Recovery rate with your bow (poll, but names not public)

[Core]

What recovery rate do you have on deer with a vertical bow (compound, recurve, etc.)?

Names on this poll are not public, so don't be worried about picking a choice. Please be honest

[Lawdwaz]

I had a bunch of bad years when I went from the compound to the recurve/longbow back in about 1987.  Sure, I killed a bunch until I went back to the compound in 1999 but I wounded too many.  After I switched back I was consistently killing and not wounding.  If you're going to hunt with (any bow really) traditional gear, you have to commit to serious practice, regularly IMO.

I never said I was a fast learner........

[BowmanMike]

I only killed 3 deer with the bow so far,lost one. This is my third bow season. 

[Adkhunter1590]

Can't remember how many I've killed. But I know I've lost at least 4 or 5 over the last 15 years. I'd say that would put my recovery rate around 99%

[The_Real_TCIII]

Can't remember how many I've killed. But I know I've lost at least 4 or 5 over the last 15 years. I'd say that would put my recovery rate around 99%

I'm not great at math but have you killed 500 deer?!

[wolc123]

I can not recall ever missing a deer with a vertical bow, but my recovery rate was about 70 %.  That was not good enough for me,  so I gave it up 3 years ago.  With a crossbow, my recovery rate has been 100 %.   I can live with that.  Full inclusion would be nice, but now I have a little more time for fall salmon fishing, small game hunting, and to get get my stands and blinds ready.   I am very thankful to have the whole peak-rut week to use the crossbow, and to have access to some prime hunting in the northern zone, where I can use it a few weeks earlier if I want to.

Are you going to run a poll like this for crossbows ?     

[Adkhunter1590]

I'm not great at math but have you killed 500 deer?!

Haha I'm prolly even worse at math but nah not that many. I've whacked around 100. Exact number unknown. Let's just say 100 for easy math, I guess that would put me around 95% recovery then.

[burmjohn]

Is what it is, I lost two deer in my bow hunting career and both I swore were perfect shots.  Oddly, last year, which I knew was a bad shot either because of nerves or a branch (still don't honestly know) I ended up finding.  

[New York Hillbilly]

It would be interesting to keep a tally this season on this site, how many are lost. I started reading the Luna thread, and as good a pair of trackers she and her handler clearly are, it sure tells a sad tale about what type of shooting is going on, in my opinion. :  (

Edited October 4, 2017 by New York Hillbilly
spelled word wrong

[Hock3y24]

regardless of your percentage, keep improving on what you did wrong last time and it will go up! I was more confident that ever this year and still jacked up a shot. Everyone messes up a shot as some point and as long as you give that animal everything you have to find it your fine by me. Nothing is wasted in nature.

[nyslowhand]

I admire any bow hunter that answers this poll honestly!!! Lets hope if your recovery rate is somewhat lower, you've learnt from any mistakes or poor shot opportunities. Things are likely to go wrong for any bow hunters and even possibly numerous times, but losing a deer is my worst nightmare!

[wooly]

When I first got into bowhunting, I HAD to shoot at every deer I saw for at least my first 5 seasons no matter the distance, terrain, shot angles, or size of deer.

I was an exceptional shot on paper, but for some reason I needed multiple opportunities on whitetail before I'd finally connect. In that time I missed and wounded a lot of deer. Probably close to 1:4.

I'm sure I checked off every possible poor shot selection scenario in that time and my recovery rate reflected that. My tracking skills also sucked back in the early days.

 

Over the past 25 years or so I learned how t get closer to whitetail and how they would react under a variety of encounters. I also finally realized exactly how high of a deer encounter rate I was having each season which made passing on some opportunities that much easier.THAT was what helped me overcome my awful recovery rate and I forced myself to wait for the best shot opportunities over the next 25 years. My recovery rate has improved tremendously since then but I'm sure there has been one o two hits that have led to an unrecovered deer in this time as well.

My early career #'s may hurt my stats, but I'm not embarrassed to say I've learned from them and overcome the temptation to take marginal shots with the bow anymore. 

For that reason I'll have to put myself in the 75% category

[Robhuntandfish]

lost one from Monday night.  Looked for 7 hours with another guy.  Had hair on the broadhead and just a little blood on fletches.  Then found blood spots for trail on leaves and then like 5 spots like this pic.  Then deer crossed its own trail twice I believe and then it just ended.  Crawled on the ground looking for sign, did semi circles  all around ........dunno ...... called the search on account of darkness last night.  Have lost two bow hunting and the other was last year.  Made a high shot and deer went across a road thru cattails so think it might have lived.  Have lost one other deer to coyotes.  Def not a good start to the season which I thought was starting off great by seeing 13 deer in two days. I guess this doe was unlucky #13. 

Went thru the briars and went thru the brambles went thru the woods where rabbits wouldnt go!  My buddy couldnt even drive home for 20 minutes cause he was cramping up so bad.  We sure gave it a hard try but thats gonna bother me the rest of the season for sure.  

[LET EM GROW]

I had a couple of bad years where i think i was forgetting to bend at the waist from an elevated stand, sending the arrow about 8" high each time. Also trying to make shots where I should have waited. I lost 5 deer in those few years. I was Very Very accurate from shooting in leagues and tournaments but of those 5 deer, 4 were pope and young and never recovered . Any deer not found is just as bad as the other.. But From that day forward i made sure the shot was absolutely perfect nothing marginal about them. At that point id say i was hitting around 75% success rate, but since then has been 100%. It was very hard to let big bucks walk that were in range but wouldnt stop at full draw or others that i just didn't feel totally comfortable with. Im sure with my age increasing it helped with the decision as well.. I just refuse to wound anymore to the best of my ability.. Seeing people take some of these shots they do with archery tackle completely boggles my mind.. 

Edited October 4, 2017 by LET EM GROW

[G-Man]

Well it's a weighted question.. Deer I got and lost that I thought would Die.. Or does it include a grazing shot that I knew deer was fine..????

I also didn't. Find one but killed it the next year with a 27 in 2013 shaft with broadhead still on it from the year before.. Does that count as recovered if I killed it following year? ( was a spike 1st year. I shot it and was a screwed up 4 pt when I killed it second year..)

[BigVal]

It really is surprising the number that are lost just on this site, imagine the real number. (I know it happens) it's happened to me and probably will again but still, surprising. 

[Buckmaster7600]

1 wounded with a bow. It was with a rage when they first came out and I had a problem with them opening in the air. Did some searching on the Internet and found people were using a tiny piece of shrink tube over the blades to keep them closed. I tried it it opened in water bottles cardboard everything I could shoot them through for testing. That season I shot a buck that acted really weird on impact I watched my lumenock go in just above his elbow at 16 yds. Waiting an hr got down looked at my arrow and my heart stopped, my rage was still shrink wrapped in the closed position. I tracked that deer for a couple hundred yards with a very very small amount of blood. I know the deer died but after 2 days of searching I never found him.


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[steve863]

Good to see people being honest here.  I never considered myself much of a bowhunter, and killed very, very few with a bow.  One deer I did stick with a very superficial wound.  That was it for me as far as wounding.  I do not hunt with a bow anymore, nor do I miss it.  I have way more confidence with a rifle in my hands.  I'll probably get flack for this, but my opinion is that many bowhunters are not nearly as good as they think they are.  Shooting at targets is one thing (and quit honestly not very difficult), but shooting at live game is another.  Bowhunting seems to be the fad these days and everyone seems to want to bowhunt.  But I think the reality is that only a few are good enough to consistently put game down with a bow, thus you get to see and hear about a lot of unrecovered deer.   I guess some will say the same for gun hunters, but I think due to a gun being way more lethal, one has a better chance of getting away with less than ideal shooting skill.  I've seen a good many mediocre gun shooters who consistently put down deer.  If you are mediocre with a bow, that will NEVER happen.  And I would say the percentage of mediocrity is the same with bowhunters and gun hunters.  I'm sure the bowhunters will want to argue this point, but this has at least been my observation of things.

 

 

[Core]

4 minutes ago, steve863 said:

Good to see people being honest here.  I never considered myself much of a bowhunter, and killed very, very few with a bow.  One deer I did stick with a very superficial wound.  That was it for me as far as wounding.  I do not hunt with a bow anymore, nor do I miss it.  I have way more confidence with a rifle in my hands.  I'll probably get flack for this, but my opinion is that many bowhunters are not nearly as good as they think they are.  Shooting at targets is one thing (and quit honestly not very difficult), but shooting at live game is another.  Bowhunting seems to be the fad these days and everyone seems to want to bowhunt.  But I think the reality is that only a few are good enough to consistently put game down with a bow, thus you get to see and hear about a lot of unrecovered deer.   I guess some will say the same for gun hunters, but I think due to a gun being way more lethal, one has a better chance of getting away with less than ideal shooting skill.  I've seen a good many mediocre gun shooters who consistently put down deer.  If you are mediocre with a bow, that will NEVER happen.  And I would say the percentage of mediocrity is the same with bowhunters and gun hunters.  I'm sure the bowhunters will want to argue this point, but this has at least been my observation of things.

Some study found recovery rates for bow to be 80%+, which puts it similar to gun. I agree with some of what you're saying. My recovery rate with deer is clearly well below average. The last deer I failed to recover I must have hit very slightly behind the lungs because I found 1-2 tiny droplets of blood 10 yards past the impact point and then nothing. A friend and I could not pick up blood anywhere. I've never seen anything like it. The arrow just plugged up the hole. I have lighted nocks and I knew the hit was perfect in vertical plane but just behind lungs and I'll be damned if that thing bled at all near the site or even out in any sort of grid pattern that we looked at. At least with a gun odds are much higher you pop a hole out the other side on a bad hit and you can find a blood trail. I suppose crossbow has a higher chance of this also due to hitting much harder.

[Core]

36 minutes ago, BigVal said:

It really is surprising the number that are lost just on this site, imagine the real number. (I know it happens) it's happened to me and probably will again but still, surprising. 

It doesn't surprise me. The difference between stationary targets we practice with and a moving deer at a potentially unknown range that doesn't have a white circle exactly where you should hit I'm actually surprised recovery rates are reported as high as they are with a bow.

[grampy]

If a hunter bow hunts for any length of time, it is almost guaranteed that a miss or loss will happen. Anyone who claims otherwise is most likely lying to ya.

[jjb4900]

I think just as many are lost due to poor tracking skills, effort and errors as there are from poor shots.

[WNYBuckHunter]

Twice I’ve put arrows through backstraps, those were not recoverable, as they didn’t die as a result. Twice I put arrows in the kill zone but was unable to find the deer. I have no idea how many deer I’ve killed with my bow, but I’d say I have around a 90% recovery rate. 

[Doewhacker]

Zero lost, two hair cuts. That's spread over 25 years of bow and at least 25 bow kills. Tracking makes the difference.

[ApexerER]

This is my fourth season bow hunting. As much as I wish I started it a long time ago it is probably better that I didn't. I wouldn't have had the patience for it and much like Wooly I would have been flinging arrows I had no business flinging. I have killed and recovered two deer with my bow but I lost the first one I ever shot at and it was a huge learning experience. That first deer everything was like a blur...I had no idea where I hit it, I released the arrow and watched the deer run off 30 yds and stand there...then walk away normally. I don't remember anything about the shot...it all happened so fast. I had blood at the hit site and small pool where she stopped and stood. Nothing after that....Me and several buddies did grid searches for hours never finding another drop of blood. It still bothers me but it made me slow down and try and think about every detail in my shot. Hopefully my recovery rate will continue to grow from here and hopefully that deer lived.