Im going to be sick

[ZachD]

I second what Dave said gut shot deer have been known to bed in water i would walk the ditch

I will but do you think it would head for water like that if there is a whole slough of water everywhere else some spots are a good foot some deep

[Dave S]

That might depend on if the deer felt pressured and moved out of the slough. With minimal blood to track it's hard to say but I would definitely check it out since you haven't gotten a visual on the deer after your shot.

There's also a good chance you maybe walked within a couple feet of the deer and didn't know it. I was eerily close to the biggest buck of my life as he was hiding in a clump of grass the size of your average dinner table. Bad thing was I was pheasant hunting in ND. I was within 2 feet of another on pheasant opener in SW MN.

I know this doesn't make it any easier. I hope you find him.

[Coach1310]

In following this thread a few things come to mind...

#1- The water is a good tip, but there seems to be water everywhere around there.

#2- If he is badly wounded, I have to believe he eventually sought out easy walking. I am curious as to if he doubled back from where he came. I assume he came from his bed and he feels safe there... just a thought.

#3- Good luck! It is a crappy feeling, but you never know. I was almost certain I had missed a doe a few years ago... no blood, nowhere to be found, etc... A buddy came to give it one last try and we found her about 30 yards from where I had stopped looking...

[ozzie]

A few years back my buddies and I did a drive and a doe busted out in front of us and ran in front of all 3 of us...we each put off a round or 2. We looked all over the tall grass looking for this deer for a couple hours. The next day we went and pushed the same tall grass and walked right up to the dead deer. We don't think we passed it but then again we don't know what happened as we never found a blood trail to follow even after we found the deer. We are pretty positive we had walked by that spot 3 or 4 times..in fact we took a break right near there as there was a creek we had to jump across. Deer are ftrong sneaky animals. Good Luck Zach and hope you can find him!!!

[Double]

Whether you succeed in recovering this deer or not, I applaud you for your effort & determination. Sometimes it happens, that's the nature of the beast. Even if you don't recover him, I firmly believe the Hunting Gods will take care of you one way or another. The Hunting Gods see all.

[nofishfisherman]

Something just tells me its in that swamp. Could be half covered in water or half buried under grass. I have a feeling you'll find him if you criss crossed the swamp moving over just a few feet with every new pass. This is where friends can help. You'll have to get right on top of it before you'll see it. Chances are you walked right by him on your previous search, a few feet can mean the difference between finding it and not.

We should start forming FM search parties when deer go missing like this. Not everyone has friends who can come out and help search but I bet a few local FM members would be willing to lend a few hours. If I wasn't at work and lived reasonably close I'd be more than willing to come out and search with you for an afternoon. Of course discretion would be important in not sharing others secret hunting locations.

[Musky Buck]

Keep an eye out for hawks, eagles, ravens and crows.

[mwal]

My son shot a doe and we found about 3 or four cut hairs and no blood.

Waited about 4 hours then searched could not find a trace made grids went out of our minds searching. Retraced to about 100 yards from shot sat on blow down to rest. when we got up noticed hoof tip sticking out from under grass under the blow down. She crawled under the blow down head first to the base just like a rabbit or a pheasant if I had not seen the shiny hoof tip we would never of found it. High hit never bleed externally only went approx 100 yards. Make sure you are not looking for a whole deer. You may only see a hoof tip some disturbed grass an antler tip. I could not believe she would crawl into such a tight space. I wonder how many deer we have all walked past in the woods where there are lots of blow downs? Good Luck on your search to bad MN does not allow blood tracking of wounded deer on leash as some states now do.

Mwal

[ZachD]

So with my new tall rubber boots I was feeling pretty good that I could easily cover more area. That and that I got sleep I was feeling refreshed yesterday when I started looking I was on almost 24 hours of no sleep so I am sure my mind was not the best. In the morning I shot my bow at 20 and 30 yards and it was dead on so that just made me sure that I hit him when he sat at 24 yards. I began my search on the north side of the island and walked up and down where the water ditch is no luck. I then went to where my stand was and tried to find my arrow again. Nothing, ok now time to put the new boots to work I began by starting where he went out and did zig zags back and forth 50 yards to about 300 yards from my island then i would turn around move over 50 yards and zig zag back and forth back to the island nothing. I then tried to walk through as much as this tall stuff as I could

I was feeling pretty discouraged as it was tough walking through all of this as there was some ice on top of the water I fell a couple times on some uneven ground

I wanted to give up but I didn't want to leave a deer in there dead I wanted to find him so bad. I walked across the swamp and found an area that looked like he could have bedded down

I began to zig zag the bedding area and that is when I found this

There was more snow on the ground in this area and I was able to follow the tracks that where by the first sighting every once in awhile I would find smaller drops

This led me to a pretty beaten down looking trail

I followed this for awhile and I came across

Notice in that pic there is boot prints now that came off from a different direction... I followed the tracts and then ended at this

A big drag line that went straight out of the woods My guess is the someone was walking to there spot last night for the evening hunt stumbled across those blood drops and saw that there was no other boot prints around it and decided to follow them. it looked like there was another set of boot prints that led away from the drag line and came back I dunno if he went and got more people but i looked all around and they must have dragged it without field dressing.

in the end this was the route that led me to him or " what would have been him"

The blue dot is where I first spotted the blood, the green line is where i found that good good spot and that is where the boot prints came in from. The red dot is where the drag marks first started and the pink is the direction it went.

So now I am stuck at home with no deer and a new pair of $140 boots and A bad attitude toward people...

I am going out Monday for shotgun there but in a different spot, I will be looking for crows and what not over the swamp just in case I stumbled across someone elses deer blood trail by dumb luck and mine is still out there.

[nbadger23]

That sucks! Did you think about following the drag trail to see where it went or do you have any idea who it may have been? I want sure if you were on public out private land?

[outdoors247]

I’m amazed at your tenacity with this search. You have done everything possible to find this buck. Keep our head up kid, you are doing everything right and you should get some good karma from this.

I know guys that have been hunting for decades and had this happen. It’s what you do after the shot that shows your true ethics. You are a very ethical hunter and it shows.

[nofishfisherman]

Yeah you've done all you can at this point. Sometimes you win, and sometimes something else happens. All you can do is move on an try again.

I wouldn't dwell too much on the what ifs of that trail you followed. Maybe it was your buck and someone took off with it but there is no way to know for sure. No sense believeing the worst from people without knowing the truth. Could easily have been a drag mark from another hunters kill or maybe it was your buck and someone else found it and thought no one was coming for it after it being out for that long. Could be that he wanted to make sure it didn't go to waste and put his own tag on it.

Regardless hold your head up and go get em again this weekend.

[ZachD]

It was public land. Thanks outdoors247 I hope I do have good karma tomorrow for gun. Now my question is would it be ok for me to still kill another buck even though I all ready killed one. Sometime when the coyotes or wolves get to them and people shoot another I think that they shouldn't because they technically killed one... But in this case I would think that who ever took it may have tagged it so I think I should be fine on shooting another one. (I wasn't going to if I didn't find him because I knew he was down)

This would have been my biggest deer with gun or bow yet now some jack wad is prob sitting at the bar bragging about the deer he got

[Archerysniper]

My friend had a big one stole from him in sherburne refuge a few years back. We followed the blood trail that night and it ended at a gut pile and drag marks like you.

[nofishfisherman]

Legally speaking you should be fine shooting another buck, ethically speaking that will be your call.

Don't let the jack wad bother you. It never makes life better to dwell on the jack wads of the world. In this case there are too many unknowns to say for sure what happened to your deer. No need to dwell on the worst case scenario when you can't be certain.

[ZachD]

My friend had a big one stole from him in sherburne refuge a few years back. We followed the blood trail that night and it ended at a gut pile and drag marks like you.

I don't think I ever said were I was but that is exactly where I was.

[Archerysniper]

I don't think I ever said were I was but that is exactly where I was.

Yeah I have spent many hours and from your photos I knew that's where you were I didn't want to name it though.

The one we had stolen from us was in the northwest portion of the park.

[ZachD]

Legally speaking you should be fine shooting another buck, ethically speaking that will be your call.

Don't let the jack wad bother you. It never makes life better to dwell on the jack wads of the world. In this case there are too many unknowns to say for sure what happened to your deer. No need to dwell on the worst case scenario when you can't be certain.

I think its pretty safe to say someone took it I mean I found the first blood almost straight out from where he entered the swamp and then half way through the trail boot prints com out of nowhere and follow it... towards the end of the blood trail the blood was getting pretty heavy and instead of being on the one side of his tracks they were all right on his tracks. I am guessing that I hit shoulder and that at the end he started to cough up blood

[ozzie]

that is a bummer but don't let it spoil your season or hunt. Things happen and like mentioned all you can do is speculate. Maybe the guy that found it thought he better take it otherwise it is going to go to waste. He may have tagged it and called it a season...can't always think the worst in people even though it hurts to know that some one else is admiring the rack of the deer you killed.

[ozzie]

oh and if you would have mentioned something about the area you would have probably had 3 or 4 local guys willing to help ya yesterday...me being one of them as I could have helped for a bit

[wannafish2]

I had one stolen as well. Shot him just before dark a few years ago, he entered private property. we got permission to enter the property and returned the next morning. followed the blood trail to a gut pile and drag marks. The private property borders some landlocked tax forfeit that had hunters on it. We think they watched the whole thing from 1/4 mile away and took my buck. He wasn't that big but he was MINE!

Hunters that do that kind of thing just irk the **** out of me!

I hope you get another buck tomorrow!

[archerystud]

Great tenacity to keep up on it Zach. Go out and shoot yourself another one....

I would advise that maybe the other hunters gutted the deer and possibly waited. I know it's a long shot but someone may have waited for another hunter to show up. I know it's what I would do no matter how big the buck was.

[sticknstring]

I applaud you for your efforts! Tough deal, no doubt. As long as you're there tomorrow, might as well ask around. Never know! Best of luck to you the rest of season - good things are headed your way!

[ZachD]

I applaud you for your efforts! Tough deal, no doubt. As long as you're there tomorrow, might as well ask around. Never know! Best of luck to you the rest of season - good things are headed your way!

I wont be there tomorrow ill be on 400 acres private in milaca if I still have my main tag ill be out there Monday though ... oh and I wanted to thank everyone for the support

[ZachD]

Great tenacity to keep up on it Zach. Go out and shoot yourself another one....

I would advise that maybe the other hunters gutted the deer and possibly waited. I know it's a long shot but someone may have waited for another hunter to show up. I know it's what I would do no matter how big the buck was.

yea that's what my dad said when I called him today he all so said if they saw it was a shoulder hit and it was cold figure not to waste a deer

[Guest Kyle]

I've been following this thread since the beginning. Sorry it ended this way for you. Great effort!

I honestly don't know what I would do if I ever caught someone stealing my deer. It wouldn't end well...

[ZachD]

Well Me and my friend had a good weekend it began to a bad flash back from my nick my friend shot a nice deer at sunset and he could not find any blood but said he heard him crashing and a moan. Oh man not this again what is going on I thought. I told him I would not hunt the morning so I could help find it because I knew what he was going through. In the morning we couldn't find any blood or anything. I stumbled upon the deer about 50 yards from where he thought he shot it. He hit him high but got lungs there was no blood till the deer fell over and then there was a huge puddle. I helped him skin it and we were butchering all afternoon. was going to skip the night hunt but decided that I better get out there it was too nice out.. Sunset was approaching and I heard something to the right of me two does come out 5 feet under my stand one goes behind me in a clearing the other in front of me on the main trail. I heard grunting in the woods but couldn't get the buck to come out in time and I was running out of light so I let the bigger doe have it. Needless to say the blood trail on this one was easy to follow and she didn't go far.

On tues I am after the big boy I saw on a property I hunt in Oak Grove ( hopefully the good karma keeps going my way) I needed a weekend like this to get me jacked up again after feeling down.

[hugonian1]

Way to "get back on the bike" and get it done.

Congrats.

[Wensel]

WOW, this has to be one of the most bazaar threads I've read.

[nofishfisherman]

Doesn't look like there is an exit wound on your friends buck. I assume it hit the shoulder on the far side and didn't come out? Same thing happened to another friend over the weekend. It was a quartering to shot and he hit maybe a touch high on it. He went in front of the leading shoulder hoping to come out behind the far shoulder. Bullet caught lung but no exit. Deer made it maybe 75 yards before going down but he had a visual on it the entire way so no tracking needed. Seems with a high hit from a steep angle you won't get much blood without that exit hole.