to get a dog on it and hope to bay it up. It likely won’t die immediately from the wound. It’ll be over time as the yotes pick up on his track and he gets wore down on that one front leg. They may catch him close by or they may run him for a mile or two. Keep a watch out for buzzards though as they will definitely pick up on a carcass quickly. I've had them circling deer we've found that weren't even dead yet. The yotes and buzzards will likely have him disposed of within a day if they find it.

I wouldn't count on a leg hit killing a whitetail. I've seen several that only had 3 legs.

What Perch said.

^^^^^x2

There was a three-legged deer that stayed here on my place for several years. He was missing a back leg and it looked like it was a struggle for him just to get around. I still don’t know how he survived as long as he did. Those are extreme exceptions though and not the norm. Two of the most common calls trackers get during gun season are back-whacks and leg hits. There’s no telling how many deer are shot in the leg each year across the state. I had four callers with leg hits just this past weekend. You don’t see chit loads of three-legged deer running around the woods though. You probably have a story about one or two in your lifetime and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of those stories happened before yotes became so prevalent. I’ve seen a good bit of evidence now through tracking that suggests that if you wound a deer really bad….such as blowing off a leg…..the yotes are gonna get after them and do their best to finish them off. There’s about a 1% chance of that deer living with three legs and about a 99% chance of the yotes finishing it off or it eventually dying of complications from the wound…..JMO

I agree with ya CNC. I bet the majority of leg shots don't make it. In the past 25 years I've seen 2 deer that were missing a leg. Both deer were missing front legs on my place. One was a buck that stayed around for 3 years and the other a doe that was around for 2 years.

Alyssa, I have seen buzzards when its warm / hot within an hour of deer being killed and 3 to 7 days later when its cold. They mostly find food by smell. Not sure that it matters but those time periods were mostly observed in the Union Springs vicinity.

I’ve seen a few leg hits now where we track to a bloody bed the next morning with no deer in it…..As Otis picks up the track leading away from the bed we'll find wads of white hair in a line leading away from the bed in the direction the deer ran. I feel pretty confident that the yotes are picking up the wounded smell on the ground and tracking to them like my dogs do. Legs hits leave a lot of scent on the ground and are usually pretty easy for the dogs to follow. When the yotes find the wounded deer in its bed then they attack it. The white hair we’re finding in a line on the ground is where the yotes are biting at the deer’s hind end as it flees. The leg hit we found yesterday had both front legs taken out. It was still alive and the yotes had already pulled it tail off and eaten a chunk out of its hind end.

Thank you. This is helpful because I actually shot this deer in union springs.

You never know about deer, they are some tough critters. We had one shot in upper leg a few years ago. Blood trailed it until we lost blood in a clear cut, never found it. The next year we started getting pictures of a buck with a big knot on his upper leg, it was him. It completely healed, calcified around broken bone and healed. I saw the buck feeding in the exact spot in a greenfield where he was shot.
Appeared healthy, had a bad limp and his rack was the same as the previous year, a pretty good nine point, had a distinct split g2.
I told another member that had never killed a mountable buck about where I saw him.
He killed him soon after that in the same spot. He was chasing a doe. The shoulder on the wounded side had atrophied and had almost no muscle mass. He was 4 1/2 and only weighed 130 lbs. A buck that age on our place normally weighs a minimum of 185.

This is helpful. Although, the deer I shot, I only hit one leg and it wasn’t bleeding at all really. All we found was a few drops in the field. Do you think that would affect how fast coyotes find him or would it be about the same?

It’s hard to say anything for sure in a situation like this….There’s varying degrees of damage with shots like these from grazing hits to completely blown up legs. If you’ve found bone though then there’s a good chance that you’ve disabled him in that leg.

It doesn’t stand a good chance in that area though from my experience…..There is so much prime managed understory on a large scale around there that it produces a very vibrant ecosystem. That’s why there’s so many deer. However, there’s a yin and yang to so much quality habitat….along with a vibrant prey population comes a vibrant predator population too. Lots of food for them to survive on with all that prime understory….. It’s very common for the deer we find in that area that are left over night to already be partially eaten the next morning. We find them eaten in other less prime areas too but it almost seems to be a given in the really good habitat areas. I can think of numerous ones that we’ve found around there and many have been eaten on the next morning…It’s prevalent enough to be a pretty obvious pattern….…I attribute it to a high yote density.

This was a back leg hit from that general area of the world….…..This was around 9:30 the next morning.

How do you know you shot him in the leg? I tracked and killed one a friend shot in the foot one time. He bedded up and just stayed laying down until we went back and got a gun and shot him again. Had no clue it was a foot hit

I heard whar sounded like 30 - 50 yotes sound up within about 400 yards of my stand on Halloween night. I clearly could hear 6-8 packs of yotes howling and running thru woods. I was on a plauteau that had 4 headwaters begining spring drainages running away. In each drain yotes were running. It truly was jaw dropping at sound and to be honest spooky as hell. I agree there is a huge yote pop in Union Springs area.

So what general area do yall hunt? We hunt between inverness and bethel church.

My wife videoed it while Alyssa shot.

We hunt in Peachburg.

I hunt just to your north headed back toward town..…….I’ve tracked deer on a chit load of properties around there for folks though. I’ve been on most of the properties between Union Springs to Hurtsboro and around Midway and Three Notch over to Comer.. I’ve even tracked one across a fairway of the country club golf course in Union Springs.




Bone is usually a key indicator of a leg hit…..If you ever find bone then its about a 95% chance of being a leg hit of some kind. Another common theme will leg hits is that the deer will often times crash down onto their chest like you’ve kicked a chair leg out from under someone. It’s caused by the deer having their weight on that leg and having it suddenly taken out. Their front end drops out from under them and their chest hits the ground before they can catch themselves. You’ll also often hear people report seeing the deer carrying a leg as it runs off. Sometimes they put out a lot of blood and sometimes very little.