Another Lesson Learned
Posted By
Hunter Kailos
at
11/29/2011 12:00:00 AM
Another Lesson Learned
It’s amazing how after 20 plus years of deer hunting I’m still learning at a rate like I was a green-horned rookie. But that’s what I love the most about the outdoor sports. Whether it’s hunting, fishing, frog gigging or any other silly thing I get myself into, there seems to be a never ending supply of challenges that I face every year. This year has been no exception. On the 19th of November, I learned another important lesson the hard way. At around 9:15am I had a nice little eight point walk in. Now for those who’ve known me for very long, they know that I don’t rate a trophy on the size of the antlers but rather on the experience provided. So as soon as I saw this buck I told my buddy Chase to get ready because I was going to take a shot. After making sure the deer was on camera, I stopped him at about 15 yards broadside. Because the buck was so close I decided to aim for the heart. I settled the pin right behind the front shoulder about a third of the way up and let the arrow fly. The arrow seemed to hit exactly where I was aiming and I waited to see the deer fall within sight. Unfortunately, he just disappeared behind some brush. Being confident of the shot, I thought he just laid down and It would be another easy tracking job.That was not to be the case. Still being confident of the shot, I went straight to where I last saw the deer. There I found two big spots of bright red blood but no deer. As I began looking for a blood trail, I couldn’t find anything other than the two original spots. So I went back and found my arrow and noticed that there wasn’t much blood on it, but what there was, was again bright red. I then walked over to where the deer was hit and didn’t find a single drop of blood until I got back to the last place I saw him.
At this point I got that sick feeling that deer hunters get when they realize something is seriously wrong. It’s that gut instinct that tells you that this is probably not going to end well. Chase needed to get back to work so I decided to back out, take Chase to work, and go home and check out the footage. Although the footage was out of focus, my Lumenok clearly showed that I hit the buck right behind the shoulder, about a third of the way up.Thinking the deer couldn’t have survived that shot, my spirits were raised and I made the decision not to waste anymore time and head back out to recover the deer. It was around 12:30 when I got back to where I found the two big spots of blood. From there I spent a solid hour looking for a blood trail. Not being able to find another drop, I decided to comb the area and just look for the deer. At around 4:00pm I made the painful decision to abandon the search. What happened next you’ll have to see on this Thursday’s show.
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So what lesson did I learn from this unfortunate experience? A broadside shot doesn’t always offer a heart shot. As I reviewed the footage over, and over, and over, trying to figure out how a shot right behind the shoulder a third of the way up wouldn’t result in a clean ethical kill, I noticed something about the position of the front right leg. The front right leg (the one that was closest to me) was positioned back or behind the front left leg (the one on the opposite side of the deer). The position of the front right leg actually covered up the heart causing me to inadvertently aim right behind the heart. This led to a shot that may have clipped the very bottom of the lungs (causing the bright red blood that I found) or the bottom of the liver and maybe some stomach (which could have caused the lack of blood on the arrow). So from this point on, I will not be aiming at the heart. A double lung shot will always be available on a broadside deer and offers the highest percentage shot for a quick recovery.
What do you think?
Jarrod Hedrick
The diagram was taken from its original page: http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/showthread.php?t=349516&goto=newpost
