Zero blood... you can’t predict how they’ll bleed

[Jtay561]

I was able to get a nice calm shot on a large bodied old buck last night. It was right about 28-30 yards, from the ground, the buck saw me but did not care one bit with the hot doe right in front of him, stood there like a statue. I settled my pin and gently squeezed off a shot. Sounded like a great hit.

I went ahead and called my wife to have her bring my three year old son who was extremely excited to come help track. I waited about 10 minutes to go look for my arrow. Was a complete pass through. Arrow was 15 yards past the deer, 1 foot in the duff, and drenched in bright red blood.

When the fam got here we started searching for blood, nothing. One drop from when I moved my arrow was it, couldn’t find a single pin mark.

Sounds like a typical “why couldn’t I find my buck story” from any forum?

Well the odd thing about this one, this buck ran about 75 yards, I saw him go down, shot placement was good. Still zero blood. The entrance and exit wounds perfectly dry and wide open. Very little meat at all bloodshot (less than 1/2 an inch around the wounds)

Definitely weird experience and goes to show that you can’t control what happens when you shoot an animal no matter how good of a job you do, I was lucky on the route he went that I was able to see him go down, if he would have went into the thick stuff, would have been a much longer night.

Here he is. Has a very large body compared to 99% of the deer around here and almost zero teeth left to speak of, will try and get a decent estimate of age off his teeth today. You can see the entrance wound right below my top limb pocket

 

[Salmonchaser]

Wow.

 

[Cwordner89]

Somethings are just tough to explain. Great shot though.

 

[Mike Islander]

Great buck! Glad you were able to recover him.

I shot an 8-point right at sunset this year...with a 30-06 at 100 yards. Hit him about 8" further forward than your shot, at about the same height, basically a mid-shoulder shot. Round was a Remington 150 grain Core-Lokt. Zero blood. Not a drop at the point of impact nor on the trail. Only when I found him in the woods (about 45 yards) did I find any blood, which had frothed out of his mouth. The round blew all the blood vessels off the top of his heart and laid up against the skin on the other side. He was basically dead when he started running, bleeding into his own chest. I could hear him crashing within seconds. Had to grid search in the area I saw him run and found him by the reflection of his eye in my headlamp.

You are right, you never know how an animal will bleed, or not.

 

[5MilesBack]

You didn't say what BH you were using, but this is why I've grown fond of big hole mechanicals, they always seem to leave more blood. The animals are going to die either way, it's the finding them that's tricky at times. Anything I can do to speed up that process is a help to me, especially when a bull elk or deer goes on a dead run for 100+ yards through thick timber and doesn't leave a drop during that run. That's a tough grid search.

 

[Jtay561]

Magnus black hornet was the broad head of choice. Mechanicals can be great. Not legal in my state tho.

Have had great blood out of the black hornets each time before this, even on shots that were more marginal than this one was.
Was very odd to not even have a trickle of blood out of the open wounds on the ground

 

[5MilesBack]

Was very odd to not even have a trickle of blood out of the open wounds on the ground

Ya, my daughter put two shots into a big bull with the muzzleloader and neither hole had even a drop of blood around it, even after he went down after the first shot, and got back up and then stayed down after the second. Not a drop. I had never seen anything like that before. The only way I found the holes was running my hand over the hide and feeling for them. One was on his right side and the other was on his left. Have no idea why neither one bled, even while laying on his side.

 

[JR Lewis]

First off, beautiful buck, truly an aged trophy.

Second, completely understand "they choose how to bleed." Buddy of mine, muzzleloader hunting, landed a perfect shot in the vitals - no exit - essentially filled his chest cavity and died within 45 yards... 100 other stories.

Lastly - awesome for including your kid - keep the passion alive!!

 

[NYSKIER]

What a great old buck helped my buddy find a buck on Sunday who had the same experience hit one with a slug and there was zero blood I took a guess and walked a rub line and found him about 75 to 100 yards away in a little thick stuff

 

[Jtay561]

Got the buck aged at F&G today. 7.5 years old. Definitely a rarity for a public land buck!

 

[Btwiceborn]

My son shot his first deer this fall. It was quartering away a little. With 300 blackout at 70 yards it entered right at the last rib and stopped in the rib on the far side passing right through parts of both lungs. It ran 50 yards and straight into the thick stuff. Dark was coming fast so we quickly got to the shot site and found one tiny tuft of hair and no blood at all. Nowhere along the known path did we find any. After we found his his deer, there was only a small amount on the ground. There was tons of internal bleeding though as the chest cavity had nearly filled. Crazy stuff.

 

[Michael54]

Great buck! Glad you were able to recover him.

I shot an 8-point right at sunset this year...with a 30-06 at 100 yards. Hit him about 8" further forward than your shot, at about the same height, basically a mid-shoulder shot. Round was a Remington 150 grain Core-Lokt. Zero blood. Not a drop at the point of impact nor on the trail. Only when I found him in the woods (about 45 yards) did I find any blood, which had frothed out of his mouth. The round blew all the blood vessels off the top of his heart and laid up against the skin on the other side. He was basically dead when he started running, bleeding into his own chest. I could hear him crashing within seconds. Had to grid search in the area I saw him run and found him by the reflection of his eye in my headlamp.

You are right, you never know how an animal will bleed, or not.
View attachment 134422

Ive had that happen so many times with 150gr remington core lokts in my 7mm mag i switched ammo

 

[cuttiebrownbow]

I have had same experience on deer I have shot from the ground. I think the traditional downward shot angle really helps with blood trail and it doesn’t matter what you shoot (unless a rage trypan) but even they take some time to get it he blood splashing if the shot angle is even.

Great buck and great shot.




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[OXN939]

Got the buck aged at F&G today. 7.5 years old. Definitely a rarity for a public land buck!

Cool write up and experience in general. Just speculating, but even a good shot like that could miss the arterial vasculature, especially with an arrow that has a relatively small wound channel compared to a high-powered bullet. If your arrow got, say, the vena cava instead of an artery, the thoracic cavity would likely fill with blood (as mentioned by several others above) but there may not be enough pressure to cause the spurts you see on some blood trails. Very possible depending on a ton of variables and, like you say initially, close to impossible to influence or predict.

 

[Joe Schmo]

Surprised they can age it that quick, that's tax dollars at work
I hit a buck yesterday in the shoulder/lung/liver and he didn't bleed a drop but piled up after sprinting 100 yards

 

[Titan_Bow]

The angle from the ground shot makes sense. One of the deer I shot this year, and both I shot last year, were from the ground, and my experience on all of those was similar to yours. I watched the deer go down but was surprised at almost no blood trail. Those 3 were with G5 Strykers, all were double lung passthroughs. I did shoot a doe this year, also from the ground, with a Rage, and it looked like someone walked along with a bucket of blood sloshing it on the brush!. My son has shot 2 bucks with Muzzy Phantoms, both from treestand, and both of those were tremendous blood trails.

 

[Jtay561]

[QUOTE="Joe Schmo,
Surprised they can age it that quick, that's tax dollars at work

Well it does help that I work at a F&G regional office, no clue how long it would take for some joe blow off the street