If there is one skill that all hunters need to learn it is knowing how a deer will react when hit by arrow or bullet. Knowing where the hit is can shorten a long and winding blood trail that may lead to losing the deer.
First and foremost we need to pick a spot and stay with it when shooting a deer but all the deer has to do is move the moment before impact and the shot is off center of where we were aiming.
Here are some things to look for when you have let your arrow release or pulled the trigger. Body movement! Body movement can tell you a lot. The perfect shot that being a double lunger will find the deer running a short distance. The deer can only run as far as there is breath in his lungs, so watch the deer run and listen for the tell tale crashing of the animal. If you are tracking the deer for whatever reason look for pink frothy bubbly blood. A double lung shot deer will not be far from where you shot it.
A deer hit in the spine will almost always drop because it has been paralyzed and a quick follow-up shot is all that is needed to complete the harvest. I do not intentionally try to hit a deer in the spine however because it is just too small of a target to take an ethical shot on.
A deer hit in the guts will hump up on being hit and this is one shot where you need to give the animal time. I recommend four hours at least. If I shoot a deer in the late part of the day and I suspect it is a gut shot I will not return for the deer until the next morning at daybreak. I go by the saying “ when in doubt, back out”. IF the area is saturated in coyotes or rain threatens to spoil the blood trail I will go in sooner but not usually sooner than four hours.
Heart shot deer can last longer than you would think. Case in point I arrowed a deer right in the sweet spot I thought and waited as he stood on a high hill for him to go down. Pretty soon he went down. I still waited a couple of hours and when I went to retrieve the deer he jumped up and ran down the hill. I backed out and waited for daybreak of the next morning. I found the deer in a thicket the next morning and upon inspection of the wound the arrow had taken a piece of the deer’s lower heart. The shot was a heart shot but it was not fatal for quite sometime. There simply are no givens in the sport of deer hunting.
While body language is important so is blood trailing just as important. One trick that I use is to bring toilet paper when blood trailing. Every time I spot a speck of blood I put a piece of toilet paper there. This can really pay off when you look at the trail of paper often pointing in a clear direction or trail to where the deer has gone. Work in circles is you lose a blood trail. Often times you will pick the trail back up again within a couple of wide circles.
The whole idea in taking a deer is to take it as humanely as possible. This should be every hunter’s goal, but sometimes things go wrong and reading the deer’s movement when hit as well as good blood trailing knowledge will help greatly in recovering your deer. Watch the deer, his movements will tell you volumes of what you need to know before recovery.
First and foremost we need to pick a spot and stay with it when shooting a deer but all the deer has to do is move the moment before impact and the shot is off center of where we were aiming.
Here are some things to look for when you have let your arrow release or pulled the trigger. Body movement! Body movement can tell you a lot. The perfect shot that being a double lunger will find the deer running a short distance. The deer can only run as far as there is breath in his lungs, so watch the deer run and listen for the tell tale crashing of the animal. If you are tracking the deer for whatever reason look for pink frothy bubbly blood. A double lung shot deer will not be far from where you shot it.
A deer hit in the spine will almost always drop because it has been paralyzed and a quick follow-up shot is all that is needed to complete the harvest. I do not intentionally try to hit a deer in the spine however because it is just too small of a target to take an ethical shot on.
A deer hit in the guts will hump up on being hit and this is one shot where you need to give the animal time. I recommend four hours at least. If I shoot a deer in the late part of the day and I suspect it is a gut shot I will not return for the deer until the next morning at daybreak. I go by the saying “ when in doubt, back out”. IF the area is saturated in coyotes or rain threatens to spoil the blood trail I will go in sooner but not usually sooner than four hours.
Heart shot deer can last longer than you would think. Case in point I arrowed a deer right in the sweet spot I thought and waited as he stood on a high hill for him to go down. Pretty soon he went down. I still waited a couple of hours and when I went to retrieve the deer he jumped up and ran down the hill. I backed out and waited for daybreak of the next morning. I found the deer in a thicket the next morning and upon inspection of the wound the arrow had taken a piece of the deer’s lower heart. The shot was a heart shot but it was not fatal for quite sometime. There simply are no givens in the sport of deer hunting.
While body language is important so is blood trailing just as important. One trick that I use is to bring toilet paper when blood trailing. Every time I spot a speck of blood I put a piece of toilet paper there. This can really pay off when you look at the trail of paper often pointing in a clear direction or trail to where the deer has gone. Work in circles is you lose a blood trail. Often times you will pick the trail back up again within a couple of wide circles.
The whole idea in taking a deer is to take it as humanely as possible. This should be every hunter’s goal, but sometimes things go wrong and reading the deer’s movement when hit as well as good blood trailing knowledge will help greatly in recovering your deer. Watch the deer, his movements will tell you volumes of what you need to know before recovery.