Not sure what to say……

Enjoyed the video guys! Thanks for sharing.

Today I had my daughter in the woods for the 1st time ever hunting! She’s 14 and you wouldn’t guess she’s a hunter when you see her at school or hanging with her friends.

Anyway, the day couldn’t have started out any better, cooler but not overly cold, sunshine. And after an hour and 20 minutes, we had a deer in range.

I gave her the green light but said it was her decision. Smallish buck but would have made a nice first deer. Would have… Deer crosses trail….she’s having trouble finding it in scope, she’s shaking like we all do. Deer leaves clearing and looks like this one will pass. But deer doubles back and presents itself. I give her the green light and 3 seconds later….boom…down goes the deer… in its tracks. It rolls over into some brush and we can hear rustling of leaves, kicking. Perfect I think…deer will expire without her having to watch. 10 minutes later and she says, I think I just saw our deer run up that hill. ???

I had my binocs on the spot, and it was behind some junk so couldn’t see it. 2 deer? Waited 20 and got down, found trail but after 20 yards, the blood trail ended and we never, ever found another spot of blood or the deer.

We searched for 7 hours!! I have to give her credit, we went in for a snack and water and she said, dad, we have to go back and find my deer. I want my deer!! So we searched again, no deer, no blood!!

She is bummed but I think after speaking with her on our drive home that she is ok. I’m bummed for her and I don’t like losing any type of game, let alone a deer.

Anyone else that can share a story of a gun buck getting away like that sure would make my day. She did everything right, I suppose except for shot placement, but it was a clear broadside shot and she took it!! I was proud of her!

ET

I made a stupid mistake and got to much in a hurry with a buck. More like anger being the issue than anything else. I built my dad a tree stand, cleared the brush for an easy walk in, and all those little things a kid should do.
Anyways, opening morning I watched a huge buck pass my dad within 50 yrds (I could see him from my stand)- Nothing, no shot, no movemnent, nothing. About an hour later, a herd of deer wenmt by him on the same trail. I saw a couple bucks in with them, but the same results – nothing.
About 9:30 rolled around, and here goes a a nice buck with about 10 does beneath my dad. Lucky for me, they take a different trail and come out of a coulee about 150 yrds from me. They winded me and stopped on a dime. There stood a nice buck with a huge doe perfectly silhouetting his body in front of him. I waited a couple minutes and got impatient. Since I had both a buck and doe tag, figured I would pop them both in the one shot. So, I did. .270, 130 gr bullet and 150 yrds, what could go wrong????
Doe instantly dropped dead in her tracks and the buck dropped about 10 yrds over from her.

I was pretty dam proud of myself for about an hour. That was when I noticed the white belly of the buck that I could see was GONE! Dumbfounded, I got out of my stand and walked over there. Huge puddle of blood – 1 dead doe – 1 MISSING Buck. My dad got out of his stand and walked over to me. When i asked him why he didn’t shoot any of the deer beneath him, he only replied ” I only saw one deer about 20 minutes ago walk down the valley and up that hill…too far to shoot and didn’t see any horns” Well, there went my buck…Spent hours looking for it and came up empty. My neighbor had shot a buck on opening day at the other end of our property, but I never heard the shot. He claimed it was around 11am which was while I was searching for a lost blood trail. His buck was hit hard in the hind quarter by someone else??? Huge entry & exit hole. I want to believe that he got the buck and used it. But I still question it???

That is a tough one!

The first day my Dad took me hunting we had a similar experience. The neighbor shot a deer and we watched it stumble its way running through thick cover right towards us. It was getting close and my Dad told me to shoot it if I got a good shot. It all of a sudden hit the ground and we thought it was dead. We watched the area for 30 minutes and all of a sudden it got up, swam across a pond, and bedded down again. Fifteen minutes later the neighbor comes walking over making a ton of noise and jumps the deer. He tracked it for an hour and then gave up. There was blood everywhere where he had bedded down, so I couln’t believe he wasn’t down. The next 2 days I tried to track and find that deer and was never able to recover it. A month later a neighbor shot what we believe to be the same deer, so somehow I think that deer would have survived.

Bummer! But, a good lesson none the less to stress the importance of a good shot. Great job making a real effort to recover the deer.

I’ve lost deer, it stinks!! Hopefully you can get her back in the stand soon.

I once had a deer that I shot that was never recovered. We’ve all had that shot, opening weekend, it was just standing there, all alone, and close. You know the drill. Anyway, I blamed it on the caliber (243) of the gun cuz there was little blood for a trail. Anyway, that gun was sole my first day back to work, a new 308 was ordered, and there hasn’t been a repeat since. I’ll never shoot less that 30 cal at a deer again.

Sounds like dad is doing a good job in passing down a great tradition.

This is the way I look at it..

If you do whats right by waiting for a high percentage shot, then take the shot you have done what is ethically correct in my book.. taking the extra time to make sure you didnt miss something the first look is also something that earns you great respect as a hunter..

Dont let it get you guys to bummed.. target shoot a bit before going out again to regain her confidence in her shooting and go at it again..

The best of luck to you two this season..
TheguN

A couple year back I spot and stocked a buck up a fence line at 150 yards it stood up with a doe and started walking away I put it high and let one go that big boy went down like a ton of [censored]. I turned around and gave my dad the big thumbs up he was in the truck I couldnt be leive he just droped. My dad to was suprized then I turn and srated towards the deer and he jumped up and headed across the set aside grass from 200 yards I could see the blood spraying out of him like a garden hose falling down every 20 yards and getting back up. For some reason when I left the truck I only took three bullets. So I let them rip and he kept going as he reached a standing corn field he started running on the edge but the same thing he kept falling with a crazy amount of blood spraying so I let him run and stoped trying to keep up with him he went over the hill and into more corn about 20 min later we weny looking. To give u an idea how much blood their was I was covered in it from head to toe just following him in the long grass. When we went in to the corn their was spots in the corn the size of a car were he was falling and rolling around with blood everwhere. He went threw the corn about 100 yards then came out the otherside. When he came out the blood just stoped nit another drop. I spent 4 hours that night looking for him when everybody else went to stand. Then spent another 4 the next morning with 5 other guys. And even had a family friend next door go up in his plane and look no deer to be found. I was so upset and my dad was beside himself that this deer got away as he also seen the blood spay from the truck back on the road. So I know your feeling its hard to swollow but thats hunting thats what makes it fun if it was easy it wouldnt be fun. Tell her to keep her head up and keep in the saddle.

I think we all have one of these…

Here is mine years ago: Sitting in the tree stand 3rd day of the minnesota shot gun season, I see this beautiful 10 point coming down the valley towards me, he gets about 100 yards and stops on a little finger and just stands there looking around. 20 minutes go by and I keep looking at him through the binos waiting for him to come down but he never does. 400 yards away, my buddy decides to let a coyote have it which then sends several coyotes running up the valley towards the buck i was watching, i knew he wouldn’t stick around so i pulled up (iron sights) while he was broad side and let one fly. To my surprise he dropped and rolled down the side of the valley into a steep ditch. I KNEW he was done, i climb down the stand throw the gun over my shoulder and strut up the hill like a boss, get to the edge of the ditch and look down, he looks up at me and gets up and takes off like nothing ever happened, i fumble to swing my gun off my should and send a few un-aimed rounds at him and he is booking up the hill. I looked for days and found nothing but a little blood where he was laying and some fat/meat tissue. My guess is that i hit him near the hind quarters and hit was enough to take his legs out from under him but not enough to kill him (i hope). Took me awhile to get over that sick feeling and learned several lessons.

I have one too… bow shot. I should have left it lay until morning, but I didn’t. I pushed it in the dark, about 1/4 mile and into a corn field Could not find it, looked for 6+ hours. Neighbor brought me the rack after he found it, when he was combining…. a nice 10 point