Shot placement is everything!

[TexHunter]

I have never been one to talk about bad shots or bad hits.

I have had a doe limping around this summer and two months ago could not see anything causing her to limp. About a month ago there was a spot on her upper right shoulder that looked like a well ingrained tick to me. Yesterday the object became a little more telling. It appears to be an arrow insert.

I hit a doe last year with what I believed to be a good shot, trailed blood for a long way but never recovered her. Looked all day. I believe this is probably the doe. Glad she survived but hate that she has been having to deal with this. She actually was bred and has a fawn.

Could the BH be working out? I have told my son and sil that whoever she walks in front of first they are to put her down. I will confirm at that time that this is the doe I hit last season. BTW, we ended up taking 6 does during archery season and didn't have to track any of them. Watched them fall.

I was trying a new broadhead, the Razorcap 125 gr. I have used Montec G5s for several years with great success and this BH equated to a longer version in my mind.

Proves once again that it can happened to anyone at anytime with any BH.

Note the place high on her shoulder. One other picture also. These were taken at 250 yds with my DSLR body attached to a 127mm (1540mm focal length) telescope.

[ldfalks]

Dang TexHunter. That ol' girl's in poor shape. Looks like she got hit by a car too. I'm surpried she made it this long, and with a fawn too. They're some tough criters.

Good luck

[gmherps]

Do you trap yotes or cats? She'd be a great bait station if ya did.

[Tejas Raz]

Just from looking at the pics, I'd strongly suggest she got hit by a car too. The pattern on her shoulder is almost identical to the one on her side! Along with the fact that she's pretty emaciated compared to the other does, I'd guess she had a difficult time recovering. Glad she made it though and birthed a fawn. Who knows, maybe with the strength that it took to survive, he fawn will be bigger than an elk and TexHunter Bill will be famous throughout the hunting and biology world!

:D :D

[Oldaro]

I'd go along with T-Raz here. There's a lot of healthy vitality in that doe, a strain worth preserving. She recovered from arrow hit, from car hit even, and she's got a young one, too. I guess she's quite a hero in her community. Maybe she's also attractive to bucks by sheer force of popularity. Wouldn't be the first case...

Watch her living her life, Bill. She's earned it, sort of.

:D

[TexHunter]

Guys where we are she would have hard pressed to be hit by a vehicle. I suspect maybe she has rubbed those areas. I really wonder if the Bhead is working it's way out. Kind of like how a our own bodies would eventually reject a splinter.

[ldfalks]

Guys where we are she would have hard pressed to be hit by a vehicle. I suspect maybe she has rubbed those areas. I really wonder if the Bhead is working it's way out. Kind of like how a our own bodies would eventually reject a splinter.

It would be interesting to see, if over time, moe of it works into view before it falls out. This is a good arguement against barbed broad heads. Otherwise it would have worked itself into her and she wouldn't hve lived this long. Where it is, it would have worked into her scapula and she would have probably bedded down from the pain and starved to death.

Keep us posted...More Pics :D

[Tejas Raz]

I don't know Bill. To take her down just because? Or to clear out the gene pool? I'm pretty stongly inclined to say "Let her live on." Maybe it is unlikely that she was hit by a car, but we have no way of knowing that either. See, this is one place where I separate from the "quality deer management" folks. To take her for the meat is one thing, but she has very little! So to take her for any other reason is to interfere with the cycle of life as dictated by our Creator. She has character. I think it would be much more interesting to see just how well she lives and how the fawn grows up. There might be a message for us that she's providing... it's up to us, to listen!

[TexHunter]

No she wouldn't be taken just because. It's obvious watching her move around that while she may not be suffering much, she is definitely uncomfortable. She would go in the freezer. If she were to end up throwing the projectile and could go on functioning normally I would most definitely give her a pass, she would deserve it. We do need our doe population put in check however. We have way too many for the carrying capacity of the land. We are surrounded by ranch land so they have livestock that they have to compete with for the natural browse.

You guys will have to take my word for the auto hit though. Where I live, there is no thru traffic and I'm at the end of a private road that on this end is little more than two tire grooves.

[Oldaro]

Call me naive; but would you ever consider catching her alive, removing the arrowhead, tag her and continue to observe?!

There is an interesting experiment my father once did (and it's only one of the possibilities). He soaked some bread crumbs in alcohol and offered them to some flock of sparrows on our windowsill. The rain was pouring, and they were chirping like for the last time...

Of course, does are something else, but maybe you could shoot her with some sleeping chemistry at the tip of your arrow... it would be a challenge to snare that doe alive...!