Shot analysis by Bob Yax on the two deer recovered by his tracking dog Thor

These two bucks were recovered last weekend by Bob Yax and his tracking dachshund Thor. 

The Pittsford buck was hit low in the chest with a bow on Sunday morning. See entrance photo attached.   Also, check out the kid wearing shorts while he was tracking with us! Ouch!   We  jumped this liver hit buck twice, 6.5-7 hrs after the hit.  In its 3^rd bed, the kid was able to put another arrow into it.  We found a 1 inch deep slice thru the edge of the liver when he gutted it. That was a long survival for a liver hit!

 *****

We jumped the Honeoye buck 17 hrs after the 7 mm hit,  from its 1^st bed, about 700 yds from the hit site.   Up till then we had only found a few spots of blood to confirm Thor was on the bucks trail.  At times, I was really wondering since Thor took us close to 2 houses and across at least 200 yds of cut lawn and a main road with no blood.  After jumping up from a very bloody bed, the buck ended up  (luckily!) in a deep ravine 100 yds further up the trail.  The hunter was able to shoot  it a 2^nd time from about 40 yds as it tried climbing  up the far side of the steep ravine.   The 7 mm hit was really low in the front of the chest and hit the top of both front legs – see entrance and exit photos attached.  The buck was quartering to him a little.   Not really sure what vitals he hit (maybe low lungs?) but I know he missed the heart entirely, since after close examination, it’s now in my fridge.  I’m going to check out the rib cage after the guy finishes butchering it to see if the bullet did make it inside the chest cavity. 

      

Shot analysis and deer recovery summary by Bob Yax

Bob Yax from Deer Search of Finger Lakes and his wirehaired dachshund Thor recovered this bow-shot 10 pointer on November 30 in Pittsford, NY. As Bob said it must be a tough neighborhood as the buck had two broken G-2s.  

Bob also wrote: 

Out of the 49 we've recovered in the last 5 years it was the 5^th deer that was hit in the chest (without liver or stomach involved). It was the 4^th that had a slice across the outside of the heart! The only other chest shot we've recovered, was a double lunger (hit in the rain) that went only about 150 yards.

We've never recovered a chest/lung shot deer (other than heart) that’s gone beyond 150 yards.   If they can breathe long enough to go beyond that,  they can breathe for a long time (days) & distance.  Many times we’ve kicked up these marginal chest shots the next day, and they were still going strong.

Marginal lung shots are the worst!!!

Note, all these heart shot deer acted as if liver hit.  They all bedded quickly,  within 100 yards, but then got up out of that 1^st bed.   Three of them at least 2 hrs after being hit.  All were found within 300 yards of the hit site.   None of these were pushed very hard – the hunters backed out after pushing them out of their 1^st bed – that’s the secret !

Hit Site Evaluation Seminars for Deer Hunters

By John Jeanneney and Andy Bensing

The Hit Site Evaluation Seminar is a new idea for the United States.  The goal of the Seminar is to educate hunters to better interpret sign at the point of impact and along the ensuing wounded deer trail. It’s important as an effective means of showing hunters how to interpret and deal with deer that have been shot outside of the quick kill target zone. Traditional hunter training programs don’t dwell on this subject, but in the real world deer do move just as the shot is taken. And bullets and arrows have been known to deviate from their intended course.

The center piece of the hit site seminar is a hanging road-killed deer. The idea originally came  to North America from France, and John Jeanneney first witnessed it in Quebec, Canada, where two of his French friends led a seminar on finding wounded deer. In June of 2013 Andy Bensing and John tried out an expanded version of this hit site evaluation at the annual United Blood Trackers Trackfest  at Arena, Wisconsin and then two weeks later at a North American Teckel Club event in Pennsylvania to which non-member deer hunters were invited. In both states the reception was enthusiastic. The seminar was certainly a departure from the usual presentation on the subject, and the practical applications of the new information were easy to understand.. Those who attended actively participated in the evaluations, and of course this is the best way to learn.

In both seminars a road-killed deer in good condition was used. Acquiring a road-killed deer is not difficult, but local game laws regulations should be consulted, and it must be kept in a suitable cooler or freezer before the event. The deer was  hooked up, in a standing position, suspended by a rope stretched between two trees. A plastic sheet was hung up about five yards behind the deer and extended forward  under the suspended deer. Its purpose was to catch hair, flesh and bone fragments  blown out of the deer by strategically placed  shots. Shots were taken with  bow and arrow, shotgun slugs and high caliber rifle bullets.

The hanging deer carcass was the centerpiece of the seminar.

After each shot the instructor and hunters together inspected the hit site and the hanging plastic sheet behind it to evaluate the results. The first thing that most of us have learned from the hit site evaluation is that we hunters miss a great deal if we inspect only the ground right where the deer was standing.

After the shots we found “sign” on the plastic sheet well behind the deer that  probably would have been missed by most hunters in a real deer hunting situation. It seems likely that many American hunters are not inspecting a broad enough area behind the hit sites as they look for the sign that will tell them where they have hit the deer and how they should deal with the situation.

One of the many things  hunters learn at the hit site is that flat sections of bone usually come from the legs; they are not “pieces of rib” as is often reported. They learn the difference in the amount of hair that comes from a grazing hit as compared to a solid, more straight-on shot. The physical results of high back shots can be shown and the identification of types of hair can reveal where the animal was hit.

Additionally bowhunters learn how the sloping surfaces of the rib cage can deflect broadheads so  that there is no effective penetration into the chest cavity and vital organs. They also  realize that the real kill zone is considerably smaller than what is presented  on 3-D Tournament targets.

The bowhunter demonstrates the risks of a head-on shot

The shot analysis outdoors on the hanging deer was even more effective because it was preceded by an indoor PowerPoint  presentation priming the attendees’ consciousness for what they were about to see outside.  Photos were shown revealing such “unexpected” information as the location of part of the stomach and liver within the rib cage. Other anatomical photos, showed the  kidneys lying quite far forward, just back of the ribs.  The indoor segment also discussed recovery strategies for deer wounded in different ways and under different environmental circumstances such as bad weather and predator competition.

The PowerPoint introduction to the seminar

The hit site program is effective because it is simple, graphic and deals with a real deer. It was so realistic in Pennsylvania that a young turkey vulture landed to check things out during  the introductory PowerPoint session.

Andy demonstrates shot placement

 The hit site evaluation seminar concluded with a “Walk in the Woods”.   Nine stations were set up to simulate wounded deer sign both at a hit site and along the trail. Seminar participants were asked to identify and interpret wounded deer sign such as splayed hoof prints, blood smears, bone fragments, and arrows covered with different types of body fluids and tissue.

The Hit Site Evaluation Seminars have great potential as an interesting half day event. No doubt the seminars would improve hunter effectiveness in recovering the deer that they shoot. For more information about the seminar contact Andy Bensing, abensing@pbkennels.com.

 

 Hunters who attended the seminar sponsored by the NATC.

Many thanks to the NATC, Kirk Vaughan and Joe Kopcok for the pictures!

Shot Analysis and Salvaging a Call

By Andy Bensing

I just finished my 50th call of the year with a live jump of a non-mortally wounded deer. I thought it was a gut shot by the hunter's phone interview, but when I got to the hit site it was quite clear what really happened. The ground hunting hunter reported a line of white hair on the ground making me think a low belly opening slice like I have seen often before with big mechanical broad heads. The big mature buck reportedly acted like a gut shot as well. He jumped slightly at the shot and stopped 30 yards away and stood with tail down and breathed heavily for 15 minutes as he milled around "acting oddly"  before walking slowly away. 

 

The hunter reported a lot of blood where the deer stood for 15 minutes and an easy blood trail leading away. I had tracked successfully for this novice hunter before so he called me from the hit site at 9am an hour after the shot and I advised him to wait until 2 hours before dark (3pm) which would be 7 hours after the shot  before tracking. The hunter called back after dark and reported the blood trail petered out after 600 yards with one big puddle along the way. From the phone conversation I believed he had pushed him unseen in the dark when he tracked him that night.

When I got to the hit site in the morning the real story was there to be seen. The "line" of white hair was actually a big oval "puff" of white hair and some of the white hairs had brown tips indicative of the white hairs at the border of the white and brown on the back of a deer's rear legs under the tail.

 

The hunter had been unable to find the bolt from his crossbow even though he reported a double thump when he shot. I  assumed one thump hitting the deer and a second one with the bolt likely striking a tree behind the deer a split second later. When my dog Eibe surveyed the hit site before taking off down the line she found the bolt embedded in a tree 15 yards behind the puff of hair.  The bolt had deflected left 30 degrees from the original line of travel after striking the deer. With the 25 yard shot hitting the deer so far off the point of aim and so many small branches in the line of sight I lined up from the puff of hair and the stump the hunter was leaning on for the shot I suspect the first thump was a deflection off a limb before the bolt hit the deer rather than the striking of the deer.

 

The puff of hair  and the brown tips on the white hairs told the story but the bolt confirmed it. It appeared to be perfectly clean but when I sprayed it with peroxide, as you can see in the photos below,  it showed a glancing blow. The shaft between two of the three fletchings foamed up but the opposite side did not. Also the rest of the shaft did not foam at all except for a very small spot on one side of the shaft  just behind the broad head an inch or two. After wiggling the broad head out of the tree,  only two of the three blades of the Grim Reaper mechanical broad head foamed as well. Also the large amount of blood reported by the hunter where the deer milled around for 15 minutes was just a bunch of drops. Lots of small drops but nothing even approaching "a lot" of blood.

 

 Note wet spots of peroxide with no foam on shaft between fletching.

 

Note white specks of foam from peroxide.  The shaft appeared perfectly clean before the peroxide was applied.  I was surprised to see it foam up.

 

Not seen in this photo but only 2 of the 3 blades foamed from the peroxide and a small speck of material foamed on the shaft 1 or 2 inches back from the broad head on the same side of the shaft as the 2 blades that foamed.

Looking at the small specks of foam from the peroxide on the bolt I could visualize 2 of the 3 blades of the mechanical opening as they contacted the back edge of the rear legs of the buck and sliced the skin open barely touching the muscle underneath and lightly spraying a little tissue on one side of the bolt's shaft.  As the blades created drag on one side of the shaft the back end of the bolt would kick away from the animal and as soon as the blades passed out of the skin the bolt would try to true itself thrusting the fletching back towards the deer's rump and smacking 2 of the 3 fletchings against the wound in the skin. This would cut an enormous amount of white hair as the blades raked across the back of the rear legs.

 

After evaluating the shot I told the hunter there was almost no chance of recovering the deer but since I had driven 90 miles and was there any way I would give it a shot. I was personally curious if this big buck who reacted so conservatively to the glancing shot would lay up and rest. And there is always the chance that somehow I miss interpreted the sign and he was more severely hurt. At the very least since I was so sure of what had occurred from the available sign I planned on using the call as a training exercise and learning more about my dog.

 

Well I started my dog and she easily followed the 600 meters the hunter had tracked and just kept on going through the point of loss without missing a beat. 165 meters past the hunter's point of loss the trail made a J-hook and we jumped the buck unseen but it was clear from my dog's actions that the trail had gone hot.  He was laying 50 meters off his back trail.  We chased him about 1½ miles in easy terrain just for the fun of it and to observe the pattern he would take. As expected for a minimally hurting deer he took minimal evasive  maneuvers at first feeling little threat from his pursuers being he was really not that hurt. He did make one small tricky move but that was pretty much it.  He ran out into a field and made a 50 meter circle and then cut back at a hard angle across an opposite field.  At one point after that  he busted through 5 or 6 bedded does.  We saw the does running hard ahead of us and tracked his single tracks across  their beds.  I wonder if he did that on purpose?   The does ran down the same trail he did for awhile. I was quite proud of my dog in that when the buck's single tracks branched off from the group at a Y in the trail my Eibe never missed a beat and was right on him and ignored the does' heavy, hot line.   When I was sure Eibe was just on him by himself I picked a convenient place to quite the trail when the buck veered in a direction that was not back towards the truck.

We had chased the buck live for an hour over a distance of about 1 ½ miles and he had shown no signs of weakness.  I had seen my dog negotiate the buck's evasive circle maneuver effortlessly, and I gained even more confidence in her ability to concentrate on the correct line when we busted through the bedded does.  This was a productive day for my dog and I salvaged out of a non-gettable call.  And a nice fat tip from the hunter topped it all off!

Thanks Andy for the great post!