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Tracking a deer in heavy snow

This evening I shot a nice buck at about 30 yards. He was standing broadside but He flinched at the sound of the bow and I hit him right behind the shoulder as he was severely quartering away. The flight path was easy to see with my lighted knock. He took off running. The shot was not a pass through. The problem is that I could not find any blood because the snow started falling at near white out conditions. I searched for hours with no luck. Does anyone have anything tips to help me recover this deer in the fresh snow cover in the morning or any guesses as to what internal anatomy I may have hit? Thanks for the input

you will not find him. one lung at best and the conditions will end any chance. he'll just go too far. sorry.

Know anyone with a bloodhound if legal? If he's dead he'll find'em. Good Luck!

tend to agree withy Bou 1-How high in the tree or on the ground? 2-Go to the last place you saw him & do a grid search & KICK every pile of snow you encounter.

I don't know how deep of snow you are talking about. But I helped track a deer that was shot, and while we went to get flashlights and give the deer some time to expire it snowed 4 inches. Wasn't having any luck until my dad noticed that blood had showed up in one of my footsteps where it packed the snow down. So we just started walking all over, making as many boot tracks as we could. And when you stepped where there was blood, it would soak up in the compacted snow. Now granted, it was a pretty good blood trail and the deer only went around 150yds. So if there wasn't much blood it probably wouldn't work as good

He found him

That’s too bad, and I’m sure you are disappointed. I know I would be. If it’s snowing that hard I would not pressure it and grid search first thing tomorrow. He won’t go far without pressure and you do have a chance to find him. He’ll be warm enough to melt most of the snow because if it’s one lung he could live awhile. Press him and it’s game over. Good luck!

that is fantastic and it's great to be wrong above. well done.

I would love to hear all of the details. I know one thing for sure. I would n't go back to hunting deer until I had exhausted my chances of retrieving THAT deer.

On Saturday I went back to the scene with my wife and a friend. Due to the snow falling then melting overnight, we never did find blood. It was about 5 minutes into our search when my wife spotted him laying in a thicket of trees. A lot of the snow from the previous evening had melted overnight. (it was about 4 inches of snow that fell in 2 hours the night before). The shot hit him right behind the rib cage when he was quartering away. So I hit guts as well as diaphragm and one lung. He actually didn't go too far. About 100 yards. This is definitely a lesson learned for me. Tracking a deer in heavy snow fall is really difficult and quite stressful. It was definitely a race against time and the elements. Sign was being covered up by the second. Waiting until the morning definitely paid off.

Congrats on your buck! Glad you were able to find him! Any pictures for us?

Congrats! Glad you didn't read Bou's post and give up!

My first advice would have been to ignore all the advice and go look for the deer. For me, that never fails one way or the other.

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