Notice the stomach being low. Also notice how the deers right leg is out of the way, but his left leg on the far side could be covering up some of his vitals (if he was reversed).
Don't aim for the stomach or intestines! The odor is nearly unbearable when field dressing a gut shot deer that has sat overnight!
The Zone is above the vitals. You won't kill the deer even if your arrows goes right through.
The spinal cord is up there a little higher. Consider yourself very lucky if you've missed the vitals by that much and hit the spine! Count your blessings!
You can sever any of these arteries and be successful! They are very thin and not a good idea to aim for, but sometimes if your shot is really bad you'll get lucky and hit an artery. Count your blessings!
I have included this photo so you can see where the hair changes color from brown to white. Sometimes you'll find both brown and white hair on the ground during tracking. If you were in a tree and your angle was downward at the deer and you find white hair on your arrow, this is NOT a good sign. Your angle was low, however you could have hit an artery, keep on looking! If you were on the ground level and shot the deer and had both brown and white hairs, you have a 1/2 chance of finding your deer. You could have nicked both lungs, or maybe nicked the heart and/or an artery.
Hit any of this area and you'll enjoy a successful hunt!
Those are deer lungs. Graphic, but here to make a point. I passed on
2 deer because I didn't have the perfect shot....
Don't get me wrong, I had a shot.... just not
a perfect one. Had I taken one, I could still be out tracking.
This large doe showed up
15 minutes later and gave me the perfect shot! She went
30 yards and fell over instantly. ~elmerFudd
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If you are here, maybe you're just learning, or maybe you shot a deer that you did not find quickly. It happens to all of us. I do not know a hunter that is perfect. None of us are perfect all the time year after year. We practice and practice and do the best we can, and still can have unfortunate results from time to time. It is an awful feeling to know that there is an animal out there suffering because of your actions. This unfortunately, is also a part of hunting. You have to take the good with the bad with everything in life.
At the same time, DON'T BE CARELESS in your shot choice! You have plenty of time in the field to think over what you'll do when different situations arise. You always should strive for your best, and do your best to find your deer. Get help from friends (dogs can help too), and search as much as you can. You owe this to your sport.
Here are some photos that I've had on my harddrive for a few years now. They are here to show you different views of a whitetails anatomy. I do not remember where I got any of them. If you made these graphics, let me know and I will give you ALL the credit for your hard work.
Prepare beforehand:
Things to consider as you are waiting for your chance:
Mark yardages (If you ask me, a range finder is a necessity for a bowhunter!) Just a few yards mis-judged by you, can create hours and hours of tracking (by a higher or a lower shot than you wanted). A range finder pinpoints yardages. Hills and valleys can be deceiving if you judge with the eye alone while sitting up in a tree.
Clear Lanes:
A main reason for a bowhunter to miss is little sticks in the way of your lanes. As the dusk comes, little sticks become harder to see and when that deer comes into range, the stick can re-direct your arrow to miss or hit a spot on the deer you are not aiming for.
The angle of your shot:
A sideways shot is best, a quartering-away shot is second best. These 2 are quite good. If the deer is walking toward you (quartering toward you) there is a good chance you won't get good penetration though the tough shoulder bone of the deer. This is a bad shot. A downward shot is bad as well. If a deer is right under your stand, it is not a good idea to shoot. You can hit 1 lung at best. The heart is too risky a target from downward. Even if you know exactly where the heart is your arrow will change direction when it hits into a rib and will deflect to a different angle inside the deer. Be wise in your shot selection.
Buck Fever:
Buck fever is when you get "the shakes" as you're watching a deer come your way. It happens to me even when I see a little doe! I love the feeling, and the day it goes away is the day I retire my bow! When I have buck fever I am not in my right mind 100%. I've done some silly things over the years. The first shot I ever took at a deer with my bow I don't think I was even looking through my peep site hahaha, I just fired off an arrow and missed by feet! I've also banged my bow into my stand creating a noise so they all run away, I've dropped arrows, dropped my release, even dropped my bow to the ground from 20' up. I will NOT shoot when I cannot hold my bow perfectly still. I take a deep breath, exhale, think clearly for a few seconds, aim, hold still and fire. Then I can enjoy my success. Anything less than the above and I create a long long search and probably will never find my deer.
Ready To Go:
That's about it! Know your lanes, mark your distances, watch for good angles, and make a clean shot! You'll have a lot of success! Here are some experiences that I've had with shot placement.
Double lung shot - The deer will run 30-60 yards and expire within minutes. You'll either see it fall or hear it.
Heart Shot - The deer will run 50-100 yards with a LOT of blood and will expire within minutes.
Spine - The deer will not be able to get away but will flail and try to drag himself/herself away. You'll have to shoot again.
Gut Shot - Will not leave a blood trail. Your arrow should have green gunk on it. The deer will die after many hours. If you know you gut shot a deer, WAIT A LONG TIME and if you do not push the deer away (by searching too soon or making too much noise getting out of the woods), you may get lucky and find it if it did not run too too far. Also, bring a closepin for your nose because you will be grossed out by the stench as you field dress your deer.
One Lung Shot - The wounded deer can run very very far with 1 good lung! You may find it, you may not. It died though.
Artery Shot - You could miss all the vital organs but sever a main artery somewhere. The blood trail will be pretty good and pretty long but you will find your deer. Consider youself very lucky!
Liver - I do not know. I've never shot a deer in the liver. I believe it will die quickly and you will find your deer.
The Zone - There is a zone on the whitetail that is high (but still under the spine) and a little back where you can think you've made a kill shot and get a nice long blood trail, but you've missed the vitals and the deer will clot up and live.
Let the above only serve as approximations. There are many variations of what could happen. Every shot is different. You could nick a lung and hit an artery, only nick the heart, hit the liver and the stomach, etc.... You may not see where the arrow went into the deer at all. You may retrieve some/most of your arrow with some of it broken. You have to be your own detective. Measure the length and approximate where your shot went for easier tracking. Find hair and notice the color, brown or white. This can tell you a lot. Notice the shade of the blood color. This can also tell you a lot.
Know that your deer is out there, either dead, badly hurt and going to die, hurt but will recover after some time, or only slightly wounded and will live. It is up to you to determine what happened based on the evidence you have. You can figure a lot out most of the time and act accordingly.
The terrain may also be hard tracking. There is a place I bowhunt that is full of thickets and swamps. It will take me an hour to track blood a short ways thru the thickets and down a side hill into the swampy crick. A wounded deer will usually not run into the open hardwoods. They will look for cover and hide to lay and figure out what happened to them.
A deer has quite a large kill-zone and at the same time its blood clots very very fast! I know many hunters that start out with an obvious and easy blood trail, then it eventually dries up into 1 drop every 15 or 20 feet. I don't enjoy looking on my hands and knees in a field with a flashlight for dripplets of blood. But, if it was a kill shot, the deer is dead waiting to be found, if it is a bad shot the deer lived.
Every senerio is different.
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