Yeah, no chit...… I hear you ………

Like was said……there’s no certainty to evaluating a hit like this. It may happen this way or that way 99% of the time….but there’s always exceptions. Bone is a leg hit on the vast majority of tracks….but then there’s that one…..Deer that hit the ground and then get up and run off are back-slaps the vast majority of the time…..but then there’s that one that’s not….You never know for sure. All you can do is try and track it and see what happens.

Congrats again!

Thanks guys, I'm very excited to have recovered this deer.

Marsh - as the crow flies he was about 125 yards from the hit site. The thing is he was not found in the direction that he ran. Ultimately he may have covered about 300 yards but he only bled for 75 of that or so.

Definitely a rib bone from the exit wound as the legs were not injured. I also found a decent sized piece of flesh that looked like the flank meat from the exit hole right near the shot site today.

Turns out the entry point was high on the chest where it joins the neck. This makes sense as I waited until be put his head down to shoot. Entry on his right front cheat/neck, exit low to mid body at the back of the ribs on his left side.

As shown in the picture the exit wound in decent sized. I really can't believe how little blood was found and I can't believe how far he went after seeing the shot. It really was a pretty good shot all told.

CNC I want to give you some credit here on this deer. This is my first lease and I was able to put in two small plots on the property using advice from your long thread. Although I don't have equipment for the mowing step my plots look incredible. Just using a backpack sprayer and a combination of oats, wheat and rye, with brassicas and winter peas has been drawing in so many deer. I've also seen multiple turkeys in the plots as well as watching a bobcat hunting mice in the log piles around the edge.

Great job Razor. Sounds like you hit just where you wanted to. It's just amazing what these animals can do after being shot. So you are really sure it wasn't a leg bone? J/K.
Congrats again on a dang fine buck.

Moral of the story, they don't always bleed like they are supposed to and sometimes go a lot farther than you would think possible. If I could post pics I would share a pic of an 8 point Idaho Mike and Lucy found for me 3 years a go. I only had a narrow shooting lane (road) and 200+ yard shot. At the shot the deer ran in to a 4 year old cutover that had so many briars it was like fighting a pack of angry bobcats, I was only able to find 4 specks of blood and then no more. It got dark on me so I called Mike and him, his wife and Lucy met me a couple hours later. As we started down the road in the dark to where I had left my orange hat hanging on a bush I turned my headlight on. Mike asked me to turn it off and said we would just use his dim one. We came to my hat in a few minutes and I asked Mike if we needed to call Lucy in and show her the trail as she had disappeared when using his dim light. Mike "No she has been sitting with your deer 206yds straight that way for the last 5 minutes". We crawled and clawed our way to her and sure enough she was sitting right beside him. The deer was shot right thru the heart but fat apparently was clogging up the exit holes, this was with a 300wsm and Barnes 165grain TTSX so there was a big exit hole but just no blood to follow. This is the only time I have ever called in a dog but I felt really good about the shot and it was a pretty nice deer. I won't hesitate to call for a dog if I ever need one again.

Oh Yea Congratulations!!!

Did Idaho Mike get moved to Alabama?

I don't know I thought he was living here when he came and found my deer 3 years a go.

Congrats. Way to stick with it.

So glad you didn't give up and you found your deer.

Congrats on an awesome buck.

Congrats on getting him

Congrats. Great buck!

Idaho Mike has bought some land in Ga last I heard he was planning to sell his house in Chicago and move down south.

Congrats on a successful hunt and kill. My hat is really off to you for making an honest dedicated effort to recover your kill. I think. No, I know, that is something lacking this newer generation of hunters. If it aint easy, they just quit and blame it on something else. Again, so glad that you found your deer.

Congrats on recovery. Fine Buck.

This would have been an easy track for a dog and saved the meat for the hunter. It's a shame you couldn't find anyone to come out with a dog. I called somebody last year and they wouldn't come out either. Congrats on finding the deer.

Deer do crazy things when shot. I tracked one a few years ago with my dog and hunter saw the deer bouncing through sage field. We searched that huge sage field to no avail and I decided to take my dog around the edge of that field and she hit on blood about 40 yards from where the initial shot was. Deer went into sage and made a 180 degree turn and went back the way he came.

Congrats

Congrats!

Dead deer