Heartbreaker in region 8 - bowhunting whitetail

[Redthies]

Well, I would try to sleep better knowing it looks like she recovered. I helped a neighbor look for a deer that bolted at last light the next morning, and despite tracking and finding a ton of blood, we never found his deer. We did find another deer with two G bears eating it though. I know my neighbor was gutted by not finding his buck, but I told him this “yes, it sucks to lose the animal, but if the wolves etc find it, they will eat it, and another deer will not be hunted down by them that day”. It’s a different way to look at it, but every meal the preds get of a wounded or sick deer, is one less healthy deer that might make a mistake that day being eaten.

I’ve only taken one whitetail with a bow, and I will stick to rifle shots if at all possible. They can go wrong too, but I think it’s less likely if you do your part correctly.


What watershed / FSR were you hunting? I live in the GF area.

[KootenayKiller]

No FSR or watershed, it was just a turnoff from Granby road onto an unusable logging road in crown land, about 20 mins north of GF. I hiked in a ways from there.

I'm not sure if mechanical broadhead was a contributing factor, but I think I'll be using fixed broadheads in the future.

[HarryToolips]

Sounds like you did everything you could man, and you showed persistence on the attempted retrieval... they are very tough animals, I lost a mule deer buck once after a shot with a bow that I know lived..

[Walking Buffalo]

I want to hear more about how you were able to track this doe for 20 km in one afternoon and 15 km the next day.

Very impressive, almost unbelievable.

[KootenayKiller]

I want to hear more about how you were able to track this doe for 20 km in one afternoon and 15 km the next day.

Very impressive, almost unbelievable.

There were consistent drops of blood over this distance, interspersed with pools of blood every 100 feet or so. We couldn't believe it either... How many liters of blood can a deer lose? A lot apparently. This was not linear distance, but the distance that my GPS tracking app recorded as we meandered.

Pretty normal distances for me... I am young and hike a lot lol

[Woodchuck Dan]

I appreciate the willingness to share a difficult experience as well as being an example of the efforts that can be gone to to retrieve an animal. Hope this experience is sitting as right as it can with you, sounds like you did everything you could.