Lost Deer in River

[jks84]

I'm sick to my stomach over this. Shot a doe with a muzzleloader, lots of blood and bubbles. Back out and gave her an hour. Came back and tracked her. She was barely alive but got up stumbling and falling. Doesn't she find her way to the one open drop off to a river and flops down on her side. I'm standing there watching her chest going up and down and she flops one more time and rolls into the river and I watch her float away with her head barely above the surface. Worst part, my 6 year old was with me and he felt absolutely awful. 

[wolc123]

7 hours ago, jks84 said:

I'm sick to my stomach over this. Shot a doe with a muzzleloader, lots of blood and bubbles. Back out and gave her an hour. Came back and tracked her. She was barely alive but got up stumbling and falling. Doesn't she find her way to the one open drop off to a river and flops down on her side. I'm standing there watching her chest going up and down and she flops one more time and rolls into the river and I watch her float away with her head barely above the surface. Worst part, my 6 year old was with me and he felt absolutely awful. 

Was it the Oswegatchie ?  I’m not hunting too far from there this week, and I know of a few spots where I could see that happening.   Bad as it was, that doe probably suffered much less than about any other way that she could have departed.  
 

The stream, where I’m at, is running high from all the rain the last few weeks. I think it flows into the Oswegatchie.   Im just thankful that there’s not much more of that rain predicted for the rest of the week.  It seems that the last few years up here this week, I’ve had to hunt from under my tree umbrella, more often than not.  
 

The dry weather was nice, but I couldn’t find any deer yesterday.  Hopefully, I’ll see at least one today.  I’ll be hunting closer to the steam.  After reading your story,  I’ll go for a shoulder blade shot, if I do see a mature doe or a buck with 3 or more points on a side, in range.  
 

If a deer flips into the stream here, it would most ikely get swept down thru a big culvert, into some posted land where I don’t have permission to hunt (not right now anyhow).  I hope to catch up with the owner this week, and rectify that situation.  
 

He’s trying to make peace with my father-in-law, after a recent property dispute.  My father in law hasn’t budged yet, but the neighbor did bake him a delicious apple/blueberry pie, so it seems that he’s at least willing to negotiate.   I think if I told him how good that pie was, he’d grant me retrieval rights.  
 

As far as the shoulder blade shot and meat damage goes, it wasn’t bad at all, on a big fat doe that I shot a few weeks ago with my ML at home, during our early antlerless season.  That shot was from 50 yards with a 240 gr xtp bullet and (2) 50 gr T7 pellets.  
 

The bullet caught the back lower corner of the inboard shoulder blade (she was slightly quartering to me), and dropped her there in her tracks.  It didn’t hurt the back straps at all and I had to trim away only a few ounces of bloodied up meat around the wound.  

 

There were not any deer up on the ridges by the nut producing trees yesterday.  Maybe they are all down by the stream.  We shall see, in the next few hours, I guess.  Good luck the rest of the season. 

Edited October 15, 2023 by wolc123

[jks84]

2 hours ago, wolc123 said:

Was it the Oswegatchie ?  I’m not hunting too far from there this week, and I know of a few spots where I could see that happening.   Bad as it was, that doe probably suffered much less than about any other way that she could have departed.  
 

The stream, where I’m at, is running high from all the rain the last few weeks. I think it flows into the Oswegatchie.   Im just thankful that there’s not much more of that rain predicted for the rest of the week.  It seems that the last few years up here this week, I’ve had to hunt from under my tree umbrella, more often than not.  
 

The dry weather was nice, but I couldn’t find any deer yesterday.  Hopefully, I’ll see at least one today.  I’ll be hunting closer to the steam.  After reading your story,  I’ll go for a shoulder blade shot, if I do see a mature doe or a buck with 3 or more points on a side, in range.  
 

If a deer flips into the stream here, it would most ikely get swept down thru a big culvert, into some posted land where I don’t have permission to hunt (not right now anyhow).  I hope to catch up with the owner this week, and rectify that situation.  
 

He’s trying to make peace with my father-in-law, after a recent property dispute.  My father in law hasn’t budged yet, but the neighbor did bake him a delicious apple/blueberry pie, so it seems that he’s at least willing to negotiate.   I think if I told him how good that pie was, he’d grant me retrieval rights.  
 

As far as the shoulder blade shot and meat damage goes, it wasn’t bad at all, on a big fat doe that I shot a few weeks ago with my ML at home, during our early antlerless season.  That shot was from 50 yards with a 240 gr xtp bullet and (2) 50 gr T7 pellets.  
 

The bullet caught the back lower corner of the inboard shoulder blade (she was slightly quartering to me), and dropped her there in her tracks.  It didn’t hurt the back straps at all and I had to trim away only a few ounces of bloodied up meat around the wound.  

 

There were not any deer up on the ridges by the nut producing trees yesterday.  Maybe they are all down by the stream.  We shall see, in the next few hours, I guess.  Good luck the rest of the season. 

Black River. Hindsight is 20/20, guess I should have waited a few hours but figured 1 would be plenty the way she was bleeding. Pretty sad sight watching her float away and nothing I can do about it.

[wolc123]

41 minutes ago, jks84 said:

Black River. Hindsight is 20/20, guess I should have waited a few hours but figured 1 would be plenty the way she was bleeding. Pretty sad sight watching her float away and nothing I can do about it.

That ones not far from me either.  I think I drove over it at least (3) times on the way up here.  The rain just stopped up here now and it’s pretty nice out.