Post by ghost on Oct 13, 2012 17:08:01 GMT -5
While the summer was hot with no rain the fall has been cold and wet but Sunday was 60 and no wind so I decided to spend the afternoon hunting my alfalfa food plot. 
I started my sit about 3:00 PM and a 6:00 PM two does came out to feed. The closest was 18 yards. Last year I hit one deer in the spine and had another bolt at the sound of my crossbow so I aimed low and right behind the right front leg.
At the shot the deer ran a short distance stopped and slowly walk into the woods, bad sign.
A double lung or heart hit and the deer would have run until it died but this reaction suggest a liver or worse a gut shot. 
When I found the arrow it was cover in blood so probably I hit the liver.
I waited until it was getting dark and decided to look for the deer. We have a lot of coyotes so if I leave it over night it is going to be a skeleton. Walking slowly along a major deer trail I see the deer and while it is down the head is up....not dead. I back out and wait awhile and go back only to find no deer. 
The trail is along the top of a ridge with a sharp drop to the creek bottom. Fearing the worst I look over the edge and there is my deer and it is going to really nasty to get it out. 
I take my plastic deer sled and slide down the hill and while I have the deer I can not pull it up that steep hill. It is going to be a really long drag to pull the deer up along the creek to where I can find a place back up to the top of the ridge, too long for a guy in his mid seventies with really bad arthritics. ;D
I use an electric golf cart to get to my stands so my only choice is find a way into the bottom with the cart.
I do find a way down but now it is dark so after a lot of searching I find the deer. I use the golf cart to pull the deer back up to the top of the ridge and decide to take it home where I have light and can hoist it up to field dress. One might think the recovery reflects the title but the nasty part is yet to come.
I am get ready to field dress and take a look at the entry and exit wounds and think they do not look right. I cut the skin the entire length of the deer and open up the rib cadge to drain the blood. However there is no blood and now that I think about it the placed where the deer bedded down had no blood. In fact there is no blood anywhere on this deer, so were did it all go?
Usually I make a small incision in a abdominal region, insert a finger to guide my knife so a not to cut into the stomach or intestines. When I make that cut there is a explosion of coagulated blood and gut contents that hits me in the chest and runs down my pants and onto the boots. I think the blood collected in the membranes the support the intestines and when I hung the deer up side down the blood collect on the diaphragm. When I cut through the skin it came out under pressure. I use my knife to scrape off enough of the goo so I can finish field dressing and then I had to change my clothes. When I go in the house my wife says yuck, that is disgusting. ;D
Back out I take a close look at the entry and exit wounds and realize what is wrong. I shot this deer from a 12 foot ladder stand and the entry wound is lower than the exit wound. Impossible. The only explanation that fits is that at the sound of the crossbow the deer turned 180 degrees and while I was aiming at the right side I actually hit the left side and exited out the right. This would make the wound on the right lower than the wound on the left. I know they can really move but this seems almost impossible but it is the only explanation. 
Ghost
I started my sit about 3:00 PM and a 6:00 PM two does came out to feed. The closest was 18 yards. Last year I hit one deer in the spine and had another bolt at the sound of my crossbow so I aimed low and right behind the right front leg. At the shot the deer ran a short distance stopped and slowly walk into the woods, bad sign.
A double lung or heart hit and the deer would have run until it died but this reaction suggest a liver or worse a gut shot. 
When I found the arrow it was cover in blood so probably I hit the liver.I waited until it was getting dark and decided to look for the deer. We have a lot of coyotes so if I leave it over night it is going to be a skeleton. Walking slowly along a major deer trail I see the deer and while it is down the head is up....not dead.
I back out and wait awhile and go back only to find no deer. 
The trail is along the top of a ridge with a sharp drop to the creek bottom. Fearing the worst I look over the edge and there is my deer and it is going to really nasty to get it out. 
I take my plastic deer sled and slide down the hill and while I have the deer I can not pull it up that steep hill. It is going to be a really long drag to pull the deer up along the creek to where I can find a place back up to the top of the ridge, too long for a guy in his mid seventies with really bad arthritics. ;D
I use an electric golf cart to get to my stands so my only choice is find a way into the bottom with the cart.
I do find a way down but now it is dark so after a lot of searching I find the deer. I use the golf cart to pull the deer back up to the top of the ridge and decide to take it home where I have light and can hoist it up to field dress. One might think the recovery reflects the title but the nasty part is yet to come.I am get ready to field dress and take a look at the entry and exit wounds and think they do not look right.
I cut the skin the entire length of the deer and open up the rib cadge to drain the blood. However there is no blood and now that I think about it the placed where the deer bedded down had no blood. In fact there is no blood anywhere on this deer, so were did it all go? Usually I make a small incision in a abdominal region, insert a finger to guide my knife so a not to cut into the stomach or intestines. When I make that cut there is a explosion of coagulated blood and gut contents that hits me in the chest and runs down my pants and onto the boots.
I think the blood collected in the membranes the support the intestines and when I hung the deer up side down the blood collect on the diaphragm. When I cut through the skin it came out under pressure. I use my knife to scrape off enough of the goo so I can finish field dressing and then I had to change my clothes. When I go in the house my wife says yuck, that is disgusting. ;DBack out I take a close look at the entry and exit wounds and realize what is wrong. I shot this deer from a 12 foot ladder stand and the entry wound is lower than the exit wound.
Impossible. The only explanation that fits is that at the sound of the crossbow the deer turned 180 degrees and while I was aiming at the right side I actually hit the left side and exited out the right. This would make the wound on the right lower than the wound on the left. I know they can really move but this seems almost impossible but it is the only explanation. 
Ghost
