First Flintlock Deer

[rdillion]

Sat evening, nice yearling doe. Shot a little high and broke her back. Had to shoot again to put her down. At this point I'm really liking my flinter. Fast forward to Tues. evening. A herd of deer move into a food plot about an hour before dark. I'm in a ground blind with my rifle resting on a downed tree. I pull the trigger and klack, recock and again klack, once more and flash in the pan. At this point the deer leave. I pick the vent hole and sharpen the flint with my turnscrew and settle down to wait til dark. A doe steps out about 45 minutes later about 50 yards away. With my rifle resting on the downed tree in front of me I take careful aim and fire. She hits the ground, rolls twice, and starts kicking. much to my amazement as I'm reloading she gets up and stumbles into the woods. My partner comes up and we expect to find her just inside the woodline. We bloodtrail her in the dark for over 2 hours until we lose the trail. Good blood at first and then a drop every 50 feet or so. Went back the next morn and still didn't find her. I would have liked to known where I hit her. Still wondering if my 40 cal is enough gun for deer although I've seen this same thing happen with modern rifles. Not going to give up on the 40 cal. I'll hunt with it a lot more this year.

 

[rabjr]

Well grats on the first one.

Second sounds like either shoulder or leg shot. Sometimes you'll find a piece of bone indicating leg sometimes not. But they will bleed a lot then peter out to drops. I have found shoulder shots to bleed very little, unless both lungs are punctured and even then as you know, the leg is connected to the outside of the chest cavity making bleeding spotty at best.

 

[texcl]

I lost a bow shot buck this year, shot it at 7 yards, had good blood for the 1st 150 yards then it just disappeared, looked the next day too total tracking time was about 4 hours, I couldn't find it. 2 weeks later I hear a bunch of crows near where I shot the buck sure enough there it was about 50 yards from where the blood stopped, I bet I walked by it 10 times when I was walking circles, I've shot many many deer and have only lost 2 my whole life, just made me sick. The other one was shot with a 308 at 40 yards or so and it made it to a river and never saw it again.

 

[rdillion]

Swampy, I was thinking shoulder shot myself. She sure went down hard at first. Only the second deer I've ever lost. Had it not been at night we would have probably found her. It's a thick area with a lot of down timber from last years ice storm.

 

[rabjr]

Swampy, I was thinking shoulder shot myself. She sure went down hard at first. Only the second deer I've ever lost. Had it not been at night we would have probably found her. It's a thick area with a lot of down timber from last years ice storm.

Well I wouldn't beat yourself up to bad unless you were seeing froathly blood which I doubt, chances are she'll live. Especially not finding anything the next morning. I had a friend put a .50 cal ball in the shoulder on a nice buck from a tree stand, forgot the yardage now but he pretty much went though the same thing you did. A few days later walking to his stand he ran into the same deer and killed that time. When they butchered the deer he had a nice flattened ball in the shoulder.

 

[jethro224]

Might have been a shoulder hit. Might have been another high shot too, that just nicked or shocked the spine enough to knock her down for a few seconds.

My nephew hit one with a 20ga slug several years ago that acted the same way. He said he'd hit her high. Had a good blood trail for a while, then it just quit.
I killed what I suspect was the same deer during bow season the next year. Her spine was fused and when we skinned her you could see daylight thru a fist-sized place where the backstrap should have been. She also had a broken leg from an arrow hit, a few .22 bullets, and some buckshot she was carrying around. Deer are tough critters.

 

[luieb45]

I wouldn't feel too bad about it, it even happens when people are using a 12 gauge with slugs. But I agree with Swampy that it may have been a leg shot because they normally have a good blood trail and it quits after a while. You sure you didn't find bone?

 

[rdillion]

Didn't find any bone and her leg wasn't flopping around like it was broken.
Hey Jethro, sounds like that deer had a hard life.
I killed a deer years ago with my 54 cal renegade that just dropped in his tracks. I started to get down out of my stand but I had been hunting with a M.L.er for years and knew to reload first. Good thing because that deer got up and walked about 50 yards and paused long enough for me to finish him off.

 

[410-er]

:thumbsup:

 

[texcl]

I shot a deer once with an expandable broadhead stuck in her fully encased by scar tissue. There's also a small void right below the spine and above the lungs I've seen people shoot through and have the deer drop and recover from.

 

[rabjr]

Yeah they are tough.

Found a tumor that looked funny and turned out to be what was left of a Satellite broad head. Found two pieces of aluminum shafts encased in a white calcium covering, one was 6" long, came out of one of the hams. Probably Found enough bird shot just under the hide and buck shot, a couple .20ga slugs to melt down and make 100 muzzleloader balls of your caliber choice. :shake:

 

[Kelhammer]

Your going to end up with lead poisoning.

 

[rabjr]

Your going to end up with lead poisoning.

:haha: This is from several deer over the course of 30 years or so.