Wounded?

[OkieKubota]

I was looking out the kitchen window a few minutes ago and a young 8 pointer I have had on camera over the past few weeks was standing at the lower section of our back yard. At first I was observing and thought it was cool to see him out in daylight in the middle of rifle season but he was not eating the clover like other deer we see out there. He was standing in one place, flicking his tail and occasionally licking his sides...both of them...his demeanor tells me "wounded"...he stood around there only moving a couple feet at a time until he drop below the crest of the hill. He was very alert with his ears and head movements when something would catch his attention...after we go to church this morning I am going to walk down there and look for blood as I suspect he may have been shot...the continuous rapid tail flicks are a dead giveaway from my past experiences. Anyone else see anything like this?

 

[Brushpile]

Interesting to hear what you discover.

 

[SwampCat]

I was just yesterday thinking about how many deer are wounded during all seasons combined. Early Oct during bow season, I got a call from a hunter I had never met, asking if he could track a deer he had wounded that went onto my property. He even had a guy with a blood dog come in but couldnt find it. He identified a picture of a 110” 2.5 yr old buck from my phone. One that would probably really have been something in a year or two. I got no more pictures of that deer. A couple weeks later, while muzzle loader hunting, my wife and I both shot bucks that we failed to recover - a first for both of us. She was hunting on our place and shot a 135” 9 pt that showed back up two days later working a scrape. Got a lot of pics of him over the next week - until modern gun season opened - and not one pic since. I was hunting some public and am pretty sure the buck I shot did not recover.

Then, last week my next door neighbor shot the deer in the first picture and called me when the deer got on my property to help him look. He said the buck was broke down in the left front shoulder - we never found it, either. And he has not showed up on camera since then. Two days ago, my son shot a wide 8 pt that had been shot through the meat of the hip. And the buck I am hunting showed up on camera last week with a large wound on his back - in the last pic. I also got another picture of a big 8 pt in the same area with a similar wound on his back. While I believe a lot of deer are shot and not recovered, deer are very resilient- and I believe a fair percentage recover

 

[Vector]

That constant rapid tail flick sounds like a head injury to me. May also be from being head jarred from being hit by a car or being in a heck of a fight.

 

[readonly]

I was thinking this morning....I have skinned over 100 deer and never found evidence of one that had previously been shot by bow or gun. There's a lot of hunting pressure in our area so it is surprising to me....I would expect to find a broadhead in a shoulder or something sooner or later.

 

[Vector]

I was thinking this morning....I have skinned over 100 deer and never found evidence of one that had previously been shot by bow or gun. There's a lot of hunting pressure in our area so it is surprising to me....I would expect to find a broadhead in a shoulder or something sooner or later.

You are lucky to not have found some 22 bullets under the skin from poachers too. We had a rash of that for a few years, finding large puss pockets especially in the rump, with a 22 bullet in the middle. It was a very frustrating time.

Lots of folks cut out and around big puss pockets and never take an extra knife to cut into them to see what's inside. Its disgusting, but that's where the goodies are. Bullets, broadhead parts, antler tips, sticks, car parts, etc.

 

[Fish]

The buck i shot this year had been hit by a car. I saw him on 5 different occasions and never noticed any limp whatsoever.
When i recovered him , i immediately noted a "saggy" area on one hip. I couldnt believe what i found when i peeled the hide back. The one ham had completely pulled away from the femur- from the socket joint to about midway up the hip. Can you imagine?
Also found multiple cuts and scrapes on the back legs.

 

[Vector]

Wow! One thing about wild animals, they have never been taught how to feel sorry for themselves!

 

[JFK52]

I shot a buck in 2014 that had a complete arrow sticking out of it's front leg. The arrow tip was in the bone. The wound was quite fresh. It could not be pulled out, it had to be unscrewed. I made sure to tell the processor that there was a broadhead remaining in the front leg. He was grateful for that information.

 

[buckdeer1]

I watched a 2.5 year old buck this weekend for an hour did the same thing but he had a doe bedded.The only other time I have seen the tail flick was 30 secs before they fell over.I have found broadheads,bullets,shotgun pellets and tine injuries in the hundreds of deer I have skinned.Very few showed any kind of major issues other than a fluid pocket around the foreign object

 

[Drycreek]

My son shot an old buck once that had a "withered" left shoulder, almost no meat on it and we could see the outline of his shoulder blade under the hide. When we skinned him, we found a centerfire .22 bullet flattened out on his scapula. That has made me not recommend any .223 caliber for deer for anyone, and especially not for young shooters who may need the soft recoil, but probably can't place their shots as precisely as is necessary for a marginal caliber.

I know many deer have been killed with .22 Hornets, .223 Rems, 22-250s, etc. , but how many more have been lost ?

 

[readonly]

To the OP: what did you find?

 

[OkieKubota]

To the OP: what did you find?

Nothing at all...no blood anywhere near where he was, no birds, nothing. Still not convinced he wasn't wounded because he licked his side...a bunch!

 

[OkieKubota]

Just a quick update. I was checking a couple cameras very quickly on Sunday as I had a lot of non deer related stuff going on and I found a bunch of deer hair and a front shoulder and leg in the middle of the plot. I backtracked the hair and it looks like a coyote carried it from across the road which is exactly where I last saw the deer I believed to be wounded. This weekend I will see if I can find the rest of him in between putting up Christmas lights...

 

[Steve Daniel]

I was thinking this morning....I have skinned over 100 deer and never found evidence of one that had previously been shot by bow or gun. There's a lot of hunting pressure in our area so it is surprising to me....I would expect to find a broadhead in a shoulder or something sooner or later.

In more than 50 years of Deer hunting and more than a 100 Deer killed, I have found one broadhead in a Deer. Wounded Deer recover better than many of us credit them, and or Coyotes get them. I have killed one 3 legged Deer. I suspect someone shot low and hit the leg. He was a 7 point with a screwed up rack.

 

[jteeen]

A family member shot a spike that had already been shot twice, once in the ham and foot. They had healed over which meant they were from the prior year.

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