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oldmanelrod

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Learned a valuable lesson on AEDC Quota hunt today. Around 2:30 had a nice wide racked, 8 pt buck walk to my stand. I was in thick woods and he was only 15 yds away when I shot. No limbs in the way. I missed and he looped off. How could I miss? He was so close, my scope was on target out 75 yds, he was hit by a 12 ga 300 grain Hornady SST slug…no way I missed but I did. No limbs broken off, no buck fever, I had even taken my time and waited for the cross hairs to center on the heart lung shot. By 3:15 and day light quickly fading I had to come down and look for sign but there were so many leafs on the ground and no sign. Right when I was about to quit I saw two finger nail size blood drops and only two….no blood trail. I slowly walked the route I saw him run and after 75 yds there he was.
Lesson learned is you owe it to yourself and the deer to come down early and look around. Some times that miss is a hit. You
IMG_5799.jpeg
never know what you might see.
 
Sorry wrong page
oldmanelrod said:
Learned a valuable lesson on AEDC Quota hunt today. Around 2:30 had a nice wide racked, 8 pt buck walk to my stand. I was in thick woods and he was only 15 yds away when I shot. No limbs in the way. I missed and he looped off. How could I miss? He was so close, my scope was on target out 75 yds, he was hit by a 12 ga 300 grain Hornady SST slug…no way I missed but I did. No limbs broken off, no buck fever, I had even taken my time and waited for the cross hairs to center on the heart lung shot. By 3:15 and day light quickly fading I had to come down and look for sign but there were so many leafs on the ground and no sign. Right when I was about to quit I saw two finger nail size blood drops and only two….no blood trail. I slowly walked the route I saw him run and after 75 yds there he was.
Lesson learned is you owe it to yourself and the deer to come down early and look around. Some times that miss is a hit. You View attachment 202932never know what you might see.
Click to expand...
Sorry wrong page.
 
First of all congrats on filling a tag on a brute!

I guess I might be in the minority because a high percentage of deer I shoot never show immediate signs of being hit and often don't leave much blood on the ground. Even with archery I rarely find a lot of immediate blood and don't always find much at all. But a good hit still kills the deer quickly so they're not far away. I've learned to do exactly what you did by following the animal's path for a couple hundred yards. Sometimes it leads to a good blood trail and sometimes not, but it most generally leads to a dead deer. I do my due diligence in making sure my weapon is true and I'm proficient using it. So outright missing is the least likely scenario when the animal doesn't show sign of injury or blood on the ground.
 
Congrats on the recovery. Very good point and tip. Looking back I do believe that I failed to find shot deer because I didn't know/understand HOW to look. As I got more experience I started to recover deer that I would have probably lost in days gone by.

And I've also learned more about reading the body language of a deer that I've shot (or shot at). There is no set rule, but how they run can be a good indicator of the hit.
 

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