made a neck shot on a doe...didnt kill her?

what are the odds of that? two does came out this morning and literally fed under my stand (one started smelling the ladder). i sat still until the big one gave me an opportunity. forgetting about the lil one i raised my gun, only to get busted and both run bout 20 yds off. i grunted and both stopped just in sight. the big one finally gave me another opportunity and i took the shot. she hit the ground flopping and making all kinds of god awful noise, gasping for air and what not...then goes quiet (i assumed she expired). bout that time the other doe comes back so i focus on her for a minute. she runs off so i get down to retrieve my kill...but shes not there!! what i do find is a big blood soaked area of torn up pine straw and a small blood trail that goes cold after 10 yds. i spend over an hour searching the head of woods i was in and NOTHING! did i make a bad shot? or are these deer getting tougher now a days?

 

Sounds like you hit the trachea, but not anything immediately vital (artery or spine). Neck shots are always tough as the one-shot-drop targets are small and moving. I would guess that the hydrostatic shock from the bullets impact put the doe on her ass, momentarily KO'd her and probably tore open some arteries and tissue, but that the arterial tears were small enough to let her get a long way away before she bled out.

Any chance you were shooting something along the lines of a hot .270 or .243?

 

I've melted deer with a .22 via neck shots.

 

it happens man....sucks...but it happens. maybe she lived for another chance at her tho. a buddy of mine shot a doe in the neck about a month ago.......we trailed it for a while and after 3 hours...gave up for the night. 2 weeks later...he shot a doe.....with a sore in the skin area of the neck...didnt hit anything vital first time.....then he got her that 2nd time. maybe you'll see her again.

 

im shooting a 7mm-08. but that about the same thing my dad said. it just blew my mind she survived (or ran off at least) a wound like that.

 

unless HI is different, its illegal to shoot deer with rim fire. or so i have always been told...?

 

correct. good self conviction. ive seen n heard some strange things hunting n im only 30. my uncle shot a doe last week. friend tried to finish her off n shot her in the right front shoulder with a 30-06. 150gr reload. bullet hit the shoulder bone n stopped. never penetrated any further.

 

It happens. Better luck next time.

 

yeah hopefully i will cross paths with her again.

 

A hole in the heart and/or lungs gets them every time, and doesn't ruin any meat! (or very little). Core body shot!

I'm not putting you down in any way shape or form. I didn't even get a shot with my shotgun this year. My muzzleloader barrel is rotted internally, so no go there either. I did get a doe with my bow though.

Good luck later in the season, mine ends next week. I don't know if I have the time or the balls to do a late season bow hunt when I haven't seen a brown furry critter in almost 6 weeks!

 

i gut shot one last year never found it

 

yea my rule is body shot on bucks and head/neck on does...tends to mess up the meat less esp if its a smaller one. but guess ill change that up next time.

its too cold to sit in a tree with a bow but thats just my opinion. good luck if u do go!

 

On Maui there is no legal public hunting area for deer. The deer were shot on private land. Deer on Maui are eraticated because of over population. It may not be legal to hunt with rimfire on public land but I'm not sure about private land.

There is no tags of any kind here, shoot what you want. Deer aren't considered a game animal here.

 

That's why I never ever shoot an animal in the neck, unless there's snow on the ground and will make tracking easy.

Another tip, and this is what I do. If I'm not 100% confident in the shot, I will wait a while before tracking. I usually wait about 30 minutes, then proceed. But, if it's a shot I'm not confident in, I'll wait 1-2 hours. It's better to wait, and retrieve the animal, than to bump it when it's bedded down to expire. Then you're in for another tracking job, when if you would have waited, it most likely would have expired.

Live and learn, it happens to all of us.

 

its illegal to kill any big game with a rimfire cartridge. whether its public or private land makes no difference

 

What I'm saying is that the deer here aren't considered game. They are erradicated every night here on our golf courses by the .22 mag. My friend works for the eradication company thing and he told me that the reason they can use a .22 is because the deer aren't a game animal.

 

that makes sense. just like wild hogs are not considered big game (you do not need tags for them, in GA at least) and we shoot them with .22 or whatevers handy. hate them damn things

 

Exactly

 

you should have shot at the knees not at the neck if you really didnt want her to get away

 

i hope ur kidding. thats a risky and unethical shot. i already feel guilty this one got away, but at least it has the probability being dead. shooting one in the knee would only maim it, leaving it crippled the rest of its life.