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Deflections - ever happen to you

I'm going to describe several hunts where the arrow appears to have change direction once it hit the deer, all were either broad side or as close to being broadside with maybe a slight quarter. Hunt1: behind my house in SC I had a doe come in to about 8 yards, I took the shot while she was still moving and hit her in the last 1/3 of the lungs. When I recovered her, she had a broker right upper leg bone on the far side which baffled me. To make the story more unusual, the only hole on the other side was right below the elbow, so i figured the arrow was till in her some where. As it tuned out, the arrow penetrated the chest and turned directly up toward the heart taking out 3 far side ribs as it traveled, next it busted the upper left leg in half, then veered directly down to the elbow and out. I found the fletching 1/3 of the arrow on the ground but never found the lower 2/3s of the arrow or broad head.

Hunt 2: While hunting at my brother's property in eastern GA, a doe was traveling left to right in a grove of pines about 42 yards away. I launched the arrow, as it drops I think the shot was below the deer, suddenly I hear the sound of solid bone thinking I may have hit the elbow. I search for blood and find a couple small spots directly behind where she left the scene. I find my arrow sticking straight up from the ground towards the sky and it puzzles me. I start the track and in about 15 yards I catch the scent of iron in the air, after further investigation she was about 8 yards away up and over a berm. The arrow did indeed hit her about 4 inches up behind the elbow, but it veered directly straight up to the back then turned directly out the back strap, hitting the spine the arrow must have had a downward trajectory because it exited and stuck straight down in the ground. Again, shooting fixed head four blade muzzys, the arrow does a Z pattern starting low in the chest.

Hunt3: During a trip to KS, I phoned a buddy in SC and he was telling me about a buck he shot the evening before. He loves to hit a deer square in the shoulder, which he did. He said the deer went direct to the ground where it let it lay still for about 15 minutes. Later, the deer starts kicking and pushing itself down the mountain, about 25 yards later it gets up and walked away never to be found. Well my hunt now, I start off with 3 days of eastern winds at about 10 to 15 mph and a consistent rain, the kind that's not particularly hard but would soak you to the bone in about 30 minutes or so. I had a stand on another piece of property also, but being the week end I could not change my reservations (it's changed since then). Monday I finally move my reservation to the other property knowing I had been stuck there for 3 days while the wind blew up the east to west wood line as I watched several bucks avoid me from about 80 yards out. Tuesday morning the wind was supposed to shift out of the NW and the temperature was to turn cold and dry, only problem on the next property I placed the stand where it would blow directly to where I saw all the movement the Thursday before when I was last there. So, Monday I go back in at night, in the rain and pull the stand and move it 120 yards to the north of the little field I'm hunting in those cedars which is only about 50 yards from the gravel road anyway. When I get there in the morning the wind was actually out of the north with a slight hint of east which screws my new stand placement up so I decide to hunt from the ground about 35 yards away. I start to build me a quick ground blind out of sticks and branches in the dark, as I get a few piled up I look back to where my stand was originally placed and I think I see the silhouette of a deer a the silhouette was a slight bit darker than the on coming lightness from the morning. I continue to build my blind and I look back towards where I expect the silhouette I can actually see the outline of deer for sure but he's only half the distance as before. I stop what I'm doing, grab my trigger, pick up my bow, knock an arrow and aim expecting the buck to cross the pearl dropped field directly behind a cedar 18 yards in from of me. And he does, I take careful aim but he is ever so slightly quartering me so I aim at the should placing the pin a couple inches further to the left after remembering the story my bud in SC told me on the drive up, whatever happened I did not want that broad head hitting the ball of the joint. I release and smack, the deer drops to the ground and starts this running in circles except he's actually laying on his side. Ten seconds later he stops and lays there with his under side facing me while he pants. I knew what happened, I hit that ball and compressed it into the spine paralyzing him momentarily, this guy was not dead and possibly wasn't going to be. Since I have no problem knocking another arrow I aim again, this time hitting him square in center of the under belly white, the arrow traveled up in to the neck and exits his juggler artery and he kicks a couple more times, but he's still breathing. Again, I knock another arrow and start closing the distance, he spins again, I took another step to the left and release another arrow straight into the chest slightly behind the shoulder, which puts his light out for sure. While skinning him my thinking was correct, I realized the first shot indeed hit the ball of the shoulder where it veered straight to the ground while taking a piece of two ribs with it, but was clearly not a fatal shot. If I had not taken the follow up shots I would have spent the rest of that day looking for him and kicking myself for not making sure I completed the job. My reward was a nice 10 point 250 pound buck that I never had to track.

Hunt 4: This happened in Missouri last fall. I had a nice mature 10 come in moving at a pretty good pace. His tongue was hanging out and he looked exhausted probably from chasing a doe near by. He's coming directly to me but as he gets to my tree he veers off his trail and turns to my right instead of following the trail directly in from of me. I don't much time to evaluate the buck better because he's on a mission and the light was fading quickly. I draw, spin to my right and place the pin halfway up his body and slightly behind the shoulder and I release. He turns and runs back the way he came with arrow sticking out but much lower that I expected. During the track we find tons of blood so I'm thinking he's just over the next hill or around the next turn but it doesn't happen that way. To make a long story short, lots of blood with no deer. As it finally turned out the next morning, the arrow hit the deer and slid down a rib about 4 inches before it found it's way into the chest cavity. Luckily it took out the right lung and a large artery as it did. Not exactly the Z or the L path it took on the couple of does above, but still a ricochet hit resulting in a different shot than I expected. Sometimes we don't understand why a shot we made did not end up as we imagined it should have. Sometimes we just get lucky and find our game when we never thought confident about the shot, other times we are left scratching our wretched arses as we learn to accept what went wrong with what we thought was a masterpiece shot. After countless hunts I know now that ricochet shots can make a poor shot great and a great shot poor, but it's the odds we must play.

Very interesting

Very interesting

Just trying to stir up some conversation, the site seems a little dull this time of year.

Been dull. I was told no one comes anymore. Seems to be the case. I remember when we had lively discussions. Oh well.

Not a deflection but my buddy killed a buck one morning from the ground. When I got to the truck he had the buck already loaded up. Of course we discussed the kill as I looked at the shot placement, which was on the belly side of the deer with no exit wound. As I pressed for a answer he said he fell asleep to awaken to the sounds of deer around him and this buck was up hill from him at 6 yards. When his head went behind a tree he drew his longbow from a sitting position and shot him in the pocket behind the shoulder which went up and struck the buck in the spine. It happens :)

I had a nice buck in NE Kansas that I grunted in from a distance back in 2011, I placed my lock on in a rather thin but tall black walnut tree 150 yards from where I first saw him cruising. The buck turned towards my grunt/bleat following a trail that crossed not more than 10 yards in front of my stand. He was spooked coming down a high spot when the strap from my safety harness started flapping in the 15 mile per hour wind spooking him when he got about 15 yards away. I bleat again and he starts coming back, this time he cautiously circles to my left trying to get my wind. I'm already set having the sun directly behind me, I released and hear an incessant loud crash as the arrow met bone and my buck takes off back the way he came. I see the arrow sticking out of his back as he bounds away and I notice the penetration was not very deep. During my tracking I found absolutely zero blood so I go straight to where I saw him turn south about 250 yards away. I knew the trail for I had placed stand there the year before, it was on the edge of open pasture but lead to a 300 yard triangle shaped patch of timber sandwiched between a larger open piece of CRP. I found him about 85 yards up the wood line with the arrow sticking out of his back but lodged tightly in the T portion of his spine with 1/3 of the shaft making it into the chest cavity. Confused I replay the shot in my head: I had shot at his left side, I hit his right side with a 15 yard shot. Apparently, all ready a bit spooked, he heard the shot but spun towards me, dipped down and the arrow hits low entering the T bone on the right side of his body. Luckily I got enough penetration into his left lung, and as he stormed off and the arrow chews up the right side too. And, since I had an unusual entry wound with no exit wound, the blood had no path outside of the chest. I found 1 spot where he turned up the trail which was bright pinkish in color and seemed watered down which probably came from his nostrils.

I was hunting At Sleepy Creek WMA one morning with a friend who was afraid of heights and a big guy to boot. High school foot coach - defensive line. He used a climber and would go about 5 to 6 feet off the ground. I went to my stand and not long after daylight a doe came By sort of fidgety and watching behind her. An hour or so went by and I saw nothing else plus the wind got up. My friend had never killed a deer with the bow so I thought I would do a little push towards him. I no sooner got out of stand and got about 30 yards away from stand and watch 5 different bucks walk almost underneath my stand - with a recurve that was just a little too far for me. I continued toward my friend and heard several deer running on the shelf above me. I grunted and heard one running my way. Like a dummy I grunted with not much cover around me just a few small trees - the buck stopped within 5 yards of me on the up hill side! I drew back and let er fly and drilled a sapling dead center! The buck made one hop and was 5 yards to my left — stopped and watch me get another arrow - you guessed it drilled another sampling! Buck makes another jump directly down the hill almost circling - watches me get another arrow and I proceeded to drill another tree! Now he has almost completely circled me all at about 5 yards. I only carry 5 arrows and one has a judo point. Down to my last arrow - I finally put an arrow in the buck! LOL after dragging the buck back up to the truck and taking a few pics - when the pics came back it looked as if the buck was cross eyed!

Funny what goes on sometimes. I had a doe come by feeding and the only tree to hide behind was a 5 inch thick little oak with no limbs. The doe got to about 12 yards, head down feeding. I knew she'd notice me raising my bow but she didn't. Then I knew she'd notice my draw, but she didn't. I had just left the house and was looking forward to hunting my stand that evening, 15 minutes later I sitting on the couch watching a football game I was engrossed in 30 minutes before. My wife walks by and said "I thought you were going hunting". I told her I killed one already and she stared at me in disbelief.

Koog - LOL sometimes the luck is with us and we’ll other times not so much!

This past fall hunting in WV I shot 2 deer and 1 the previous year all perfectly roadside or very near it.All we’re about 25 yds. I use NAP 100gr. Spitfire MAXX mechanical broadheads. All 3 double lung shots. What’s weird is all 3 exit holes were In front of the far side hip which then was plugged by intestines leaving little blood to follow. I’ve been using these broadheads for years and never had this happen before. Any thoughts ?

I've had it happen several times Skip, with fixed and mechanicals. l've had the deflection happen hitting a rib going in but most times hitting a rib on exit. If the arrow deflects toward the paunch on exit and the hole gets plugged with the intestines. Fairly good blood trail until the whole gets plugged then you spend times crawling around on the ground searching for clues.

You’re right . The two I shot this past fall were extremely hard to track. One went 150 yds and the other about 80. I thought something was wrong with the broadheads because I never had this happen before. I’m going to try a different head this fall. Thanks for your input .

I'm not confident if was the broad head, I think it just happened. You may switch and immediately harvest one with a really good wound channel, but give it time and it will eventually catch up to you and you'll suffer another bad blood wound again. I used to swap back from a mechanical to fixed every time it happened. Then each time I'd make a good hit and find little blood. I shot a bear early this year with a fixed four blade, hit him about 5 inches down from the spine coming out the opposite arm pit. Hardly bled at all, but I knew it was a definite kill. I was right, looked for 2 and half days and found him right beside the house where he crawled into a brush pile from a tree I was sawing up for firewood. Hated to loose the meat but it eventually does happen. I say as long as your getting good penetration I wouldn't swap. They are all designed to kill.

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