Lost my first deer

My dream season has ended as quickly as it started I shot a doe at 15 yards last night with a 2 blade Rage, I felt great about the hit the deer stubled hard crashed over a huge logand took off. I waited 30 min and backed out had a barly pop and waited for the boys to show up. We found the broad head at the point of impact with 3 inchs of shaft on it covered in hair blood and greasy fat, but minimal blood at the seen, ten ft from there we found the arrow with a conservitive 14 inches of brite red up the shaft for a total of 15 to 17 inchs of penetration We followed tumbtack size blood drops for 200 yards sometimes going 20 or 30 ft with no blood be for loosing all blood 20 yards before the river that she was belineing for

My question is what do I do? This is my first loss we walked at least 40 acres of woods I NEVER ENTER in atempt to maybe find her but nothing, all totaled I say she only dumped a cup of blood. It has now rained over an inch here All thoughts are welcome!!

Sounds like you gave it a valiant effort Consider the coyotes lucky

Sounds to me like you made the proper effort. Your odds of finding this deer after the rain are virtually impossible. While I know saying this won’t help, everyone loses a deer eventually. It sucks, but it’s part of hunting.

Keep your chin up and try to move forward, we have a lot of season left.

You give it your best effort to find the deer, which it sounds like you did. Sucks but it happens. Best thing to do now is shake it off and get back on the horse, but I would wait for this monsoon to end.

I know I will probably take a lot of heat for this from all the “Rage” users here, but could it have been a malfunction with the broadhead? This is my first year using the Rage, and would like your opinion on whether or not you think the the broadhead failed. Other than that, if you hunt long enough, sooner or later you will have this happen to you. It doesn’t feel good at all, but you did everything you could do to try and recover her.

That sucks Ben.

Yep, you hunt long enough, sooner or later it will happen. The best thing you can do is try to learn from it. Not saying you did anything wrong, but just put it in your pocket and learn something from it. Laslty the most important thing is to get back up in the saddle and forget about it and go back to “Revis Island”.

With this rain I say you are screwed. The only way to find it now is to stumble across it.

A good friend of mine had this happen last year to him. Shot a doe with a 2 blade rage and smoked her and pass through…dead deer is the report i got. Well he had started to track her and there was good blood to start, actually pretty much blood everywhere. By 50 yards there was no blood so to speak, he was looking for specks and she was in the middle of a swamp at this time. Needless to say they started doing circles and found her another 40 yards away piled up. Now i have never heard of this but this is what he told me and i believe him fully and saw the pictures. The exit hole was so big that an uncut portion of the lung slid in and plugged it up, it was a fairly sharp shot down and he caught the top of the right lung and blew out the second so the right cavity filled up instead of draining. After finding her they backtracked a bit a found a little blood on some branches from where her side rubbed against them…that was it. He now shoots 3 blade rages..

Possibly this is what could have happened..idk

Sorry for your loss and its tough to lose one, the key is to get back out there and continue to have confidence in your equipment.

Goodluck

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could it have been a malfunction with the broadhead? This is my first year using the Rage, and would like your opinion on whether or not you think the the broadhead failed.

Me and a few freinds and a few freinds of freinds are done with them, we all switched do mainly to the advertisment seen on hunting shows and between us we have lost 5 or more & 2 nice bucks, these are guys who shoot everynite all summer and have 3to 4 inch groups at 60 yards. Need less to say I didnt get my game and will be sending them in for my money back and just picked up some new Muzzy Mx3s, dont know why I ever left them.
You could kill a deer with a feild point if you hit it right, I DID NOT put a good shot on the deer I guess, but the rage was fully open with no bent blades, not sure what happened but am done with any thing but fixed blades.

My father found a deer he lost last year by following a flock of crows that were circling over it the next day. I don’t know if crows like rain but it might be worth a look.

I hit two baby rabbits last night with the lawn mower and two crows were on them within minutes, and I was still mowing only a few yards away.

IMO, I would hesitate to blame your equipment until you find the deer and find out what happened and why. From what information you gave, it sounds to me that you put a good hit on the deer. The bright Red Blood with 14 to 17″ of penetration sounds like a good hit(lung)to me. Following a blood trail for 200 yards also sounds like the broad head opened her up pretty decent. Losing a blood trail to rain is not the equipments fault. To me, the way it sounds from what you described is you got a single lung hit on her and a deer can go quite some distance with a single lung hit. My guess is that you will find that doe this Fall and she is within 75 yards from where you lost blood. Take a look at her then and then determine what happened. The best bow hunters I know keep an open mind and will then determine what happened or what was at fault at this tme as adrenaline and excitemnt can often skue things in the heat of the moment.

As far as your buddies experience, I have learned not to put in too much faith or believe everything they say when they lose a deer. As you said, hit a deer where you should and a field point can kill them. Also I know quite a few people that can shoot lights out all Summer long, but when you put a deer in front of them, much less a big buck they can’t hit the side of a barn.

Again Ben, sorry to hear it. But this is just my $.02 and in the end as always, I would go/use with what you are comfy with!

Sorry to hear that Ben, sounds like you gave it a great effort in trying to find it! If your area is anything like mine a deer left for more than 12 hours is going to be coyote food.

Keep your head up, atleast you got that one out of the way so the will fall when that bruiser comes in!!

It happens to all of us Ben , Sorry to hear this Get back in stand and one

sorry you lost your deer i didnt read any of the other posts either. however i have heard one to many story about people loosing deer with those rages….

One thing we all need to keep in mind….. it’s simple numbers. If 50 % of the people using broadheads, are shooting Rage 2 blade, everything equal, for every other broadhead that loses a deer, the Rage should also. In other words, you should hear alot more stories about Rage 2’s losing deer, than any other broadhead. Simple law of averages, doesn’t mean the broadhead caused it, could be bad shot, unlucky wound plugging with tallow, tissue, rain, poor blood tracking…etc etc etc…. I am only saying, when something is used ALOT more, there should be more data, issues, success etc etc. BTW, I shoot a fixed blade… have never shot a Rage.

Sorry about the loss.
I hate expandables and everyone here knows it.

Sorry to hear that Ben

Climb back in the stand and whack another

Sorry to hear that you lost one….You gave it a good honest effort, with all the rain, it would be nearly impossible to find her unless you mistakenly stumbled across her.

If you are more confident with the fixed blades, use them!
Climb back up and try again..

Yep, you did all you could do. We’ve all been there.

That’s a bummer man. Like everyone else has mentioned, it happens. Sometimes all you can do is dust yourself off and get back on the horse.

Sickening feeling isn’t it? I can’t speak as an archer, but can speak as a rifle hunter. I can tell you when I lost my first it was a confidence crusher and more importantly a very valuable learning experience that I will always stick with me…think about it as natures reality check…

Greasy hit, little blood-was there any gut on the arrow? Glad to hear you feel bad, but that just means you care and sure seems like you gave it all the effort to recover the animal. We have all been there, or will be if you hunt long enough. If not a gut shot, could have been a high, above the spine muscle hit that caught fat(this is the dreaded “dead air” space shot-really no dead air space in a deer, any shot thru the chest cavity would cause a pneumothorax, hemopneumothorax or hemothorax). LOTS of meat above the spine in the chest area and in most cases, this is a non-lethal wound, barring infection. Even gut shot deer will eventually bed down due to shock.
No broadhead will erase a ill fated shot-learn from it, good luck and get back out there. The coyotes will eat well and are currently thanking you-so nothing really ever goes to waste, just did not turn out the way you wanted it to.

Jeremy

You gave it a reasonable effort and lost the animal. It sucks, but take comfort int he fact that NOTHING in the wild goes to waste. You might not use the animal, but something will…..it will not go unused.

T

Bummer Ben, definitely the worst part about hunting. My first stick and string deer was a liver shot and she only blead for her first 20 yards but dumb luck and a lot of walking helped me stumble over her the next day. You’re no quitter and sometimes there is nothing more a Guy can do.

sounds like you gave it your best. good luck for he rest of the season. my .02 cents 3 blades are better than 2.

You definatly gave it your all to locate the animal and it does suck but get back in that harness and wait for the next to come through. it happens but nothing you can do but give your best. As all the other say 3 is better than 2 I use a 4 blade fixed take nothing to chance and get he cnfidence back. good luck to you

It sounds like you did everything correct Ben except find the deer. One thing I want to point out is that it may be still alive and may live through it. Deer are incredible survivors and can sustain many injuries. I’ve killed a buck with a broadhead in it and know many other hunters who have done the same thing. Get back in the tree and kill the next one!

Thanks for all the knid words I cant wait to get back in the tree, 3 days and counting! No rain in the weather report!!Thanks again guys!

Last year late season I took a shot at a doe and didn’t see a branch right next to her. I got a real bad deflection and hit her high in the back close to the spin and she run like the wind. Waited forever and went looking and never found her. I felt the same way you did, but 8 days later she come by the same stand and this time the shot found it mark. The mark on her back was scabbed over and looked like road rash but she had no infection and would have recovered no problem if she didn’t give me a second chance. You never know what these animals can recover from you never know you just might get another chance at the same one….