Tagged out in Ohio!!!

[Bowhunter57]

I thought I'd try some ground hunting, so I found a blown down tree, cut a few branches and settled in for the morning hunt. 5 minutes earlier I had spread a few apples along the trail that was 15 yards in front of this blind.

I had to wait about 20 minutes before a mature doe showed up and began eating the apples. She feasted on about 3 apples before starting to walk past my location. Then she changed her mind and decided to go back the way she'd came. The tree in front of me allow me to come to full draw undetected. As I leaned back to take the shot, she was about 6 yards walking from right to left. As I was about to take the shot she turned and walked away. The shot was an extreme angle away and at the release of the arrow she kicked up her hooves and bolted away.

The shot looked good, so I gave her about 5 minutes and took up the trail. Nothing but scuffed leaves for 50 yards, then a spray of dirt where she'd made a hard turn to the right, into the woods. At this point is where the blood started and became heavier with every step. It went from bright red to dark red blood, stomach contents, fat, etc.

She took another hard turn to the right and I found her laying about 30 yards from that point. The Fuse Banshee broadhead had passed through from the front of her left rear leg to just ahead of her right front leg. One tough broadhead...and I'll be using them again. :cool:

This was on Oct. 31st and with both tags filled, I'll be out after coyotes. :D
Good hunting, Bowhunter57
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v410/Bowhunter57/Doe3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v410/Bowhunter57/DoeB.jpg

[GF.]

As I was about to take the shot she turned and walked away. The shot was an extreme angle away....

:confused:

:confused:

:confused:

[postoak]

Congratulations! Nice looking doe. :)

[Bushman]

Good job in tracking. Your doe and the buck story renews my faith in arrow penetration. What poundage are you shooting? A one lung hit buck can go a long way unless you open a large enough hole in the thoracic cavity where they can't pull a vacuum.

[Bowhunter57]

Good job in tracking. Your doe and the buck story renews my faith in arrow penetration. What poundage are you shooting? A one lung hit buck can go a long way unless you open a large enough hole in the thoracic cavity where they can't pull a vacuum.
Bushman,
I just purchased this bow, set the poundage about where it felt good, sighted it in, checked the broadhead flight and went hunting. I haven't had time to get to a pro shop to check the poundage or speed. I'm guessing it's set around 58# to 60#. The limb bolts are not bottomed out and this model is a 30" axle to axle and 45 to 60 pounds.

By the way, it's a Martin Cheetah. :) Very smooth drawing, quiet shooting and extremely accurate. I used RazorTricks and Fuse Banshee broadheads this season and both could consistantly hit a 2" target dot at 50 yards. I was impressed by the good flight and now I'm impressed with their performance. These are 2 broadhead that I'll be using again...next season.

Good hunting, Bowhunter57

[Bowhunter57]

:confused:

:confused:

:confused:
GF.,
Question(s) about the shot angle? How can I help? :)

Good hunting, Bowhunter57

[Twanger]

With a conservative broadhead and moderately heavy arrow you can get some serious penetration. I put a follow-up shot on a deer my buddy shot and she was facing away from me at about 10yds. I was 25 feet up. The arrow went in just in front of the hip, through the heart and exited the front of the chest. Probably 2 feet of penetration. Who says mechanicals don't penetrate!

Even strongly quartering away shots are winners if you aim for the heart or opposite shoulder... or somewhere in between.

[ncboman]

nice lookin doe.

congrats and good shootin. :)

[dave-t.]

Great job. I've never taken a deer with archery equipment while on the ground, I bet it ups the intensity level a bit.

[GF.]

GF.,
Question(s) about the shot angle? How can I help? :)

Good hunting, Bowhunter57

From your description, it sounds like a low-percentage opportunity... Personally, I'm not too keen on getting a shot anywhere behind the diaphragm; the liver is kinda nice to have back there as room for error, but the stomach protrudes up under it, so even a solid liver hit can get you into some pretty nasty-smelling stuff... BTDT don' want no more....

So... just me bein' me, I think I would have let her turn a bit (even if I had to whistle at her to get her to do it) or let her walk away entirely. Especially when it's the last tag o' the year. I'm always real happy to get that second deer down, but I also always kind of regret the fact that that is very likely to be the end of my season. Or has been, in the past. maybe this year I can talk my way into getting out enough to tag a #3 :D

Twanger sez....


With a conservative broadhead and moderately heavy arrow you can get some serious penetration. I put a follow-up shot on a deer my buddy shot and she was facing away from me at about 10yds. I was 25 feet up. The arrow went in just in front of the hip, through the heart and exited the front of the chest. Probably 2 feet of penetration. Who says mechanicals don't penetrate!

OK, but with two qualifiers... 'Moderately heavy arrow' for an 80-pound draw weight - don't tell me you'd expect anything comparable out of my turns-out-to-be 50-pounder.:eek::confused::eek:

And in answer to your 'who sez'.... Well, it do depend on what you hit.:D

For example, there's the guy in TBM who does all the penetration testing on the water buffalo, for one..... In that last issue, he's got pics of a couple different mechs (with COC tip inserts) which didn't penetrate those big ribs (of a young cow) for squat. And they mostly got mangled in the process. (And FWIW, B57 sez the Fuse is 'one tough broadhead', but I don't see where he likely hit anything 'hard' but maybe one rib on the way out - that's not to say that they're not adequate, but I wouldn't call this one shot much of a stress test....:D )

So anyway, of whitetails and water buffalo... Totally different critters, yes, but a decent-sized buck probably has 1/3 of its scapula that works out to dimensions and density which are comparable to the buffalo ribs, and then you've got spines and leg bones which are heavier still, even on a pretty typical whitetail.

And - BTW - I'm still unclear on why it is that B57 only got one lung on that buck. One would think that that set-up should drive deeper than a single lung on a deer that size, unless he hit a pretty sizable bone... Or something else went awry... The 'ramp' angle of those razor tricks is not at all what I'd call 'conservative', and that has a great deal to do with penetrating ability. So that was a hell of a tracking job, but one that probably shouldn't have been necessary....


:confused::confused::confused:

[dave-t.]

At some point you have to want the deer bad enough to shoot it. No deer would ever live long with that effective shot.

Also, that mech Twanger uses, the steelhead, is one great penetrating head when compared to any b-head design on the market. I've used them a lot, and never had a complaint about them.

[GF.]

Oh, I know about the steelheads... but you should see what the XPs looked like after being shot into a buffalo rib! :eek:

And yes, that was an effective shot, but not only do you have to want the deer bad enough to shoot it, but in that case, you have to want it bad enough to gut-shoot it and/or risk having the head penetrate under the skin and then slide along the outside of the rib cage instead of zipping through to the vitals. That could open a long, shallow wound....

The other thing you risk from that angle is a single-lung hit, and if the arrow doesn't exit (which it might well not, for several reasons that come right to mind), then the chances of collapsing the lung are very poor indeed, and the odds of getting a decent blood trail from an entry would that far to the rear are very low as well.

JMO, from that angle I would have been more likely to hold for the inside of the far ham, with the head passing just inside the femur. That's very high percentage for a large, high-pressure line, and if you somehow managed to miss a good, strong bleeder, the animal would escape with a clean and thus highly survivable flesh wound, rather than a guaranteed (albeit slowly) fatal gut hit.

[Bowhunter57]

From your description, it sounds like a low-percentage opportunity... Personally, I'm not too keen on getting a shot anywhere behind the diaphragm; the liver is kinda nice to have back there as room for error, but the stomach protrudes up under it, so even a solid liver hit can get you into some pretty nasty-smelling stuff... BTDT don' want no more....
GF.,
I'm not to keen on shots behind the diaphram either, but when I can get the arrow angling forward into the vitals, that increases the percentages of a kill. Especially, at 10 yards, with the equipment I'm using I have high confidence of good penetration to get the kill. :cool:

As it turned out, the field dressing job wasn't bad at all. The stomach contents were easily rinsed out, when I got her home. I had to drag her about 180 yards to the house, hang her, skin her, rinse everything off and take her to the processor. :)



And - BTW - I'm still unclear on why it is that B57 only got one lung on that buck. One would think that that set-up should drive deeper than a single lung on a deer that size, unless he hit a pretty sizable bone... Or something else went awry... The 'ramp' angle of those razor tricks is not at all what I'd call 'conservative', and that has a great deal to do with penetrating ability. So that was a hell of a tracking job, but one that probably shouldn't have been necessary....
:confused::confused::confused:

GF.,
The shoulder bone is a serious one to hit and that accounted for the deflection of the arrow, allowing for a single lung hit. Also, it accounted for the corner of the main blade getting broken off, but these things have to be expected when a bone as large as the shoulder is hit. :rolleyes: There was some tissue damage in the front of the brisket too and this was from the broadhead's deflection off of the shoulder. It nearly hit the heart, but in any case it allowed enough of a wound to give a good enough blood trail to find the buck.

I've certainly learned a lot with both of these deer and their blood trails. :)

Good hunting, Bowhunter57

[GF.]

So when you say 'shoulder bone'... do you mean the shoulder blade (aka scapula, and if so, what part of it?) or do you mean the upper bone of the foreleg (aka humerus)?


It looks from your pic as if you would have had to hit the blade, but a hole on the outside doesn't always tell you much about what happened on the inside...

And BTW - what happened to your arrow? Sounds like you got it back (or you wouldn't know about the broken blade) but what about your depth of penetration, etc.?

I'm really curious about this one, because it's almost as if something pretty decisive occurred when you jumped him there in the corn. 170 yards is a long way to go on a death run, but it sounds like thats when the real bleeding started. And hunting smaller parcels as I do, a trail as long as the one you described would mean a lost deer for sure. That's something I have yet to do, and studiously attempt to avoid....:D

In re: shots behind the diaphragm, though.. Herne has always said that that's an almost certain recipe for a contaminated (and for his purposes, totally unsaleable) carcass, so it's another thing I want no part of (he gets pretty cranked out of shape over getting water inside a carcass, too, but IMO, that's the lesser of the two evils at that point..... And all of that is not to say that I haven't screwed up a time or two here and there (including last year :o ), but that's different from taking a shot where I can pretty well expect to put a hole in the paunch....

[Bowhunter57]

So when you say 'shoulder bone'... do you mean the shoulder blade (aka scapula, and if so, what part of it?) or do you mean the upper bone of the foreleg (aka humerus)?
GF.,
After looking at some pictures of skeletal structure, I'd have to say the broadhead hit the skapula. Never gave it much thought after I caped it out, but I should've taken a few pics and/or looked over the wound channel.

Having made the best of the shot and extended blood trail, I harvested a nice buck. What I took away from this experience was to not hit the shoulder...which I already knew and the extended blood trail gave me some experience that I will have for years to come. :) Perhaps I'll be able to help someone else with a simular situation.



And BTW - what happened to your arrow? Sounds like you got it back (or you wouldn't know about the broken blade) but what about your depth of penetration, etc.?
Oddly enough, the arrow that I shot the buck with is the same arrow that I used to shoot the doe with, but there were 2 different broadheads used. The doe broke the arrow as she hit a tree with it and it "folded" about 6" ahead of the fletching. I was able to pull the arrow out of her, quite easily, with 2 fingers.

I started out this season with Razor Tricks. I wanted to try them last year, but never got a shot. After taking this buck with one, I was satisfied with its' performance, but wanted to try another broadhead that I had in my quiver. That's where the Fuse Banshee came into the picture. Both broadheads are cut-on-contact, both are 100gr. and both are 1 1/8" cutting diameter. The difference was the Razor Trick is a 4 blade and the Banshee is a 3 blade. Everything else was the same...flight, same P.O.I. as the field tips and could consistantly hit a 2" target dot out to 50 yards. :cool:

I hope this has answered some more questions. ;)
Good hunting, Bowhunter57

[GF.]

Some, but not much....I still have no idea what depth of penetration you got on the buck, or whether it stayed in him, bounced out, fell out along the way, or....???:confused:

[Bowhunter57]

Some, but not much....I still have no idea what depth of penetration you got on the buck, or whether it stayed in him, bounced out, fell out along the way, or....???:confused:
I had approx. 16" of penetration, as that's how far up the shaft there was blood. The arrow fell out about 60 to 70 yards after the shot.

Good hunting, Bowhunter57

[GF.]

Hmmmmm...... I missed some of the details from your earlier posts, so thanks for bearing with me...:o

But there's something there that's just not adding up for me..

Maybe NC and Twang will weigh in, but here's what I'm thinking...

At 12 yards or so, you should have had a good downward angle on that shot, but unless his spine was oriented more or less straight at you, you should have gotten both lungs. Especially with a hit that high.

The 16" or so of penetration also seems to suggest a good, strong downward angle, with the head reaching the off/lower curve of the ribcage. That's not a big enough animal to go 16" through the chest without angling top to bottom. Maybe on an Elk, but deer just don;t get that big...

The failure of the lungs to collapse is consistent with hitting through the near shoulder blade or the backstraps; between skin, meat, fat and bone, and the variable alignment of all the holes in those multiple layers, it's not really surprising that not a lot of air came in through that route.

But - and forgive me if I missed this, too - did you notice whether you did hit that shoulder blade, and if so, what part? (If your meat-cutter did your skinning for you, I don't suppose you'd have seen it....) As I look at your pics, it seems like the muscles of the shoulder aren't underneath that entry wound, but stuff underneath the skin has a fair amount of freedom to move...

What's really throwing me is how the arrow stayed lodged in the deer for a 60-yard dash and backed out the way it came in without doing damage equivalent to sawing the arrow back and forth - over a distance of several inches- at least a half a dozen times. (You'd think that'd be as good as hitting him at least twice!) Or if the shaft got hung up on something and dragged out in a smoother motion, there should have been a sweeping arc of destruction - because it's totally unlikely that it just pulled straight back out the way it came in. And shouldn't those heads have hung up on the ribs or something? With the trailing edges at 90 degrees to the shaft, they're all but barbed!:eek:

Anyway, any way I slice it, it seems like there should have been a lot more slicing, internally...:confused:

Also odd that the muzzle looks nice & clean. With those bigger gobs of blood at the 80-yard intervals, I would have expected that he was horking that stuff up (rather than leaking it out), but with no blood on the muzzle, I'm wondering why the bigger amount at longer intervals and not a steadier flow.... If the blood were being forced out by breathing or running, it should have been at much tighter intervals... Every breath or every bound...

FWIW, though... a 'recent improvement' ( :rolleyes: )in trad broadhead design is sharpened trailing edges on both the main and the bleeder blades (just like a knapped flint head would have had 10,000 or more years ago.... Supposedly, this actually improves penetration going in, but - being good and sharp and slanting forward - that would also make it easier for an arrow to back out (or for the animal to pull it out), giving you at least twice the destruction of the initial hit, as well as a bloody arrow on the ground to help you diagnose the placement and show you the way....

[TJF]

Congrats on the doe !!

Tim

[ncboman]

What's really throwing me is how the arrow stayed lodged in the deer for a 60-yard dash and backed out the way it came in ...

this is not uncommon. Back when I use to kill a lot of deer, I saw it happen several times. One I recall I shot lengthways and the arrow went completely out of sight but still worked it's way back out of the hole, and even more odd, I shot that deer in the base of the neck and the arrow backed out against the direction of travel while she was running. :confused:

[Twanger]

I haven't actually measured the width of a deers ribcage, but just from memory it seems like a small deer is probably 8 inches wide, a big doe maybe 12 inches, and a good sized buck 14-16 or so, tops.

Now you're gonna have me measuring them! :D

Anyhow, it's hard to see how you could get 16 inches of penetration On a broadside shot without getting two lungs unless the angles were just not there.

I see a lot of steep hits go in half way up the deer and exit nearly in the bottom of the chest - a classic single lunger. If you're lucky enough to clip the heart the deer will go down inside 200 yds, but if you are behind it, the track can be over a mile. If you push early, it will be long for sure.

Unless I see the deer crash to earth I usually don't follow up for an hour or so if I know the shot was good. patience is a virtue. Sneaking down to check the arrow and first 10 yds of the run will tell you if you should wait more, or go on and track. Any gut smell or green stuff and I'm waiting at least 6 hours. A bloody arrow with no smell, blood splatter around where the arrow stuck in the ground, and a hearty initial blood trail, combined with a shot that looked good usually means your deer is already dead and waiting for you.