Dead or not? Opinions.

Neighbor shot a big buck this am and asked if he could track it through my place. I said yes.

After 200 yards of "some meat and blood" turning into pin drop blood, they lost trail.

This was where buck was first standing after shot:



Looks like lung to me. Yall think it's dead? Gonna resume hunt tomorrow if they don't find him.

he say what caliber he was using?

looks like the liver to me? 200 yards at full throttle isn't much for a buck, but I bet he is laying somewhere by now the way you describe the "scene".

It's 200 yards through very dense woods.

I'll look for buzzards tomorrow and in the creek. That's where I bet he ends up.

I think he's dead, but I've certainly been wrong before.

I'd check around any water in the area...seen a lot of animals travel to ponds or water sources after being injured! Good luck!

Looks like he might have got a little forward from the color.. did you smell the blood? serious question

I don't think its lung but from what you describe, he's probably laid up somewhere. Call in the dogs.

wish i was there i love to track

I'm not out there. Will be tomorrow.

Looks like brisket blood, more than likely in front of the shoulders or possibly below the vitals and behind the front legs.

He said it just stood there for 5 minutes after he shot.

Hope you guys are right assuming he doesn't find it. Hate for a deer to go to waste like that.

He shot low if that buck just stood there like that...

Yup

If it was a brisket shot, yall think its mortal?

eventually if hes bleeding good enough..

seen one also get hit in the same area.. more in the leg but he ended up getting shot 2 weeks later chasing a doe about 100yrds away... his leg was rotting off by this time... oh I had been hunting him hard also.. this was a 147 inch slick 8 that had 10 inch brows that crossed at the tips.. we called him cross buck.. insane deer wish I could have got him lol. oh one of his anters fell off when he hit the ground too.. pretty crazy

sorry I got off track there lol oh the nightmares

Hope I see/find him tomorrow.

According to the guy tracking him, he's not bleeding at all.

If he's not getting good blood at a spot where the deer stood for 5 minutes after being shot he's got problems. What was shot distance and bullet type?

I would tell him to back out

Yep.

Or keep pushing him maybe youll get a change to shoot him

There was good blood at the shot site. That's the picture.

Trail just dried up.

Cameron how far are you from New Ulum

No and you will see him again or kill him on corn or oats. He will loose a lot of weight and if the coyotes don't get him he will live. Brisket or frontal brisket shots usually bleed like a stuck hog for 200-300 yards then quit. I when I say quit they quit totally.

There was never much of a trail from what I gather.

I know a fella with a tracking dog in the area if you decide you want to give it a try

Guy tracking it used to guide professionally. His call.

Cool cool

Why no follow up shot to finish him off?

I've seen brisket shots myself and yep, the trail will go cold. Might live, might not, depends on infection, etc.

If he stood there for 5 minutes and that is all he bled, then that's only a drop every couple seconds. That's not "good blood". That is definitely not lung shot....lung blood is bright red and frothy. That blood is dark and thick.

Like others said, if there is water in the area he will almost certainly head towards it. I've had a deer bleed much, much more and never been found after tracking for 1/2 mile, like multiple puddles of blood for several hundred yards. It sucks.

Get a dog on it

This is the million dollar question. We all want this guy to get a good buck.

He said he thought it was going to just drop, but it didn't.

That pic actually wasn't the pic from the first shot. He ran out into a field and that's where that pic was taken.

This info is trickling into me. They've given up the search. I'm resume it tomorrow.

I shot a 200 lb buck with 270. 130 grain last night. No blood at all. Let him lay overnight and found him this morning 200 yds away walking a grid pattern. No blood. Entrance wound anterior intestine and found bullet lodged in off shoulder lung blown up no exit no blood. Deer was quartering away.

Any update on this? Curious if the deer was found....

Someone needs to learn a very basic rule. If you want to recover a big buck, and he offers you a second shot opportunity, then your ignunt if you don't take it.

Always tell my hunters that "you're gonna make hamburger or sausage out of the big bucks anyway, no reason at all not to start that process in the field".

If you've hunted long enuff you've heard many stories of big bucks dropping in their tracks only to stand up and run off never to be recovered.

That's always a bad deal.

Agree, therancher.

Not to go into details, but the man that shot this buck has had some very serious health issues that I didn't know about until recently.

He used to send me pics of younger, promising deer that I'd always say, "Hold off on that guy, too young." but now I just want him to have success. He let a buddy shoot a really big 8 a couple of years ago and as they were celebrating, the dang thing got up and ran off and they never found him.

Fast forward to this year, and this buck was the first legal one he had a shot at and he took it. Why he didn't pop off a 2nd round while it was just standing there, I'll never know. After it ran into the field, he texted me asking if he could follow it but I didn't see the text for a few minutes at which point I told him "Of course". He got a second shot but it was running and may or may not have connected. The tracker who is a former guide said he found bone fragment, but a very small amount.

I didn't make it out there yesterday because it rained slowly but steadily all night and my land is at the back of an old dirt road that can get a truck stuck really quickly. I'm heading out there today, but I'm not optimistic because there is a ton of standing hay (you'd never find one there without buzzards). Gonna look in the creek and see if there's a buck limping around.

I took a shot this weekend in a position I had not practiced before. Long story short, I brisket shot a doe. Same kind of thing, she just stood there, motionless. I kept waiting for her to drop because I thought it had been a perfect shot. But, no, she just stood there. Crazy. When I shot her, she moved into a position quartering away heavily, which did not give me a follow-up shot at the vitals. I repositioned and sent a follow up shot through her neck and dropped her in her tracks.

Good luck finding your friend's buck

Yeah and I didn't mean to slam this particular hunter. Just a good learning opp. Every hunter can feel sorry for him. But it would have been SOOO much better for him to learn from someone else's mistake. Maybe the poor guys been watching too many hunting shows.....

Sounds like a brisket hit to me. To dark for lung blood and to light for liver. Bet he lives.

Looks like brisket and it just depends on the angle as to the damage done, mortal or not. Decent amount of blood now that you mention not point where it was shot but where it ran through. Time will tell.

Didn't see any buzzards, but they very well may have completely cleaned him out in the 2 days since this occurred. I did have a pic of a young buck that looks to be wounded, but it may be the grass. The pic is fuzzy and the deer isn't terribly close.

And boy, oh boy did I freeze my marbles off last night.

dang no luck