Bad Shot That Ended With a Recovery...

[WapitiTalk1]

Ya, bad shots/hits happen; hunting/shooting elk is not always text book, poetry in motion, everything occurred perfectly at the moment of truth, like you read in the hunting mags (or on hunting forums for that matter). After you’ve hunted for a year or forty, stuff happens that was not our intention/plan. Share a story of a bad hit (what happened that made the hit less than ideal), and the follow on factors that ended on a positive recovery.  I’ve got a dandy and will share it later.

[High Climber]

A few years back during late archery, I spotted elk feeding in the back pocket of a 3 year old cut. It was extremely foggy and just happed to see a few elk asses when it thinned out for a second. I made a short stalk through the timber with good wind and approached the edge of the clear cut. The last 30 feet or so had quite a few young hemlocks that were in the 6’-8’ range. As I got to where I could see into the cut I immediately spotted a nice fat cow feeding 20 yards out. I picked a lane and waited patiently until she stepped into it. At the shot my arrow immediately deflected and stuck her square in the hind quarter!! FML there was a hemlock top that was under my pins but in the path of my arrow.  The herd busted and I ran to where she was standing to see if I could get another arrow in her before they went back in the thick stuff.  I got a good visual on each elk and didn’t see any blood or limpers ( hoof rot wasn’t bad yet). About that time I heard sticks break about 30 yards away... I looked where the sound came from and I could see elk legs straight up in the air!! I got extremely lucky and my deflected arrow buried in the femoral artery! She was down within seconds in what very easily could have been a long blood trail with no notched tag.

[zwickeyman]

I shot a big Black Bear Boar some years ago. Shot him with my recurve at a slight quartering towards me shot, shooting from my knees at about 18 yards my bottom limb hit a branch and shot him in front of the shoulder instead of behind. He whirled and ran back from where he had just came, 20 minutes before dark. I was scared *censored*less and didnt move from my spot for 20 minutes knowing I had a wounded Bear waiting for me. Finally went and looked for blood and it was every where. Easy 80 yard track job, got lucky and hit his jugular. Nice 18 3/4" Boar

[Pete112288]

My first year muzzleloader hunting I drew a late season Coweeman antlerless tag.
After a hard time of making rookie mistakes (not packing enough reloads, leaving powder flask in truck, letting stuff get wet... etc) I finally had a fresh bead on a group of 6 cows that I had been watching for several days. They were hanging around the same chunk of land on and off of private. I was hunting Weyco land (the last year before pay to play on the St Helens tree farm). Fresh snow gave me some good tracks through some thick reprod. Walked up on the elk bedded at about 10 feet in front of me. Lifted up to fire at the first cow that stood up, and she was broadside. Pulled the trigger, click....... what felt like an hour later but was proabably less than a second... boom. She had turned by the time it went off and it struck solid in her right butt cheek (later found the bullet in her ball/socket joint of that leg to hip.) After a long tiring tracking job through that stuff, passing on the others knowing I had a wounded animal there, I finally caught up to her and was able to put her down with a solid vital shot. I got lucky at one point cause the tracks all split at a knoll in the reprod and I had to use my best guess at which set were hers.

[ASienkiewich]

My first cow I ever shot was on a toutle January hunt. Found a group of cows in the timber, raised up and shot her right in the front shoulder(whoops). I was shooting my dads old 30.06 with some 150gr soft points... LOL Won’t ever shoot those again. It did not penetrate through her shoulder so she was on the move. We followed spotty blood and tracks for hours. Saw her a couple times and couldn’t get a shot. Finally we caught her on an old road in the timber and I dumped her. Then we were able to drive the truck right up to her😂 Great first story I guess


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Wetwoodshunter]

My first elk that I shot we called in to 25 yards. I had a frontal shot and wrong pinned the elk, thinking back I must have used my 40 yard pin. The arrow went in the tear duct of the elk and through the brain. The elk slowly looked from right to left and you could see 8" of arrow and fletch in front of my bull's face. As clear as can be I can still hear my cousin's saying "You shot him in the f$$$ing face, why would you do that?"

The bull drunkenly stomped off. I sat there sick thinking that this bull was gone and 15 mins later we went after it hoping that I may get another shot on him. He was piled up dead in a creek 30-45 yards from where I hit him.

Sometimes its best to be lucky. Although I would never shoot another elk in the face with a bow it did the trick on that one.

[trophyhunt]

I shot a big Black Bear Boar some years ago. Shot him with my recurve at a slight quartering towards me shot, shooting from my knees at about 18 yards my bottom limb hit a branch and shot him in front of the shoulder instead of behind. He whirled and ran back from where he had just came, 20 minutes before dark. I was scared *censored*less and didnt move from my spot for 20 minutes knowing I had a wounded Bear waiting for me. Finally went and looked for blood and it was every where. Easy 80 yard track job, got lucky and hit his jugular. Nice 18 3/4" Boar

Cool story man, I know the feeling, looking for a wounded bear by yourself if exciting as heck.  Done it a couple times.

[Bullkllr]

When my oldest son was a young teen he missed a standing broadside shot on a blacktail buck. I said, "Shoot again!" Just as he squeezed off a second shot, the deer whirled, then simply disappeared in the reprod. I really had no idea if he hit it or not.

We went up there and eventually found the buck wedged between some logs not 6 feet from where he had been. The neck just below the head was completely blown out. I said, "Wow, great shot!". My son admitted right away he was not aiming for the buck's neck.

[Karl Blanchard]

When the rangefinder read 50 on the nose I drew, anchored, and pulled through my shot.  Arrow arced over the yellow grass and looked perfectly perfect.  He spun and started to run but more cow sounds slowed him to an uneasy walk.  I could see my arrow hung up by the fletchings.  It was right on the crease and exactly half way up the body.  Couldn't be more perfect.....so I thought.  For 9 more hours and 3.2 miles we ran, climbed, crawled.  Had to hunker under a tree to get out of the rain and then dawn puffy's to help cut the gale force winds.  Tiny specks of blood were lost and then found again.  Finally it was hoof strikes only and then what all hunters fear, a cold trail.  

We ended up on a series of cliffs and rock slides.  In an act of desperation I climbed out onto a rock shelf between cliff bands to see if I could see him moving along the rim rock.  As I was looking down for footing I noticed a small spot of blood!  You have got to be kidding me!?!?!  Then another spot.  And another!  I move another 10 yards and I can see antler tips over the edge!

He had moved along this shelf and snuck out onto a cliff face like a damn mountain goat!  The wind was blowing 30mph+ and he was 64 yards.  Too far to shoot in this wind and I wasnt even certain I could retrieve him.  I backed out, got the guys, and found a different vantage point that put me 41 yards (30 yard shot with the cut).  I was mentally relieved at finding him but now I had a different concern. Can I retrieve him if I killed him where he stands? And if I shoot him is he going to die where he is or take a step in the wrong direction? I I'm not accustomed to wounded animals and my immense desire to end his suffering drove me to make the decision to take the shot. I stepped out above him on a rock pinnacle, leaned into the wind, and took my shot. The arrow found its mark and miraculously he did not move.  Within seconds he fell over dead.  I got very lucky as a basketball sized rock jammed in his ribs when he piled up.  This kept him from a 90ft fall!  

The retrieval is something my little brother would refer to as "interesting".  With a few attempts we got down to him, got him into pieces, and got him on to Safe ground.  Upon closer inspection I found my shot had it very low.  It entered bottom of brisket, ricocheted up, taking out the offside lung and exiting mid body.  When we got back to the truck and the spot of the shot we ranged back from where he was standing to where I shot from and it was 63 yards.  I had hit the tops of the grass that were in front of him when I ranged.  Archery is a game of inches and a small error such as an inaccurate range made for a nightmare of a day. 

 To say that I was relieved that we found him after all of that would be an understatement.  It's a sickening feeling knowing you have wounded an animal and my expectation with the sign we were following was that we would not find this elk. I'm not proud of how it all went down and it was a good reminder that just when you think you've exhausted all options, just keep searching.

[7mmfan]

The only "bad shot" that comes to mind was a mule deer I killed in the Methow a few years ago. I was sitting watching a saddle expecting animals to come from a certain direction. All of sudden, all hell breaks loose above me and here come 3 deer, 2 bucks and a doe, barreling straight down the hill at me. About 10 minutes before, a small buck had stepped into the open briefly about 200 yards away across the saddle and I had cranked my scope all the way to 12 to get a better look at him. Unfortunately I did not dial it back down when he left. The biggest buck was in the lead and stopped no more than 30' uphill from me. I swung the rifle onto him and all I could see was the tips of hairs in my scope. 12x at 10 yards is not ideal. He boogied and I had to make a decision so I found the front of his shoulder in the scope and fired as he began to run. I fired 2 more follow up shots as he ran 200 yards across the saddle into the timber and didn't appear to be hit. I sat there for a minute reflecting on what had just happened, kicked myself and got up to go find his trail and follow up. At the place of the shot, there was no blood, but there was hair. I assumed I had grazed the front of his shoulder. I followed his tracks to the edge of the timber and as I looked ahead on the trail, there he was bedded down with his head laying on the ground in front of him. He was clearly still alive and seemed to be trying to hide. I backed up, circled uphill about 30 yards and walked out until I had a good view of his neck, and finished him off.

It appears I did miss the initial shot, but one of my hail mary follow ups had found it's mark, just not where I wanted it to. The bullet had grazed the rear quarter, went through the stomach and liver and hit the offside lung. There was not a drop of blood on his trail. A guy named Todd came upon me a couple minutes later and helped me drag the buck to a better location to process him. He kept saying he couldn't understand why I was so somber, it was a great buck! And it was, I was just beside myself for the agony I knew that buck was in before I caught up to him. I'm just glad I was able to finish it quickly.

[WapitiTalk1]

While still in the Army, stationed here at JBLM, I invited a fellow NCO to come elk hunt with me down south in the Lewis GMU.  Didn’t get into much the first few days but on day three, we had finished a morning hunt and had returned to my jeep mid-afternoon to eat some food and were prepping to drive to another area for an evening hunt.  As Jason was still working on his calling skills, I told him to jump over the small cut bank, walk back in the trees 25 yards or so, and we’d do a bit of calling practice back and forth on this fine sunny SEP afternoon to pass a bit of time; it was probably in the mid-70s.  Jason let out something that sounded like a turkey being tortured.  I waited a 30 seconds or so and answered back with a nice three note bugle with a bit of chuckling on the end.  Well, off to my backside…. not more than 150 yards away in a sparsely timbered and brushy old clear cut…. a bull answered my call! I ran to where Jason was hunkered down, making more sick turkey sounds, quickly and told him “let’s go, a bull just answered me”!  Took him a bit to believe me but back to the rig we went, shoved our ½ eaten lunch spread in the back of the rig, grabbed our bows/packs, threw our long sleeved jackets on, and off we went I the direction of the answer.   We moved quickly to the edge of a somewhat open area and I dropped Jason close to several active elk trails (fresh sign everywhere).  Arrow nocked, I bugled and here the bull came, bugling several times as he moved…. I could see his antlers above the tall huckleberry brush as he moved in a circle, to get downwind of the other bull he heard (me), which brought him close to Jason but not in Jason’s shooting lanes/view.  I watched as the bull broke into the small opening at a trot and headed directly toward me!  No hanging up for this young bull, he was on a mission.  Umm, this wasn’t the plan and as I was set up with my back against a few small jack firs and nothing in front of me…. I had to stop the bull with a loud nervous bark as he was looking to run me over.  I drew, barked, and the bull slammed on the brakes not more than 15 yards from me.  The old Darton Viper launched the Easton 2216 fence post, tipped with the Wasp Cam-Loc 4 blade, directly into the bull’s chest but very low, too low.  As the arrow smacked into the bull, he wheeled and headed out back in the direction of where he came.  I quickly nocked another arrow and threw out a loud high note bugle through my tube…. Homer stopped, broadside, about 35ish yards away, and I launched another arrow.  This one hit him hard, but low in the lung area…..  Crash, crash, crash….. off he went back up through the brushy, lightly timbered area.   I marked the last spot the bull was standing, made a mental note of the direction he was heading, and backed out and sat down for a good hour and a half.  We started tracking the bull late-afternoon and quickly found ½ of a broken off arrow; I figured it was the initial shot arrow due to the lack of juice on it (just the back half/fletched portion of the arrow).  Very, very minimal blood (spots here and there) told me what I needed to know; the hit(s) were not very good.  I tracked the bull until right before nightfall, using his tracks as much or more than the minimal blood I found.  At dark, I decided to back out till morning and let the bull bed down.  Right at daylight, Jason and I were back at it.  We found the bull bedded just inside at huge wall of brush, very sick but alive.  I crawled in within 15 yards to where I could thread an arrow through the brush and put an arrow through both lungs of the bedded bull.  He jumped up, staggered a few steps, and went down for good. The first arrow shot the previous afternoon had hit too low (as suspected) and did not touch a vital.  The second arrow had hit him very, very low just clipping one lung. They are tough animals and unless your arrows find their mark into the vitals, they can live a long time if not survive.   



               

[7mmfan]

I see an elk in that picture, but where are you??? Man that face paint is the real deal!

[WSU]

7mm - I shot my first buck just like that ten or eleven. A spike blacktail with one inch horns. Lucky for me he didn’t know what was going on either. He stood up with his front feet on a stump checking me out at about ten feet. All I could see with my scope cranked to 9x was hair, so I pulled the trigger like any other ten year old would do. Hit him dead center in the chest and dropped him. Talk about dumb luck!

[WapitiTalk1]

I see an elk in that picture, but where are you??? Man that face paint is the real deal!

Ha, ya I used to love the pre-dawn face painting routine.  Nowadays, I just carry a head net/face mask with me....no more skin ripping face paint removal for me after returning to camp.   

[Alchase]

I have a great hit bad recovery,
I was Hunting elk down by Elwaco in the early 90s with my Cousin. We were about three miles down a closed road when out of the brush steps a nice 3x4 bull (4x4 with broken tine)  about 40 yards away. I can remember thinking "it can't get any better than this". I hit him with a perfectly placed 7MM round to the lungs. He does not hardly react, except to lift his near side front leg and then coughs up a good sized clot. I am getting ready to hit him again as he starts to go down leaning forward and takes two steps and crumples, right down the 30 foot waterfall coming out a culvert from under the road. He landed in a swampy bog of Devils Club, skunk cabbage, and nettles. We looked down and realized, he is 30 feet away, straight down, in a bog, and we have no rope! I knew I had a tow strap back in the truck, I asked my cousin to go back and get and anything else that can be used to reach the 30 feet, and I will try to get down to him and start cutting. I looked and debated on how to get down, finally decided to try a little washout and slide down. I made it about 5 feet picking up speed, and face planted for the rest of the slide! I was soaked, my face hurt like hell but I did not really know it was all bloody because of the mud. While standing in the bog, I start quartering. My cousin shows backup almost three hours later, with my tow rope, four tire chains, and a roll of that white cotton line that can barely hold its own weight. As he is trying to piece together enough to reach me using the cotton line to tie together the tow rope and the chains, two other hunters show up and one has a drag rope we can use. After five hours, and now getting dark, we were finally able to get the elk up on the road in five loads. I climb up to the road, and my cousin yells what the heck did you do to your face! My nose bleed pretty heavily and with all the blood from the bull, water and mud, I had not noticed my face was covered in my own blood.
I took us three trips to get every thing to the truck. The last trip me carrying the head and tenderloins, my cousin carrying the tow strap and chains, it was around 9:00 pm.

[7mmfan]

I see an elk in that picture, but where are you??? Man that face paint is the real deal!

Ha, ya I used to love the pre-dawn face painting routine.  Nowadays, I just carry a head net/face mask with me....no more skin ripping face paint removal for me after returning to camp.

They make fancy makeup removers for stuff like that. I'm sure my wife would loan you some. 

[WSU]

I have had two that come to mind.  The first was a bull I shot from apparently too far with a traditional muzzy.  My bullet only penetrated one lung.  The bull stood there in the clearcut while I snuck in for the finishing shot.  I promptly shot him right in hind quarter and he ran into some thick reprod.  I backed out, hiked/biked the 3 miles back to the rig to get some game bags and other supplies, and got back a couple hours later.  I couldn't find any blood so I snuck into the reprod where the bull had entered.  About 20 yards in, the bull jumps up about 10 yards away through a wall of trees.  I shot through the trees and the bull dropped.  I reload, not having any idea where I hit the bull, and take a step.  He picks his head up and looks at me so I shoot him in the neck.  I reload again and am now out of speed loaders.  I take another step and the bull looks at me again.  I still can't see that clearly but move around to shoot him in the head.  I walked up to him praying I wasn't going to have to do hand to hand combat and fortunately he was done.  The whole time my wife was 30 yards behind me the cut asking if she should come help.  I'm yelling at her to stay there and hoping the bull doesn't get fed up with us yelling at each other and run off.  What a mess.

The second was another muzzy bull.  I shot a bit too far back and got the liver.  Long story short, a friend and tracked the bull for about 3 miles with a drop of blood here and a track there.  We caught up to him bedded about 7 hours later and I shot him in the head.  He was looking at me over his back and never moved again. 

Both shots were very close to being perfect but didn't turn out that way.  I've seen much worse shots end up with much better results.

[DOUBLELUNG]

My first archery bull was a satellite 6 point that was crossing right to left at what I estimated to be 40 yards.  He jumped the shot and switched ends, from my release midpoint behind his left shoulder it appeared the arrow entered at the same location behind his right shoulder!  Amazed at the speed of his reaction and feeling confident in a dead bull, I waited an hour and then followed up.  I quickly found the back 8" of my arrow, with dark blood and gut content, and realized the arrow had angled back into the guts rather than the broadside I'd seen a microsecond after impact.  I flagged the spot and with a bad feeling waited two more hours.  Fortunately, I made the shot before 9am on a sunny day.

Expecting a gut shot bull to head downhill, I made arcing passes to the west toward the creek bottom.  No sign.  I returned to the arrow piece and did my best to read the tracks.  There were lots of elk tracks in every direction, but by laying down and looking parallel to the ground I could make out the shine of the most recent set - heading off uphill to the southeast.  I used a long straight stick to point the angle of the track, and picked out the furthest tuft of grass where I could see the shine of that track.  I then walked up to that spot, put my mountain money on it, walked back to the stick, picked it up and then scanned the ground closely (I did a lot of this on all fours) as I worked to my TP.  I began to find occasional tiny flecks of dark blood and gut content, which I marked with small pieces of flagging.  After about 2 hours I had followed the trail 220 yards on the GPS to the crest of that small side drainage, topping over into the next I could see the tracks went onto a very defined elk trail down into the next creek bottom, a small rimrocked drainage filled with aspens and brush. As I was glassing down into that bottom, I caught a flash of antler bobbing forward like a feeding elk - huh?  Easing very slowly forward, I was able to see it was the bull bedded, his eyes nearly closed and his head bobbing forward then jerking back up - he was sick but a long way from dead. 

As a direct approach would have put me both upwind and line of sight, I picked out a distinctive dead branch in the top of the closest aspen to his bed, and backed out of sight until I could just see the branch above the ridge - probably 60' above the bedded elk.  I made a wide arc to the south and east, keeping that branch in sight, until I had maneuvered to a point where I hoped the northwest breeze would blow my scent away from the elk.  I worked back along the rimrock toward my aspen tree, parallel to the drainage.  At 40 yards I removed my boots and stalked slowly up to where I could look down into the aspens.  As I eased forward at the closest point on the rimrock, I could see the bull, now standing and looking back along his back trail, facing straight away and almost directly below me at roughly 20 yards.  My only shot was a foot square opening in the branches that gave me his pelvis and the first several inches of his spine. I put my 20 yard pin at the front of his pelvis and right of his spine.  The arrow sunk to the fletchings right of the spine and he jolted like a huge electric shot hit him.  I was quickly nocking my next arrow as he took a couple of shaky steps and was completely obscured; I bailed off the rimrock down to the trail he had walked on and had a quick glimpse of his back end disappearing into the thick riparian cover - I could hear my arrow rattling through the branches as he once again ran off.

I gathered my boots and other gear, and then followed the trail.  The sign in the bed was not encouraging - a fist-sized puddle of dark blood mixed with gut content.  No blood or sign was found from there to where he disappeared deeper into the thick riparian vegetation.  I GPSed the last location I saw him.  No blood, but it was easy to see where he'd run through the dense vegetation.  After about 40 yards, a surprise - one of my entire arrows, completely covered in dark blood.  I was thoroughly confused trying to make sense of that.  However, after that I began to find better blood - not great, but dime to nickel sized splotches (on the ground but not the leaves), all giving a nice directional splash to show his direction of travel.  I followed this sign through the riparian bottom and up the next slope, where the blood began to taper off and I could tell he had slowed to a walk.  This area was mostly bare rock, I lost the blood and couldn't find the track at all. 

I GPSed the last blood, zoomed my GPS in all the way, and began to spiral out from that spot, using the GPS to try and keep 20' between track lines.  To my surprise, I found another drop of blood in steep rock well above the last blood.  I GPSed that one and started a new spiral, struggling on the steep rock to maintain my line.  I crested a small rise and saw antler tips again, this time parallel to the ground!!!  I nocked another arrow, eased forward, and had the welcome sight of my bull laying dead, the fletching of my second shot pointing straight back at me from in front of his pelvis.  It was 3:30pm, almost 7 hours after my first shot, and 330 yards as the crow flies - more like half a mile on the ground.

Amazingly, the first shot released at an aimpoint behind his left shoulder had entered almost the same location on his right side - but not broadside, at a steep angle back which clipped the back of his right lung and penetrated through the diaphragm into his rumen.  My second shot from the rimrock had killed him within a couple of minutes, making a deep long cut through his liver and into intestines.  That arrow had made a mess of the intestines as he ran, but the cut through the liver is what bled him out - and entirely internally.  My third hail mary shot had given me the blood, punching straight through the meatiest part of his calf.  I initially started to gut him, but finding the shredded bloody intestinal mess switched to my first ever gutless method for removing the meat.  Only after I had all the meat off did I gut him, to get the tenderloins and see what exactly had happened with the two shots.  At that time, I didn't know how to retrieve the tenderloins without gutting.

I'm not proud of this kill, but I was grateful to be successful and persevere to the recovery.  I made brutal packout with the head and about 80 lbs of backstraps, tenderloins, neck and flank meat in my Badlands 2200 pack, arriving at camp after dark.  The next entire day was three round trips to fetch the quarters.

[Karl Blanchard]

You weren’t near as ugly when you were young Beau

[WapitiTalk1]

I see an elk in that picture, but where are you??? Man that face paint is the real deal!

Ha, ya I used to love the pre-dawn face painting routine.  Nowadays, I just carry a head net/face mask with me....no more skin ripping face paint removal for me after returning to camp.

They make fancy makeup removers for stuff like that. I'm sure my wife would loan you some. 

Preposterous!  Any face painter worth their salt only uses moss and dirt to rub the cammo off 

[DOUBLELUNG]

You weren’t near as ugly when you were young Beau

I haven't aged well it's true!

[CoryTDF]

Here is the story from my 2013 Dayton bull. It certainly fits in this thread.

http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,135157.0.html

[greenhead_killer]

my dad and i had muzzle loader cow tags in the peaches a few years ago. was my first season/hunt ever with a muzzy. long story short, i shot a spike bull at 25 yards while he was walking. really slow walk and i didnt think anything of it at the time and because the distance was so short i never second guessed stopping him. i verified it was a spike. lowered the gun and pppfffftttttt boom, finally went off. elk scattered everywhere. i waited for the smoke to clear and no bull. walked the twenty five yards to where he was standing, no blood, no guts, nothing. i figured maybe i somehow gut shot him. i backed out and waited for 2 hours to see if by some miracle he went down. whole time i was waiting, i kept smelling elk and telling myself it had to be him just down the hill. after the two hours, i started creeping down the hill, following the smell of elk. got down the hill 200 yards and here my bull was piled up against a tree, still alive. i put one more in him and he was down in less than a min. walking up to him, my shot hit him in the spine and broke his back. i was elated but disappointed in the initial shot and what had transpired to get me to this point. learning curve on muzzy for sure. just glad i was able to recover and have it finished.

[Archsnipe]

Not a bad shot, found an elk story, but 4 years ago, archery hunting for elk after a storm with alot of wind blowing, we were ninja-ing through the woods, and found a large bull, standing back end to a steep hill, head into the wind.  Several range finder checks at 60 yards, I let one sail with the friend watching.  Perfect flight, perfect line, perfect "whap", high fives as the elk ran off.  We both thought a perfect broadside, mid body behind the shoulder shot, and we'd be packing elk in an hour.  We let it simmer for 30 min, went down to check out where he was, and found tracks going away as we thought, but, no arrow, no blood.  Weird.  Started tracking the bull.  No blood.  Following tracks we found he had a small herd of cows with him, they all moved out slowly after the shot.  Kept following tracks, then they peetered out.  This was at noon or so, and for the rest of the day, and the next two days, we gridded out about a square mile, my GPS looking like a screen of perpendicular lines, and those lines were all mine, with my buddy in between. 

The problem was, it wasn't a bad shot, with my eyes and my friends eyes on it, what the heck happened?  No arrow in the dirt, not under the dirt, not in a tree, not down the hill, no blood.......Heart ache for nights and weeks.  Each time we go back to this area, I hope to find a big bull shed around some bones with my arrow laying in them, but really I hope I missed cleanly somehow, and that bull will be there again. I'm glad you all have recovery stories, this was the first time I have ever missed.....any big game.  Makes me want to know though.......

[Gonehuntin01]

About 15 years ago, hunting late season archery elk, I got into a large herd of elk.  Tracked and trailer them for 4 hours and about 5 miles. We went through canyons a nd ridges, reprod and big timber, just couldn't make it happen.  Finally caught them in a clearcut, had a nice 5 point at 40 yards with two spikes above and in front of him.  First year of 3 point or better.  Not comfortable with the shot i passed.  The herd was spread out everywhere, so I moved down the cut further and found a huge cow broadside 50 yards.  I drew took the shot and watched, at what looked like my arrow flew over her back.  She bolted straight ahead and the whole herd took off everywhere.  Very disappointed that I just worked that hard and totally missed my shot

I moved further down the clear cut as some elk were still visible.  After a half hour of trying to move in on these elk, they finally had enough and moved out.  Very discouraged, I started back up the grade out of the unit, passing where the initial shot was taken, I looked to my left, there may my cow.  How did I not see the arrow but her, how come I didn't see any of it.  I rolled her around looking for anything, and found i had made a pass through shot.  Went back and looked for my arrow with no luck.  The cow had only gone 30 yards.  Totally dumbfounded with what had just happened.  Sent to work taking care of The cow and went and gone help getting her out.  Biggest cow i have killed to date.  Very lucky to have found her.  Made me think twice about missing, or following my arrow.  Turned out to be a great day.

[elkrack]

I swear by always hunting the last day of the hunt. I’ve killed 4 elk on the very last day. So off I go on my last day to hunt and I get on some elk right away! They have no clue I’m there and they are making all the racket in the world. Finally after trying to get a lane forever a cow pops into a slim opening and starts to feed   I range her 62 yards set the pin at 60( slight down hill) draw and let it fly🏹. I will never forget watching that cow drop about a foot and forward about a foot and my arrow entering in the high back   the arrow was dead on for double lung or possibly heart shot but now I’ve got a cow with an arrow sticking out of its back. So I go to point of impact to tape it off and wait but knew right off the bat I got extremely lucky. Blood was right where she was standing and a clear trail to where she lay dead. I hit the artery that runs down the spine( femoral artery I believe?). A great outcome to a bad hit.

[Pathfinder101]

Short story: 
Rifle Hunt in Montana in 2009.  Second to the last day, spotted this buck with a harem and pulled a 2.5 mile stalk to get to him.  Set up on them at 320 yards.  Buck is walking straight towards me with his head down.  I put the crosshairs center mass and touched it off.  Heard a wack.  Buck looks a little loopy, but my buddy Tom says "better put another one in him".  I do.  And when we get up to him, he's got his G2 shot off.  Must have been right in line with his shoulder.

 

[brew]

late archery blacktail hunt before PPV in Vail.  Buddy set chokers so we went in and the wife had to go shopping on "Black Friday".  told her to meet us at the gate at 1:00.  it was really cold and we also roll around with the windows down.  come around a corner and 4 deer start bouncing around.  We jump out and I range one broadside at 32 yards.  She pulls back and is so cold her bow hand is doing circles.  she releases and the spike instantly drops.  walk up to him and a foot of arrow is sticking out of his face--she shot him right up the nose and broadhead lodges in the brain.

Archery elk hunt early 2000's in the Manastash.  Buddy and his cousin call and a herd of cows come storming in.  Buddy let loose on a yearling 25 yards away and they bolted.  Found good blood for about 75 yards then nothing.  We spent about 3 hours looking for something but finding nothing.  everyone else was giving up when about 250 yards away i found a dime spot of dried blood on an old whitened log.  called the wife over to help and she walks 75 yards up the hill and the cow was dead under a small fir tree liver shot

Mid 2000's I drew any any elk archery tag in the Manastash.  Raining like a mother so we decide to drive around to try to find the wife a doe to shoot.  Come around the corner and a 6 pt bull and 3 cows standing 35 yards off the road.  Just as I draw on the bull he horns the cows and they take off about 50 yards.  The cows stop and he keeps horning them trying to get them to go.  I can't get a shot at him as he keeps going from cow to cow as they just stand there looking at me.  Finally they take off and I catch up to them about 100 yards later.  Range him at 73 yards and let er fly.  Arrow hits and they all take off.  As i said its really raining so we didn't take much time to track him.  GPS said he went 3/4 of a mile before he was too weak to go further.  Lost the blood trail but he crossed the road and we heard a truck slam on the brakes with gravel flying.  Ran to the road just as the guy was walking back.  I asked him if he saw my bull and he said yes it was laid up 100 yards up in the brush.  He walked me in to where he laid and i finished him.  First shot hit him low in the brisket.  He died on a quad trail and 5 of us drug him whold down to the truck.  Had to pull his head back and tie it to the bumper cuz we put him in a little Dodge truck.  He was a warrior cuz when skinning him found about 3" of arrow and a 3 blade muzzy calloused in his neck

[Crunchy]

Oregon archery elk.  Snuck into a herd with a bull bugling like crazy.  Could only see patches of his hide through the thick timber.  Four cows branch off and are going to talk by me at 25 yards.  I am not picky in an any elk unit.  I am in the thick jack firs with a small window to shoot.  Where the cows are it is much more open.  I draw and wait.  Cow stops and I let it fly.  She drops.  Somehow I spinal tapped her.  Could only guess something hit my bow limb or arrow in the thick stuff I shot her from.  Went up and finished her off with a lung shot.

[ctwiggs1]

Last year on VASHON of all places.

I high lunged a doe on a property I had permission to hunt. That doe traveled across 6 different properties (all of which were owned by anti hunting folks).  I knocked on every door and asked permission to track.  I was called everything under the sun from poacher to %*#^.

I was so tense and stressed out that I could barely think.  One person told me the cops were on their way. I hadn’t done anything illegal but it still stressed me out.  Dealing with this while questioning my shooting, my hunting capabilities and where the heck this doe had gone to. 

I called @fillthefreezer and had him talk me down about 3.5 hours into it.  I got my thoughts together, found one last game trail she may have taken, and walked right to her.  I asked permission to retrieve when I found out I accidentally crossed a property line, and was loaded and gone within 10 minutes of her saying “yes”.  I passed a KCSD on my way out and couldn’t help but wonder if he was called out for me. 

I will be hunting Vashon again, but I will not be hunting that property again.  Just not worth the hassle. 

[Crunchy]

So many deer on Vashon all you need is a sling shot

[Okanagan]

Tracking is fascinating.

A son's story.  At dawn in steep alpine, he lay prone and shot a mature blacktail buck in the chest with a 180 Swift A-frame in 30-06 (his elk load at the time).  The buck was standing about level with him, in a rocky groove with legs and bottom edge of chest behind a steep windrow of rock.  Without a rangefinder, he estimated 250 yards.  The buck whirled as if touched but gave no other sign of a hit.

No blood, no hair and after 1 1/2 hour of careful searching, and he is one of the best trackers I know, he  gave it up as a miss and went on hunting.  Nearly half a mile farther along the mountain, he noticed one small drop of blood on a narrow rock trail that skirted the base of a cliff.  He worked it, found another speck, and by afternoon had worked the buck's trail to the top of the open ridge above.  The other side was was wide open rock ribs, little cliffs, scree and steep alpine slide meadows down into a mean timber and boulder basin.  No more blood. 

He looked over the country and asked himself where he would go if he was a wounded deer looking for cover.  250 yards below and across was a wind gnarled Christmas tree, the only cover within several hundred yards, so he went down to it.  He found blood where the deer had stood for a bit but no trail to follow.  He looked around, went to the next most likely spot, found more blood and I think it was the third such move when he saw the buck stand up ahead of him in a small clump and he finished it. 

Post postmortem showed a flattened, smashed, rough surfaced bullet that had obviously hit a rock and ricocheted into the buck.  He had underestimated the range and bounced the bullet off of the rocks just in front of the buck's chest, changing a quick kill into an odd wound the buck might have survived.

[JJB11B]

A few years back during late archery, I spotted elk feeding in the back pocket of a 3 year old cut. It was extremely foggy and just happed to see a few elk asses when it thinned out for a second. I made a short stalk through the timber with good wind and approached the edge of the clear cut. The last 30 feet or so had quite a few young hemlocks that were in the 6’-8’ range. As I got to where I could see into the cut I immediately spotted a nice fat cow feeding 20 yards out. I picked a lane and waited patiently until she stepped into it. At the shot my arrow immediately deflected and stuck her square in the hind quarter!! FML there was a hemlock top that was under my pins but in the path of my arrow.  The herd busted and I ran to where she was standing to see if I could get another arrow in her before they went back in the thick stuff.  I got a good visual on each elk and didn’t see any blood or limpers ( hoof rot wasn’t bad yet). About that time I heard sticks break about 30 yards away... I looked where the sound came from and I could see elk legs straight up in the air!! I got extremely lucky and my deflected arrow buried in the femoral artery! She was down within seconds in what very easily could have been a long blood trail with no notched tag.

a few years ago I watched over my friends shoulder as he made a similar shot, It was a boon and crockett spike (regressed big bull) feeding away, quartering away from us, the arrow hit the hind quarter and burried all but the last 8-10 inches. when we got around to recovering the bull after giving him some time to die we discovered just how far back the arrow was, the ferns were painted in blood in a three foot wide swath for approximately 30 yards and there he was dead as a doornail. Lucky to have learned that lesson the easy way!