Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

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xpauliber
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Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby xpauliber » Mon Aug 26, 2019 8:15 am

I know there are various opinions about how best to recover deer that aren't immediately fatal. I have always approached marginal hits with the mindset that "if he's dead now, he'll be dead in the morning" and oftentimes let marginally hit deer go overnight if the temperatures & weather allowed it. That has worked well for me over the years with the exception of dreaded single lung hit deer. I've hit a couple deer over the years where it was a steep angle and I hit higher than I'd have liked and more than likely only got one lung and I never recovered them.

Listening to the most recent Wired to Hunt podcast with Mark Drury where they discussed recovering deer, he mentioned that if you think you have a single lung hit, you should try to keep pushing them and not let them coagulate and clot up. I just don't like the idea of pushing deer out of that first crucial bed but maybe some hits do require it.

Have you ever successfully recovered a single lung hit deer and if so, what was your approach to the track job that allowed you to do so?


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Grizzlyadam
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby Grizzlyadam » Mon Aug 26, 2019 8:49 am

The only time I ever single lunged a deer I recovered it without too much of a problem. It was a doe that I shot straight down on. I gave it the standard 30 minutes before taking up the track. It was a complete pass through with a slick trick. The blood trail was very easy to follow for most of it. It was spraying straight up and down so there was blood above my head for most of it. The blood thinned out quickly for the last 100 yards, I was only finding drops every 20 or 30 yards then nothing for the last 50 when I found her dead in a bed near the side of a lake. She went in a fairly straight line without stopping and went directly into the thickest gnarliest wettest spot in the area. Probably total distance was 500 yards and I recovered her about two hours after the shot.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby Wannabelikedan » Mon Aug 26, 2019 9:20 am

This is the best representation of the buck’s positioning that I shot last year. I hit the first rib behind the left shoulder/leg and exited out the right ham. Only about 8” shy of complete pass through. I was shooting uphill at him but nothing extreme and his front half was lower than his rear half. I hit one lung, stomach, and through the intestines. He died in 75 yards. Took 20 yards before he started bleeding out the entrance and coughing it up. Internal hemorrhaging was impressive to say the least.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby Razorhead » Mon Aug 26, 2019 9:24 am

I recovered a 2 1/2 year old buck (good body size) back in 2017. I spot shot him at about 25 yards and the hit looked right through the boiler room but just a tad high too me on impact. The shot was a complete pass through and stuck 5” into the ground. The arrow showed bright red blood from nock to where it entered the ground with good body hair lodged around my broadbead. The arrow was the kind that made you feel real comfortable about a killing shot. I was hunting on the top of a ridge and after the shot I watched the buck take off down the ridge to a spot where he stopped and I actually thought I was going to watch him crash. A moment later he took a couple of bounds toward the bottom of the hollow and out of sight. My buddy and I picked up his blood trail about an hour after the shot and tracked the buck into the bottom of the hollow where we jumped a deer. I was hoping it wasn’t him but was pretty sure it was my buck. I really had myself believing that I couldn’t believe he was still alive as I had fully anticipated finding him dead in his first bed in the bottom. We picked up a really sparse blood trail heading directly uphill out of the hollow (now I was worried). We tracked him until we absolutely ran out of blood and I waypointed and marked last blood and decided to pull off the track job until the next morning. I walked straight up out of the hollow to a road on top of the adjacent ridge and started to walk back to the truck. Part way back to the truck we jumped the buck that was bedded right along the road and obviously had gone as far as he could physically go and finished him off a few yards from his second bed. I was very fortunate to have walked right onto his second bed although I do feel I would have found him the next morning but with the number of coyotes in the area I think my chance of losing the meat was very likely. I did in fact hit him high and caught only the top lobe of the opposite lung on the pass through shot. From the spot where I hit him from the point of recovery was 325 yards according to my waypoints and track log on my GPS unit. May have recovered him quicker if I hadn’t waited an hour to go after him and let him start to clot up in his first bed. One lung hits are going to die, they can only go so far. Good topic.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby Trout » Mon Aug 26, 2019 10:08 am

I single lunged a small buck in 2015. was right for a double lung but was shooting expendables at the time and while butchering it found that the arrow basically turned almost 90 degrees upon entry, missing the other lung. The deer took off and I heard it crash hard twice before everything went quiet. I was sure I would walk up to a dead deer about where I heard the second crash and couldnt have been more wrong.

I waited 30 minutes, got down from the tree, packed my climber up and walked over to where it to find the arrow. There was no arrow and no blood so I started following its tracks and hit blood after about 15yds. 40yds in I hit the first crash spot, lots of blood and no arrow, kept following it and hit the second crash spot about 75yds in, lots of blood and no arrow. Followed another 20yds and you could see where it jumped over a big deadfall and landed halfway down a massive ravine. No deer in sight so I backed out. Came back three hours later with a friend and picked you the trail. Was an easy track job, good blood the whole way but it was like the deer just wouldn't die. Ended up finding it piled up with a mouthful of dead leaves about 300yds from where I shot it. I felt pretty strongly that it ran full bore till it piled up when it couldnt breath anymore, and died there sucking in those leaves in its final seconds trying to get more air.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby brancher147 » Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:16 am

I lost a nice mature buck a couple years ago from what I presume was a single lung hit. It was a steep shot and quartering away. The shot looked and felt good and the arrow looked good. I thought the buck went down just out of sight and went to check it out but no buck and not much blood so I backed out for 4 hours. I came back with 3 other guys and got on the blood and it did have a few bubbles in it but not at all what I was hoping to see. The blood trail was tough and we lost blood up on the next ridge. After about 1/4 mile I found where he had bedded watching his back trail and we had kicked him up so I decided to back out until the next day. The following morning I started at that bed and went another 1/4 mile into a steep nasty canyon and found his next bed, but could not find any sign of where he went from that bed. I looked for 2 days without finding another sign of him. My guess is he either went down to the river and died and washed away in class 3 rapids or he continued out the canyon and died, which gets too steep to even walk to look for him. But they can go quite a ways on a one lung hit, and this buck was a roamer. I had pics of him multiple times over 3 miles apart at different times of the year.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby bigredneck61088 » Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:57 pm

Yes only one, mature doe. We basically just tracked her down til she was exhausted and shot her again.... not how you want it to happen, but once we determined one lung it was follow til we lose it or catch up, and we caught up and I snuck another in her
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby muddy » Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:59 pm

Yup. Mature doe. Tracked her till I got 2 more arrows in her. It sucked.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby Hawthorne » Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:20 pm

Yes. A 143” 12 point. Luckily he went 30yds and laid down after the shot. He was gurgling and making a bunch of noise then it got quiet.I thought he was dead behind some brush. I got down out of my stand after about an hour wait and he took off running. Luckily he only went 100yds and crashed. Good thing he didn’t run for the next county after the shot I might not have recovered him. Looked like the perfect shot but after field dressing him I only got one lung. I’ve shot some deer that I got one lung and liver and those expired quick
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby DaveT1963 » Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:40 pm

I've recovered a lot of one lung shot deer. Use a big cut on contact broadhead and it's usually not a problem
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby EllieTheChubb » Mon Aug 26, 2019 2:46 pm

Had one quartering away hard and I hit liver and one lung. Ran/walked 300yds before it tipped over next to the bank of a cove. I waited 1 hr to track and he was dead when I found him.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby walking river » Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:28 pm

A nearly straight down shot on a doe caught only one lung. She ran off in an arc and crashed. Before I was able to climb down my cousin notifies me that he hit a buck. After tracking his buck, who doubled back on his track and lost us after 2 hours, we picked up the trail of my doe. The blood trail was named bloody murder and the doe was near where I heard her crash still alive but unable to move. She expired as we approached her. Total trail was 60 yards tops but I bet most one-lung hit deer can cover much greater distances with less blood loss.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby mauser06 » Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:35 pm

The only deer I may have hit in 1 lung was a couple years ago.


35 whelen and 225gr Accubond. I was kinda dumbfounded that he took a step. Let alone barely a sign of a hit at the POI.

1/4 mile down the valley up the other side. No sign of slowing. Spotty blood. Some points definitely appeared to be blowing from 1 lung. Got into some seriously posted ground and denied access.

I think he was quartering away more than I realized and I basically took off his front left shoulder. I'd imagine his left lung was blown up but didn't recover him to find out unfortunately.

I don't think he was quartering so hard that I didn't hit the left lung...but I guess it's possible. Sure looked like frothy lung blood and spraying at a few different points. Others it was tough going. Weird track job.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby Ack » Mon Aug 26, 2019 6:20 pm

Been on two for sure single lung blood trails....one of my dad's and one of mine a couple years ago.....both 3+ year old bucks.

Did not recover either deer....blood trails were sparse and eventually ran dry. Even used a dog on my dad's buck to no avail.
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Re: Have you ever recovered a single lung hit?

Unread postby cw2gsp » Tue Aug 27, 2019 1:20 am

Been on both ends of a one lung hit. I recovered the first one by doing just what Dury said. Pushed it and he literately died on the run right after i jumped him. It was 18 hours after the initial hit. Not how I wanted it to work out thats for sure.

Second deer I watched bed down 60 yards away and could see blood coming out of his mouth. Thought it would die right but without me knowing he got up and walked off, thought it was strange but no biggie, could see blood from my stand. Long story short the blood trail to the first bed was unreal bright red full of bubbles and then just about nothing. Looked for him for hours and hours. That one still hurts.


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