Push or Wait?

[soupcreek]

In the recent crazy thread, one of the hunters said, "...in this case I knew that we needed to push the buck to keep it bleeding. If the buck was allowed to bed up and his wound coagulated he would be nearly impossible to track down and recover."
I don't want to get into any portion of the other thread except this aspect. This is counter to what I have been taught. I have been taught to let a wounded animal bed down and stiffen up rather than chase them. A three legged mule deer is still a lot faster than a two legged human. A spooked, adrenaline filled deer can travel a VERY LONG way in a short amount of time, making blood trailing nearly impossible.
I thought this thought process was the norm. I was surprised to hear the opposite from the "expert" hunter and also surprised that in the 400+ posts, no one else has mentioned it. The "expert" knew at this point that the buck had at least two holes in it. Is he making stuff up to justify his running in front of the others or do other hunters actually use the "Push it to keep it bleeding" logic?
Obviously, each situation is different and so recovery tactics should vary depending on circumstances, but this sounded weird to me. I am curious what the general MM public thinks about this.
Please stay on topic.
Thanks,
Soup

 

[hossblur]

I saw that too.

I've always been let it lie. I even if it doesn't bleed out, muscles stiffen making escape harder.

 

[HikeHunt61]

I've always thought that if the blood is pink/frothy- go after it to finish the job. If it's dark, patience is better. The "hunter" didn't mention the reasoning. But if the blood was from a flesh/bone wound, which "coagulation" might be a factor, proper reasoning would seem to be the opposite of what he stated- as you postulate.

Of course, in this specific case, he proved correct...

 

[elks96]

I feel it depends on the hit and the results. In this case given hos description I agreed that I would prefer to push the buck giving the known wound location and I was with a rifle in hand. The only exception might be if the buck was near or headed to private. With a gut shot then I am waiting it out. But a lower leger ham blaster, upper back with a rifle I am going to go after the animal as those wounds may have them lie but they are not getting "sick". Archery a whole different game...

 

[DSilver]

I hit a nice buck in 2020. Waited and hour, then tracked it about 1-mile til dark. Went back in the morning, and found where he had bedded down for the night. Pretty good pool of blood there, but nothing around that. It was a quartering away shot and I'm pretty sure I hit him too far forward, so it likely wasn't a lethal shot anyways. Sure did bleed a lot though. I'm interested in other people's thoughts. I imagine if I'd made a better shot, I would have found him where he bedded down in the morning.

 

[100%DIYAZCOUES]

Pushing them intentionally is flat out idiotic in my mind. I can’t think of a scenario that makes any sense at all. Maybe force a move on a wounded animal if it’s the last day and you’re losing light? Even then I wouldn’t want to intentionally push it… if you jump a wounded coues and it takes off, the chances of ever finding that deer again just plummeted. Maybe it works on something I haven’t hunted?

 

[Shadow]

I don’t think it’s wise to push a wounded animal.…Unless it’s a big buck that I’d like to steal from a young female hunter?

 

[Fkr7]

I will wait all day if i have to .

 

[johnnycake]

It came up in that dumpster fire thread.

It is absurd

 

[elkantlers]

Push it if it's headed towards the truck. Wait if it's going away from the truck.

 

[Tristate]

In the U.S it is common practice to wait on wounded deer and then move in. In Africa the normal practice is pursue aggressively at first and try and get another bullet in the animal. If you bump but don't get another bullet then they back off and wait and then go in cautiously.

I'm not sure one is better than the other and think it is specific to the beast and environment. Deer are definitely different than African antelope. In the US we are typically hunting in cold environments and in Africa they are typically tracking in warm or even hot environments.

Note, lions and leopards are not followed aggressively.


But in reference to the Aram von Beenadick scenario they act like the follow up was within a few minutes of the wounding. In reality THEY WERE OVER 1/3 OF A MILE WHEN THE 5HIT5HOW STARTED. In broken country it was probably half an hour before they started follow up. The deer would have probably laid down by the time anyone got there.

 

[eyeman]

I think the question is why he wrote it and not what he wrote.

 

[soupcreek]

Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate the opportunity to learn from other’s experiences. It has its ups and downs here, but this is one of the things I really appreciate about MM.
When I was young and much less experienced, I came over the top of a hill in Montana with my brothers. Across the canyon, about to go over the next hill and out of our lives forever, was one the biggest bucks I had ever seen. In reality, it was probably a 150-170 inch buck. With my dad’s .270, I laid down, ignored my brother saying it was too far, guessed the yardage at 400+, put the cross hairs about 3-4’ above it’s back (having almost no clue about ballistics), got really steady, and squeezed off a shot. The buck jumped like had been hit hard, but only went about 5-10 yards before stopping. I took another shot and it again jumped like a hit and went downhill about 10 yards into the trees. We could only see parts of him at that point so I left my brothers there with instructions to shoot if he came out while I snuck down for another follow up shot. I only moved about 50 yards closer when I could see his whole body in an opening. Compounding my errors, I decided to shoot again from there, rather than first sneaking through the timber to a reasonable range. My third shot rang out and the now three legged buck took off across the open hillside. In the 100 yards of open hillside that he ran across at 450 yards, we probably got off another 8-10 shots between us three brothers. I aimed high, I lead him, I aimed right at him. Nothing my inexperienced self tried worked. We didn’t touch another hair. He and three of his four legs made it safely to the trees. We hustled over and found a little blood right away. We immediately tracked the blood across the hillside where he had gone, but it disappeared in the trees like he did. We looked for a couple hours, went home, grabbed Dad, came back and looked another few hours. We found no other sign. This is why it seems strange to me now that with a lower front leg hit, someone would want to push the deer to “keep it bleeding”. Three legged deer move fast, possibly aren’t losing a lot of blood, and can go forever. I wish I had been smart enough to let him sit after all the shooting and then sneak in to the timber. He likely would have stopped in the trees and calmed down and laid down if I hadn’t rushed in to track him. Instead I pushed him and never saw him again. I came back and looked another time and still couldn’t find him. I guess in some situations pushing might be appropriate, but in the situation described in the other thread, which seems to similar to my own, the logics to push the deer didn’t make sense to me.
Thanks again for the comments and insights. I don’t want to condemn anyone for doing things differently than me. I have made my share of mistakes. But, I do like to learn from my experiences and also from other people’s experiences, good and bad. Thanks for sharing yours.
Soup

 

[Buckfever34]

I’ll never push a wounded animal on purpose. No matter where it’s hit.

I read that in the thread and thought WTH.

 

[Rie bread]

Push it if it's headed towards the truck. Wait if it's going away from the truck.

Had this happen last weekend. Bumped an elk closer to the truck.

 

[BrowningRage]

I've never pushed a buck when hit with an arrow. I've only ever shot at and killed one buck with a muzzy. And its been my experience with a rifle, if the country is more open than not, go ahead and push... if the cover is think, give them time.

 

[Homer]

If he'd have let it wait....the girl would have gotten it.....

 

[Pwrhd]

Most of my hunting is in thick, flat areas. If you push a wounded animal, most times you lose it for good. That comment was just one of the stupid things that he said.

 

[live4muleys]

I was deer hunting with the muzzleloader one time and hit a deer low in the front leg. It broke his front leg but wasn't much bleeding. I pushed the deer hard and kept in contact with him until I was able to get another shot. He had laid down in some thick brush when we bumped him the last time. He had gone a long ways but we were able to keep pushing him and finding him. The only way we knew he was in the thick brush was my young son (5 years old at the time) saw him in there for a split second. I truly feel if we hadn't keep pushing this deer we wouldn't have every found him, even with his broken front leg. I may be wrong, but it worked out this time around and the deer was dead with the second shot within an hour. I feel all situations are different and on this one I felt we had to stay with the deer. Many other times I have let them sit and been successful and other times not successful finding them with letting them rest.

 

[BrianID]

The terrain that I'm hunting in will be a big factor on deciding on how to pursue a wounded animal. It is is fairly open, I'm likely to go after it immediately because I'm likely to be able to find it and finish it off right away. I've unfortunately had to do this more than once. There is no reason to wait if you can likely move in to finish the animal.

In an area with thick tall brush or more dense forest or I'm not likely to get a follow up shot if I bump the animal, I'm going to wait. Fortunately I haven't had to do this rifle hunting but I've done it while archery hunting multiple times.

I really questioned AVB on his logic to push the animal to get it to bleed. I wasn't there and don't know the exact circumstances. If the terrain was favorable, I think pursuing the animal immediately was a good choice. His tactics obviously worked in allowing him to tag the buck before the lady did.

 

[Makaira]

Should be easy to find with the collar

 

[Shadow]

Should be easy to find with the collar

I can’t wait to shoot one with a collar. I’m gonna cut it off and tie it to a semi at the nearest Flying J