The ones that got away.

[4thefunofit]

I've owned my Rem. 700 BDL 30-06 for almost 60 years. Only last year, though, with hopes of working up a good long range round, did I begin reloading. I also have a new 6mm-TCU build that's almost finished that I hope will shoot well out to 600 yds. My next build, hopefully in the not too distant future, will be the tried but true 7x57 AI for going long. I'm something of a wimp and can't handle heavy recoil, so I'm staying away from the really hot cartridges. But all this aside, I'm concerned about the increased possibilities of missing a shot and wounding, or even not finding, an animal. I remember how I felt after making a good bow shot on a deer years ago, but never finding the animal after it ran into a heavily brushed area - sold my bow the next day. Anyway, we read a lot of stories about great hunts resulting in filled freezers and happy hunters, but what about the not so successful hunts, the shots you wish you'd never taken. Have you had any of those?

 

[26Reload]

Well..wasnt a bad shot...arrow thru a blktail on the coast....in the snow...middle of a logged off unit...one big rootwad in the middle...fataly shot deer ran 50 yards after being hit...thru the snow to the rootwad...waited 10 minutes..walked up there....no deer...blood all the way...no tracks leaving..no blood leaving...but no deer.....just vanished.....gone...
No BS....

 

[4thefunofit]

Well..wasnt a bad shot...arrow thru a blktail on the coast....in the snow...middle of a logged off unit...one big rootwad in the middle...fataly shot deer ran 50 yards after being hit...thru the snow to the rootwad...waited 10 minutes..walked up there....no deer...blood all the way...no tracks leaving..no blood leaving...but no deer.....just vanished.....gone...
No BS....

I've read that with long range rifle shots it's possible to not know if it was a hit or a miss. And sometimes even when you know it's a hit, you can't tell for sure where you hit it, or if the animal will eventually succumb or not. The one thing you know for sure is whether or not you take it home. In your case it's a mystery. Perhaps it fell into Bigfoot's invisible cave.

 

[26Reload]

It was an arrow...straight thru the lungs...myself in the truck..not hunting..two brothers hunting..i watched that deer go to that rootwad....and it never left the rootwad...that rootwad was huge..with a burnt out arch in the bottom...i crawled thru it...brothers walked around it....no deer..no tracks leaving it......we had no idea what happened....whole reason for us taking the drive was fresh snow...
perfect late season deer weather.....
Well.....not this time....and we weren't drunk.....we never talked much about it......it was unnerving...

 

[4thefunofit]

The only rational possibility I can think of is that after the deer entered the rootwad a chunk of snow fell from the "roof" and covered the deer.

 

[4thefunofit]

The only rational possibility I can think of is that after the deer entered the rootwad a chunk of snow fell from the "roof" and covered the deer.

 

[MagnumManiac]

I shot a large bodied Sambar stag, he would have been 30" tall by 29" wide at a very uphill angle. All I could see was his head, neck and very top of his shoulder, maybe 8" of it tops. He was covered by brush, so I aimed high at the top of his shoulder…silly me, I knew to hold low but in the excitement I forgot. At the shot he jumped a good 3 feet and I could see fur floating in the air, so I knew I had connected. After that all I saw was his butt heading uphill, which is very rare in my experience, they always head downhill when fatally hit.
I tracked him quite easily but there was little blood and after the third gully system I had crossed I knew he wasn't hit hard.
Two weeks later he was seen on one of my game cams alive and well with barely a mark on him.
15 months later I shot him, the last shot had hit him above the shoulder, missed the spine and put a 33 cal hole in and a 33 cal hole out and had only passed through about 3.5"-4" of deer missing everything. It had a callous on the wound and was completely healed.
I am still amazed.

Cheers.

 

[4thefunofit]

I've read that blood loss causes them to become dehydrated, and that they can often be found under cover near water. What was the distance on your shot?