Spooky deer finds

DrSpeed

Eight Pointer
So I just shot a doe with my bow and I go to look for it a few minutes after and find what I think to be it. Only thing is it had two big chunks (bites?) taken out of it, and it looks to be smaller than I thought. I still recovered it, but something still bothered me about it. Did I just steal a coyote's dinner that my actual doe tripped over out there, and mistake it for what I shot? Or did it get tackled by something immediately after i lost sight of it?

I didn't stick around to look harder for any other does, it being dark, and out of fear of latter and not having anything on me but a flashlight and my phone. The blood trail led right to it, it looked like my broad head did go through the correct side, and it was still warm, so I'm a bit dumbfounded and spooked.

Thoughts? Concerns?
 

DrSpeed

Eight Pointer
Screenshot_20210930-201956.png Here's the right side before I shot it. (5 minutes before quitting time)IMG_20210930_195846414.jpg
This the right side when I found it 20 or so minutes after, about 40 yards away.

I shot it on the left side.
 

DrSpeed

Eight Pointer
take a pistol next time...

in 2007 I had a deer jump out in front of my suburban, I won. got out to check and see if I could recover anything from the deer. There were 5 dead deer and none were warm.
Thats up there on the pucker factor.


I pulled it to the woods edge and got my pistol out of the truck before finishing the job

Next time I'm just taking it with me.
 

704Josh

Four Pointer
Had something similar happen in PA a few years ago. Tracking a doe with a surely fatal shot after dark in a hemlock forest, I came across a steaming pile of bear scat. I backed out and called the boys. We went in, found bear tracks over deer blood then the blood disappeared with some drag marks. The whole story was right there. Knowing there was a 600# bear in the immediate area made me feel I donated one to the food chain, not lost one to waste.
 

DrSpeed

Eight Pointer
that's crazy man. would have definitely made me think twice
I know, especially after already pulling one doe out of those woods this year.

I keep thinking about it and I am wondering if (hoping) this was unrelated and my deer tripped over it and kept going. I almost want to keep looking, but i don't have time tomorrow and you couldn't drag me back out there tonight.😲
 

DrSpeed

Eight Pointer
Your deer, she shrunk, and you ruined some yotes deer sushi.
I hope so. I really do. But the blood trail lead right to it.

I'll back track it Saturday morning when I'm next out there.

Either way I didn't want err on the side that risked my tail getting got in the dark. There are always more deer in the woods, and next year.
 

bwfarms

Old Mossy Horns
Appears the tax man has come ashore.

I would have been checking tracks so I would know what I was up against getting out. If it was a yote, no biggie, but a bear I’d be leaving that carcass lol
 

cloningerba

Old Mossy Horns
First off I’d love one of this stickers!

Second off I have no clue where you are located @DrSpeed. If I had to guess I’d say it was a yote. I had it happen a couple years ago at butner gamelands. Shot a doe at 530 and was waiting for another one til dark. Got down and blood trailed her to the most disgusting sight. 🤢🤮 yotes had beat me to her. I was a ways in and quartered her out. As I was finishing I turned around and low and behold a big yote was staring me down not 30 yards away. Really wished I had a gun instead of a bow at that point. I high tailed it out quick after that.
 

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30/06

Twelve Pointer
First off I’d love one of this stickers!

Second off I have no clue where you are located @DrSpeed. If I had to guess I’d say it was a yote. I had it happen a couple years ago at butner gamelands. Shot a doe at 530 and was waiting for another one til dark. Got down and blood trailed her to the most disgusting sight. 🤢🤮 yotes had beat me to her. I was a ways in and quartered her out. As I was finishing I turned around and low and behold a big yote was staring me down not 30 yards away. Really wished I had a gun instead of a bow at that point. I high tailed it out quick after that.

Looks like that was an aromatic quartering job.

Don’t think I’d be all the worried. Even a bear wants to get the heck out of dodge when a person approaches. OP what part of the state are you hunting?
 

DrSpeed

Eight Pointer
First off I’d love one of this stickers!

Second off I have no clue where you are located @DrSpeed. If I had to guess I’d say it was a yote. I had it happen a couple years ago at butner gamelands. Shot a doe at 530 and was waiting for another one til dark. Got down and blood trailed her to the most disgusting sight. 🤢🤮 yotes had beat me to her. I was a ways in and quartered her out. As I was finishing I turned around and low and behold a big yote was staring me down not 30 yards away. Really wished I had a gun instead of a bow at that point. I high tailed it out quick after that.
You more or less nailed where I am. I am a few miles from Butner game lands on some private land. Good to know it's not just me. I get that yotes aren't a big deal, its just I hadn't dealt with them before, so it threw me for a loop.
 

mbh78

Ten Pointer
Contributor
Not really spooky, but definitely have not been able to explain it. A few years ago we had a nice 9 point on camera. Opening week we were in the stand and my dad called me around 6:45 and said he had shot him. Said the shot looked good and he was going to track. He called me back in about 30 minutes and said he was having trouble finding the blood trail and it was starting to rain, so I got down and went to help. He was about a mile away, so it took me a few minutes to get to him, and by the time I did, he had found the deer. Turns out it was not the big one, but a small 8 point. I imediatley started ribbing him about getting buck fever and shooting the wrong buck, and at this point he didn't know what had happend, but was sure he saw the big 9 and he was alone. He's killed more deer than CWD and doesn't usually get rattled, but that's what I chalked it up to.
2 days later he checks the camera on that stand and sure enough at 6:30 there was the 9 point, all alone, center frame. The very next picture was 15 minutes later of my dad retrieving his arrow. Blood trail was steady, except for about 25 yard where the deer switched directions, and the deer he found was maybe 100 yards from the stand and warm. He said when the deer stepped out, he took his eyes off of him for maybe 10 or 15 seconds and scanned behind the stand to make sure there were no other deer that would bust him drawing his bow. When he turned back to the deer, he was standing in nearly the same place and he didn't focus on the head, drew and shot. Never saw but 1 deer leave.
 

thandy

Ten Pointer
Shot a doe in the head right at dark thirty in the middle of a field. I walked past her on my way back to the house to get the truck..1/2 mile. I changed and went back out to get her and yotes had at the butt end and ruined both hams. All in all about 20/25 minutes from the time I walked past her to getting back to her.
 

timekiller13

Old Mossy Horns
I had private land in Granville several years ago. If you left a deer laying for more than an hour, coyotes would be on it. If you left one overnight it would be devoured.

There are not any critters in NC that really scare me. Stumbling up on a bear or coyote in the dark definitely gets the heart going for a minute or two, though, that’s for sure. Now when I was in Alaska, them dark woods full of brown bears really put you on edge!!
 

dobber

Old Mossy Horns
Chased after an archery moose, likely only 10-15 min behind it, amazing to see how much hair the wolves had removed in that short period of time, ground around the moose looked like a shag carpet, just glad they only chewed a bit of nose and hadn't got into the good stuff, but likely minutes away from that happening
 

Crappie_Hunter

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
I shot a deer with a bow and afterwards it starting raining so we were having a difficult time staying on the track. We eventually found it, but we had a conversation about just turning off the lights, and getting quiet and letting the coyotes direct us to the deer. It was a half joking idea but it would probably work.
 

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
It can be even more unnerving to run a pack of yotes off a deer. They can find them quick.
 

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
A group of us were hunting public land. I knew the area fairly well. One of the guys had set up way back on the high ground in a swamp. Well, he shot, waited then went looking the deer. He found the buck a good one, too. Problem was now he couldn't find his blind where his rifle and coat were. Yes, he had left the deer again too. Then he couldn't find either again. About 3 o'clock I had came back to camp. Several of the guys were trying to help him find it all. I hiked the trail in for a little over a mile to where he split off to go to his blind. I get there and see where my good friend was set up. He was a little disgusted, when I ask him had he seen the others. He answered Yelp! I ask "where did they go?" He said don't worry they will be back in a few minutes. They just keep going in circles. Sure enough here they come. I ask the lost hunter, a few details about where he set up. He mentioned a few large pines. Only a few ridges I there with a few pines. Well, another half mile in I found his ground blind/rifle/coat. Now I needed to find the deer. The shooter could not tell me where the deer was standing when he shot. Over here, over there. There was no need in trying that. I figured the deer may be just out of sight of the blind, well within a few hundred yards. I went just far enough so I lost sight of the blind, a hundred yards +/-. I then started a circle. Sure enough I saw antlers another hundred yards out. I thought about waiting to see if they would ever find it, but it would be dark soon. When we walked up to the deer both hind quarters were ate off. Deer was cool but it had been laying there all day. Found one drop of blood a few yards away. Never found a bullet hole. I guess he could have shot it through the hind quarter. They wanted to salvage some meat. I'm sorry not my knife or me. They used another knife and got some of the meat. To this day, I think he missed the deer he shot at and stumbled up on that buck. He had said he blew the hams off, because he had fallen off his stool as he pulled the trigger. The hind quarters looked like they were eaten off recent but maybe older than a few hours. Who knows? I guess I never will.
 
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darenative

Twelve Pointer
I was bowhunting pungo refuge about 20 years ago solo and shot a pretty good sized doe about an hour before dark. The shot was good and heard the deer crash pretty hard 70 or 80 yards from my tree. It was thick where she ran, i heard the deer crash, so i pulled down my stand and got on the trail pretty quick knowing it would be dark soon. The blood trail was easy to follow, but it was difficult to navigate the thicket she ran through. After about 10 minutes of crawling i could see white belly hair at the other end of the tunnel through the briar thicket about 75 feet away. It looked easier to walk around than to crawl through the deer tunnel. As i tried to pick an easier path to my deer i heard one heck of a commotion where my deer was laying. My first though was great that deer isn't dead. I rounded the thicket just in time to see a tank of a bear make off with my doe.
Dang thing looked like a 500lb lab with an oversized chew toy
 

Bean

Eight Pointer
I shot a decent 7pt several years ago and still had decent light and it was cold so I decided to sit a while I knew my buck was down because I heard him crash. So I climb down still had just enough light to walk to my deer without my light. I get to him and he starts moving or so I think. About that time a huge bobcat comes over top of him growling and raising cane. He was coming towards me slapping the ground with his front feet. First instinct was to run but I didn’t he would have caught my fat tail anyway. Then my hunting instincts kicked in and I remembered that magnum hanging on my back. He scared the 💩 out of me but I won the battle and he got shot in the face. That was the spookiest scariest thing that ever happened to me. Took me a long time to walk out of the woods on jello legs that night. You can see how large the kitty is between the deers legs he had eaten a pretty good size hole in my buck
 

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darenative

Twelve Pointer
I shot a decent 7pt several years ago and still had decent light and it was cold so I decided to sit a while I knew my buck was down because I heard him crash. So I climb down still had just enough light to walk to my deer without my light. I get to him and he starts moving or so I think. About that time a huge bobcat comes over top of him growling and raising cane. He was coming towards me slapping the ground with his front feet. First instinct was to run but I didn’t he would have caught my fat tail anyway. Then my hunting instincts kicked in and I remembered that magnum hanging on my back. He scared the 💩 out of me but I won the battle and he got shot in the face. That was the spookiest scariest thing that ever happened to me. Took me a long time to walk out of the woods on jello legs that night. You can see how large the kitty is between the deers legs he had eaten a pretty good size hole in my buck
I aint a big fan of cats of any flavor. The bigger they are the less i like em. 😳
 
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