To try and make a long story a little shorter, I’ll just wrap it up and say we never found this deer. When I came back down off the hill the hunter was there waiting on me with another searcher. We all spread out and grid searched the area for another hour or two before calling it off. I really believe that this was just another shoulder shot with a Rage expandable. At best he may have gotten one lung.
With a situation like this where the arrow is broken off a few inches up from the broadhead, you’ve likely either hit the front side shoulder or passed through and hit the off-side shoulder. Had the arrow passed through and hit the offside shoulder then this deer would not have went far before piling up. I still believe that was him we jumped the night before though. I wish I could go back now and convince the hunter to wait instead going after him that night. There’s a chance he would have still been there in that first bed.
One cool thing that did happen while we were searching is that we found 7 sheds. I wish I would have thought to have taken a pic of them for the story but it just didn’t cross my mind at the time. They were all just basket rack sheds but they were scattered all over the hillside we were searching. I told them after they burn in the spring we need to walk around with Shelby and do some shed hunting.
There wasn’t a whole lot to the second track. It was dang near the exact same hit……shoulder shot with a Rage expandable. The hunter only got 4-5 inches of penetration and the arrow fell out at about 50-60 yards. The blades of the broadhead were bent up where it had likely hit bone. Otis tracked it without any issues at all before we called it off after 900 yards. It was odd how the exact same hit was giving him such fits on the track prior but on this one he never missed a beat. I still think it was likely to two different scent lines that was confusing him....I'm just not sure though. Like the saying goes “It just be like that sometimes.”
I’ll say it again fellas…..If you’re gonna use these expandable broadheads then drop your point of aim back a little and don’t flirt with hitting that front shoulder. The same thing happens every time……no deer.
