Not That Good but it Could Have Been Worse.

[hanshi]

Yesterday being such a fine day weather wise, I was in my spot shortly after daylight hoping for Mr. Big.  I also had a recently purchased camo blind to set up before I left.  Along about 9:30-10:00 movement caught my eye some 50 yards down front.  There was this deer partially screened by light brush attending to some task and ready for the taking.  It was difficult to see him due to his natural camouflage and the intervening scrub.  He (NEVER saw any antlers, however) would periodically stretch himself up and break cover only to vanish again a few moments later.  I shouldered my rifle and waited for him to do a looky-see so I could lower the boom.  Sure enough within seconds he again exposed himself and I aimed and fired.

Arriving at the spot where he (could easily have been a doe) was standing I finally found a few drops of blood that only went a few feet.  Obviously a minor boo boo rather than a good hit so I went searching.  I covered the area but never found more blood nor a deer.  Conclusion: he's still out there and so is "El Macho Grande".  And, Of course, I need more patience.

[Ted Kramer]

Strange how what we think should be an easy shot doesn't always work out the way we envisioned it would.

Hope you get the big guy. The old ones are pretty sharp but they slip up once in a while.

Good luck.

Ted

[hanshi]

And it's interesting how one can miss with a 20 yard "gimme" shot.  One I clearly remember, though there have been several similar ones, was a shot at a suddenly appearing deer right out in the open as I was walking back to my truck.  I dropped to my knee just before he (second in line) emerged form a thicket at under 25 yards.  I aimed at the heart/lung area and he fell DRT.  When I got up to him I saw the ball had hit the neck.  He was able to twitch just enough as I pulled the trigger to put his neck in the line of fire.

[Hungry Horse]

 Until you find the deer you can not emphatically say its a minor booboo. I hunted with a group of guys that generally knew their stuff when it comes to hunting blackmail deer. But, on one occasion, one of them shot at a deer, and declared it a "miner booboo" and after looking around for it, went on hunting. When we got back to camp for lunch he told us of his minor wounding. One of the old hunters in the group said that a deer shot through the heart can run  quite some distance before expiring, and leave almost no blood trail. So, after lunch we went back to the place the deer was last seen, and sure enough forty yards away, on a down hill slope was the buck. He was shot through the heart, and had died, and slid down under some brush.
 I regret every shot I have taken in my years of hunting that didn't terminate in a clean kill, and remember every deer I couldn't retrieve. That is what ethical hunting is about.
 I'm sorry if this is offensive to some of you, but I live in a rural area, and have probably had to put more wounded deer down, that got away from someone, than I ever killed in the field.

               Hungry Horse

[WadePatton]

Until you find the deer you can not emphatically say its a minor booboo. I hunted with a group of guys...

yeah these were my thoughts, especially when you can't find a sapling or limb to explain the "miss".  I once had an older "experienced" hunter with me in the woods and I heard him shoot.  He says, "Oh i missed".  I thought he knew what he was talking about.  We left.

Next weekend I go over to where he said the deer were.  I found a dead buck with a bullet hole in him, no real tracking involved. I never took that guy hunting again. He clearly didn't get it and was too old for me to yell at (i was just a punk 20-something then).

I've done a lot of tracking.  drop at a time, mark it, circle, repeat as necessary.  I start with the hair clipped at impact.  You made no mention of hair.  Color of blood can be informative too.  Also, a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide can "illuminate" drops, speeding things up where dark threatens.

[nosrettap1958]

I'm sure hanshi is the type of hunter that would have looked for that deer until he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. A friend of mine hit a deer hard but he sped off and we looked and looked even taking a crew of about a half dozen guys out one day and looked for that deer day after day until the snow hit and that was the end of the tracking. Its a shame but it happens. But some times an animal won't go down no matter how hard you hit him.

[WadePatton]

Coleman lantern for night tracking. 

Yes he knows these things, but failed to convey that he did such.  Probably did. 

Maybe some gentle readers learn from the discussion and have better successes with their game.

[David R. Pennington]

I used to bow hunt with a guy who was afraid to track a hit deer. He would spend more time tracking me down to help him find a deer he hit than it would take to find the deer.
He came and got me out of my stand one day to help him find a lost deer."I don't think I hit it very good", he said. I walked with him to where he was hunting and had him show me where he was standing and where the deer was when he shot. I asked him which way the deer ran. He pointed to a green six inch maple tree with the bark peeled off. "It hit that little tree", he said. I said, "John your deer will be lying right over the hill just beyond that tree". He responded, "How do you know?  Can  you see it?"
I told him I couldn't see it but I was sure it was there. I explained that deer don't usually run headlong into trees unless there is something bad wrong with them. Sure enough the deer was lying within a few yards of where it collided with the tree.

[George Sutton]

Round balls are not the best projectiles for opening up  a wound channel. Deer shot with a round ball will sometimes not leave a blood trail. I have been witness to this on a number of occassions.

I was hunting on snow with my son last year and he shot a deer, no blood anywhere. The guys we were hunting with started giving him a hard time about missing. He found the deer a few hundred yards off, it never bled a drop.

Centershot

[oneshot52]

lately ive been seeing a lot of negative posts about roundballs and hunting my 50 and 54 both have 1:66 twist all i hunt with is prb if not prb what are you supposed to use ?

[Dphariss]

Round balls are not the best projectiles for opening up  a wound channel. Deer shot with a round ball will sometimes not leave a blood trail. I have been witness to this on a number of occassions.

I was hunting on snow with my son last year and he shot a deer, no blood anywhere. The guys we were hunting with started giving him a hard time about missing. He found the deer a few hundred yards off, it never bled a drop.

Centershot

Deer shot with a 30-06 (or a 308 or etc etc) will sometimes leave no blood trail. Just went through that with a deer my son shot last week, found her, very dead, in the last place we looked. Followed a deer a client shot (308) once for 1/2 mile with no blood. But he was staggering and this allowed us to stay on track and sort him from other tracks. So its not just the RB. Usually there is a blood trail. But high lung shots, shots that only get one lung and shots that are not through and through or shots that are too far back can be a problem sometimes.  The sons shot and the clients shot were both at pretty low angles and only really got one lung.  54 RB will give the same result with similar placement.

Generally speaking the deer dies in a few seconds or at least goes down. But a deer can cover 200 yards in a few seconds even with a near instantly fatal wound. They can take heavy hits and go off as if unscathed. Others will fall down in a few feet.
The most dramatic blood trail I remember was from a Mule Deer shot at the base of the throat with a .662 rb while facing me range about 40-50 yards, MV 1600. She still made over 50 yards and the trail started right where she was standing. I even took a photo.

Dan

[J Henry]

  You shoot them in the correct place and they will die ,,45, 50, 54,75 don't make no differance  ,, Never fail to follow up on a shot  ,,, ever,,, no blood what are the tracks telling you  ,, the line of travel will also be a clue,,Up/Down hill,,,, Straight line or circling ,back tracking you,, look for all the clues  ,,,that is why they are called clues'
    

[hanshi]

Actually I AM one of the "old timers" who does know a fair amount about deer behavior.  I've tracked them radio collared, over multiple days and all day until the sun set.  This is the area of my Bachelors degree though I went another direction in grad school.  The only deer I ever shot that didn't leave a blood trail were shot with centerfire rounds.  The blood droplets I found were not near ground zero.  Yes, I also looked for hairs.  I even searched off property onto posted land - which I wouldn't have done during rifle season.  I hear what some of you are saying and recognize anything is possible.  But I've yet to NOT see a blood trail from a prb if it wasn't DRT.

I also take no offense at being questioned.  You can't prove a positive with a negative so this is just my best judgement.

[nosrettap1958]

lately ive been seeing a lot of negative posts about roundballs and hunting my 50 and 54 both have 1:66 twist all i hunt with is prb if not prb what are you supposed to use ?

Round balls will open up a wound channel as well or better as any other projectiles. NO NEED TO CHANGE.  And like I said, some animals will not go down no matter how hard you hit them or what you hit them with.

[WadePatton]

lately ive been seeing a lot of negative posts about roundballs and hunting my 50 and 54 both have 1:66 twist all i hunt with is prb if not prb what are you supposed to use ?

My rifle killed two big bucks (for this region) opening weekend, and I was COMPLETELY satisfied with the PRB performance.  I've killed a lot of deer with skinny jacketed things from small to supermagnum, NOTHING ever put them down any better than those .530 balls (twisted whatever Colerain puts in their bbls for such caliber-I don't ask anymore, leaving that to the BBL makers.  I gots too much other stuff to fiddle with).  Both balls stopped under the skin after full and proper penetration and flattening and killing the bucks quickly.  One shot was at 20, the other at 100.  Perfect performance, I need nothing more for normal hunting.  

Put the ball where it goes and it does the rest.  Some folks are always going to complain (and some have to make money selling PRB replacements). With this internetdom, we get to hear it all.  

I did fail to recover a buck that i hit with a PRB once, but it was simply a bad shot.  I blame it on limbs near the blind. And the buck did survive with a little limp.  He was massive the last time I saw him (2 years after the shot).

Hanshi, it is hard to put a real hole in one without clipping hair for sure.  Best of next encounter!  Or as TK and Mike used to say:

Get yourself a biggun!

[hanshi]

I have full confidence in prb and have never used a conical.  And trees are funny things.  I've seen them move several feet in just a second or two just so they can intercept a rifle ball meant for a deer.

[JBlk]

I use the round ball in all of my rifles from .45 Thur .54 and they do a great job.I have shot several deer that have dropped in their tracks and several that appeared to be a miss with no blood or very little.Some of those deer have been found several hundred yards from where they were shot and the majority of those shots were well placed.Pound for pound the whitetail can take more punishment than anything I have ever hunted and many deer are lost because the shooter feels that he did minimal damage.Always take the time to look and your meals of venison will greatly improve.

[Hessian]

As a young man, I was once hunting on a farm in NW Ohio with a .50 cal percussion ML.
I heard someone shoot on the farm next to where I was hunting and heard crashing through the woods near me. I looked in the direction of the noise and saw a young buck standing about 20 yds from me, broadside. He was looking around. Every time he would look away I would ease my gun up a little more.  He looked right at me when the lock clicked as it cocked. He looked away & I took a deep breath, checked my sights, let it out, & slowly squeezed the trigger. Boom!
That deer jumped straight up, looked around, and bounded off!
I'm standing there with an empty gun saying to my self, "ok you can fall now." There was no way I could have missed him! My buddies soon converged on me asking "where's the deer? We heard you shoot."
I walked over to where the deer had stood, right in front of where I had aimed there was a small sapling with a .50 cal half moon out of the side. I saw where the ball had been deflected & had hit the ground. Maybe next time. . .

[hanshi]

I've killed lots of trees in my time but only because there's no closed season on them.