Liver shot

i helped a friend track a deer he shot the other night and its still bothering me tonight he told me it looked like a double lung shot maybe a hair back but lung he said he shot blew threw the deer and stuck in the ground the deer ran off pouring blood so i came down and he showed me where it was standing and then we where off and for about the first fifty yards there was blood all over he is shooting the two blade rage and then after that it was pretty hit and miss some time steady drops then nothing them find a pile the size of a cd case then nothing then drips some of it looked like it had air in it i just dont under stand where he could of hit my thoughts where liver how long would it take for a deer to die being liver shot he let it go two hr before looking and what would a liver shot blood trail look like the blood didnt look like its was watery he ended up loosing the blood trail we backed out and he was going to go back in the morning but it rained and lost the trail but im still puzzled thanks guys

Maybe the hole eventually plugged with fat, guts, etc? Start a grid pattern, you may get lucky. Any two blade broadhead raises concerns for me. I know tons of guys use them but I prefer a third blade. With that being said, I am not bashing anyones broadhead choice. In fact, I may be switching to the rage three blade next year.
Just my 2 cents.

Couple years ago a deer took a half step and my 2 blade rage cut the diaphram and liver and just caught the tip of the high point of the right lung. He went 65 yards and laid down. Two hours later I see him and he popped up and trotted off. I left him over night and went out the next morning and fould him about 300 yards away, dead! My arrow went clear through him. The blood was dark, with very little bright red blood…in retrospect, I wish I’d waited longer. He was still warm inside at 8 in the morning. I figure he was dead about 3 hours. Sometimes there was 8 to 10 feet between blood spots, and the morning frost had started to thaw and dilute the trail. He will not live if his livers been hit…Good luck…work the grid out, you’ll find him.

Just posted this on another thread. Liver shot they can go a long ways, but will die eventually.

I hit a deer a little far back in ND a few years ago on November 2nd, that I knew was a marginal hit. We let him lay over night despite the blizzard snow coming down. The next morning we jumped him out of a slough we thought he would head for. We ended up actually tracking him over 7.5 miles in the fresh snow and put the second arrow into him just shy of 24 hours later(5 sections South & 2 sections to the East). He was hurting and not full speed but always kept the wind at his back. We got a few chances very close to him numerous times in the thick stuff, but could not get a shot off. Sometimes we got to less then 20 yards away. A few times he jumped in a creek for 100-200 yard stints trying to lose us. Thank god for the fresh snow. He double and triple backed a few times did circles, you name it. I drew back on 3 different bucks that day thinking it could be him. We (Paul and I) never gave up on that buck, he would bed down and we would catch up, I hit liver and gut on my original shot. Coming to the end of the day and knowing he would follow a certain bottom around. With Pauls knowledge of the area and knowing the land, he made the call to cut out of that horse shoe like bottom and intercept him on the other side. He came in looking back behind him at 20 yards broad side, the wind swirled as the buck picked us up, but was too tired to move so he sat there and the 7.5 mile plus, 9 hour chess match was over as the 2nd arrow was true. No food, no drink the entire time chasing this guy down. The sun set before we could even take a pic and it got cold. It gets worse, we had 7.5 miles back to the truck. My legs started to not function about 1.5 miles left. The worse part is, it was not the buck I thought it was. It was the 4×4 not the 5×5. Oh well that is hunting. A hunt I will never forget.

Paul won’t let me.

His horns sit above my Dads Chair at my parents house.

Moral of the Story: Don’t give up, you owe it to that animal to put a second arrow in him at all costs to put him out of his misery.

Awesome post/story Rob, takes a heckuva hunter to be so relentless in the chase, esp. with a stick/string.

I think the big difference with liver shots are exactly where you hit him. Catch him on the front side with a bit of lung and it’s a way different story than hitting him mostly in guts and “maybe” hitting the liver. Lots of guys gut-shoot an animal and hope they hit a chunk of liver. In reality, that deer will act much more like a gut-shot animal, often going incredible distances. I’m not coming down on anyone either, we’ve all made shots that haven’t flown as true as we’d like.

My experience has been that square-on liver shots or liver and lungs are fairly short tracking sessions if left overnight or at least a few hours. In my opinion, it’s yet another reason to use a tracer nock of some sort. There are huge tracking implications based on exactly where you hit that animal. At least for me, I have optimistic vision when it comes to shots. My eyes convince my brain that any questionable shot is better than what it really was. With lighted nocks, the image is burned into your brain, making it easier to do the correct thing out there.

Joel