Geno C

congrats on the buck!

id say 3 1/2, very nice buck!

nice pics

yeah im with you...

good luck Pete, have fun up there

good update, thanks yeah ive called DEC before and hung up the phone a little more confused then when i first called.

good job, congrats

ive never seen it before with out hitting a rock or something. first thing i thought was rock but when i got down there was not a rock in sight or hard object... the small little 4" branch was rotted and kind of soft so i was stumped lol. oh and whitetail to answer your question about the time i spent. it was about 3 hours and i was heading back to the truck to take my coveralls off and drop some things off at the truck and head back out to look. I thought hard and said what would really end this search and confirm what i think is if i found hair on one blade and not the other. when i got to the truck i had the branch with the head in the pickup bed, it had dark hair on one blade with a VERY tiny 3" speckled blood trail on one side of the arrow... if thats not a skim miss i dont know what is...

I never claim to kill big deer year in year out, not sure where you get this info. I've pushed myself to evolve as a hunter and try and take bigger deer. I eat tag soup often on my buck tags. I shoot a doe every year minimum as I have alot of tags for Doe, being on the island I'm sure you know that. Like I stated earlier if you read it, I do not take low percentage shots, case closed... I will not and won't. Put yourself in my shoes, watching the same 130" 12 point infront of you and having to let him walk 2 days in a row. It's not always about killing them, some of my best hunts don't always end in a harvest. The reason I hit above him was not where I was aiming I don't spine deer. If you equate being almost 30' in a tree and then shooting at a deer low on a ridge using my 20 yard pin ins natural that the arrow will sail high, I should have aimed lower. Was my fault... But you really should read all my posts, you jump the gun like you skim what I write.

Nick glad you made it on here buddy you will learn a lot here, great group of guys here... To bad we didint get some time to do some scouting together during the summer. ill shoot you a call tomorow

the broad head has 2 shoulders, when both make contact they deploy and switch out. my guess is as i passed over the deer only one shoulder made contact with the top of his fur and triggered one blade to open. when the arrow hit the log both were fully open... it doesnt take a whole lot of friction to deploy the blades.

thanks NFA, yeah i made mental notes of the small group of trees he last stopped infront of for 2 minutes. its knee high brush and could not visully see a run from the stand but i climbed up this morning to double check those trees, climbed down walked right to those trees and sure enough a nice run 2 feet in front of them that runs north to south which was the very tral he was on, NO BLOOD. that was over 130 yards from the shot. i sure hope i see him again, he was nice!

and for the record i swept the woods atleast what felt like 800 yards in each direction, no sign of a bed up deer. i even swept the first ridge he walked off on which is almost 300 yards from the shot, i wept it good not one spec of blood... hair was found on 1 blade of my rage, if i got in to that deer both blades would have hair hung up everywhere. anyone who shoots Rage knows that. 1 blade happened to nick his back as it glided over and the one shoulder on the Rage deployed the blade and created a slice on his back. i would honestly rather this situation then to hit the deer to the point where he would not live and never find him.

well mr whitetail, im glad i have impacted your life enough for you to remember comments i have made in the past on lost deer threads 2 YEARS AGO. For the record, some posting those lost deer threads could not even indicate if their deer was quartering or broadside or where they even hit for that matter. if your going to make comparisons make sure your comparing apples to apples. I on the other hand can tell you exactly where my original gut feeling was where i hit (and i was right), what the wind direction was, i even took the time for that deer to give me the shot i was looking for and on top of that made sure before i anchored that my cams cleared my stand rail and bow hanger. I am very in tune, with my surroundings, gear and myself. I do not just see a deer and let an arrow rip and hope for the best and say yeah, well i hit the deer but i cant remember anything before or after the shot. THATS NOT ME.... since you have not been on this forum for a long time and would like to continue where we left off not last season but the prior season thats fine because if you read correctly i stated please tell me IM NOT CRAZY because i did not believe my broad head would cause a spark on bone. i have heard someone say that and all i was doing was reporting my hunt to a T. I spend a ton of seat time each year in my stands and its a learning curve each sit. If your not learning anything while you sit then attention to detail is not ones forte. Dont come on here trying to rip me apart when you have not a clue on anything about me. you dont know me from a hole in the wall and to be honest you personally followed me from thread to thread 2 seasons ago like some pathetic stalker calling me out in each thread i posted in, im giving you fair warning that is not going to happen this year. i have hunted less then 3 times this year and have almost 30 hours logged already, i know where my deer was standing when i shot, i know where he bounded to and stopped for 3 minutes and i also know where he walked another 50 yards and stopped and stood for another 2 minutes after the shot. THERE WAS NO BLOOD. That deer was not fatally hit, he is fine. I know the legistics of shooting a deer and how far when to expext blood from where the shot took place, this is not my first rodeo so i dont need your input... you seem to be some little cry baby and really have a jones for me... dont worry about me and what i do, worry about yourself. i know myself as a hunter and i am very happy with myself. i never ever once claimed to be better then anyone here and honestly i get along with everyone here. and the camaraderie here is great and then theres guys like you who throw a wrench in the fan with what appears to be jealousy. all the pieces to my puzzle on this deer in place, end result: a deer with a slice in his back who will be running doe in a few weeks. nothing more, nothing less.

No lung... The one blade deployed and sliced the top of his back. If that arrow got into him hair would 100% be on both sides. I didn't take noticed to that detail last night, popped into my head today and confirmed the degree of the hit. I have no doubt that I was way above the vitals.

Thank you all for your support and info! Update: this deer will indeed live to see another day, a healthy one at that... I looked at both landmarks where I saw him stand for a few minutes at a time, zero blood, anywhere. If he was gurgling blood he would have left some right where he stood. On his second stop I land marked it right dead infront of a group of 3 trees. I walked right to those trees also and sure thing a nice solid deer run and not one spec of blood. Nice part is there are so many ridges at this spot I can see everything when I get to the top of each one. I can't even begin to tell you how much ground I covered. In the walk back to the truck I played in back and said to myself what would make this so easy to figure out is if one blade happened to nick him and hair would only be found on one blade. Sure enough I get back to the truck and only one blade has hair the other clean as a whistle. Checked the arrow and literally a 3" spec tiny tiny blood trail was on the arrow and it was only on one side 2" from the start of the shaft. Shot was high, grazed some meat above his spine. I never ever have seen a rage hit a deer and not have hair on both sides and I'll tell you, never saw one not covered in blood. As for the sound, I'm sure huge blade gashing the deer a bit was enough for him to feel some pain after that shot and he reacted. He will be fine, 100% Thanks agin guys!

oh no i did not think that at all, no worries... i appreciate all the input, the lack of blood on the arrow concerns me as well and makes me think i just nipped him. the sounds i heard i can not put my finger on. he was standing for minutes on this one trail at a stand still, if there is no blood anywhere on there he was not hit then, he was just nipped. he had plenty of time to bleed pretty well if he was hit so it should not be hard at all to figure out. ill update tomorrow, off to a sleepless night and a early start

shot was def high if anything. the spark occurred behind the deer which made it look right above the deer from my angle. if it hit low the spark would have been behind the deer and i may not have even seen it.

after seeing Rich's post, maybe what i am thinking is i barley nicked him thus deploying the rage and snagging hair on the way, they spark maybe from hitting the log and it happened so quick that it appeared to spark when it hit the deer? the only factor is the repetitive gargling...

100% dark deer hair all in my broad head...

wow i would not have thought that, yes i am... very interesting. thank you for the post Rich

other factor greg that i cant get is, why no blood on the arrow then?

thanks guys im hoping for the best, hate being on the receiving end of these threads but it does happen...

saw a spike running a doe and came into my bleet can after... saw one deer in the AM and spike and a doe at 430 and a huge 8 i shot at at 615. see my thread on that story. bummed out right now...

the head was not even phased... not bent at all, perfect condition. alls i know was it was fully deployed as intended when i retrieved the log