I'm new to archery talk, so i'll make this short and sweet. Last year I shot a decent eight-pointer. The shot angle was pretty extreme because I was about 20 feet up and he was about 12yds. The shot didn't look that bad, maybe just a little high. When I retrieved the arrow, it had a greasy film on it, like you shot it through a bucket of crisco. There was ample blood. I trailed for 300 yds. and lost the blood trail. I spent several hours the next day looking but had no luck. :thumbs_do Any ideas where I might have hit him?
Where did I hit this deer?
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Assuming you shot just behind the front shoulder on a broadside shot my guess would be that you took out only one lung. This happens on extreme shot angle shots a lot more than people realize. They think they got both lungs. If you are pretty sure you hit both but track the deer over 100 yards, back off and wait a few hours before following up on the trail. A one lung hit deer once jumped can travel a long ways before bedding again.
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If you hit him high, you possibly only got one lung, and the arrow probably came out the brisket, but I would have thought you should have gotten both lungs at 12 yards. I've had this happen, but with the deer a lot closer. I shot a buck through one lung a couple of years ago, and he went over 800 yards...there was snow one the ground, and he bled pretty good, without the snow he would have been really tough to find.
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high angle
The problem with getting very high in a tree is the shot angle is poor. Many times an archer will tend to aim at the same point they shoot at on the ground. This type of angle will tend to only take out one lung and exit through the brisket area. (thus the fat layer) I speak from experience. I normally do not get but about 15 to 18 feet in a tree but in WV we are almost always on the side of a hill. I hit a nice buck several years ago like this. I tracked the buck for two days, jumping him from his bed twice. A friend and I covered two miles to the bottom of Bluestone Gorge. The trails took many different directions and I hate to say it but we gave up. About a week latter a friend who new the story called to tell me about the deer. We went to investgate and to retrieve the rack. The deer had been hit high but the arrow stayed on the the deer's left side and exited at the bottom of the chest. The deer was only about 130 yards from where we gave up.
The problem with getting very high in a tree is the shot angle is poor. Many times an archer will tend to aim at the same point they shoot at on the ground. This type of angle will tend to only take out one lung and exit through the brisket area. (thus the fat layer) I speak from experience. I normally do not get but about 15 to 18 feet in a tree but in WV we are almost always on the side of a hill. I hit a nice buck several years ago like this. I tracked the buck for two days, jumping him from his bed twice. A friend and I covered two miles to the bottom of Bluestone Gorge. The trails took many different directions and I hate to say it but we gave up. About a week latter a friend who new the story called to tell me about the deer. We went to investgate and to retrieve the rack. The deer had been hit high but the arrow stayed on the the deer's left side and exited at the bottom of the chest. The deer was only about 130 yards from where we gave up.
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