What-Would-You-Do-Wednesday: Shoot a Buck and Leave Him Overnight--or No Way?

Posted At : September 8, 2010 10:32 AM | Posted By : Mike Hanback
Related Categories: Big Deer Blog

Mike: I see it on hunting shows a lot: A guy shoots a deer near dark and is not sure of the hit, so they do the famous “back out of the woods” and come back in the morning. They always find the animal, but my question is--Is a deer left in the woods with guts in for 12 hours or longer still ok to eat? Is there some rule about how long before the meat spoils? I don't think I'd feed my family a deer like that. Thanks, Jim

Good question and a dilemma we all might be faced with in coming days. What would you do? All hands on deck, we need to discuss this fully and educate people, so we'll find our deer with good meat for eating. comment

UPDATE Wednesday, 3:30 PM:

Fantastic discussion! I want to point you to a comment by bking earlier in the day. This is the kind of hard-core info you get here on BIG DEER--from guys who walk the walk and know their stuff, it's cool man:

"Went to meat cutting school and have processed my own deer for 35 years. Have had absolutely no success in saving meat on animals left overnite in field. Most recently my elderly father shot at 2 does in evening. We found no blood that nite and returned at 6:00 the next morning. Temperature was 30 degrees. Found both deer and gutted both. Tried to salvage meat but were unsuccessful. I sometimes wonder what is important to the hunters on TV shows, the horns or the meat."--bking

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I never like to leave a deer overnight because no matter weather, there is always a chance the meat will spoil; or coyotes might find the animal before you do.
But if you hit a buck poorly at dark, especially in the paunch or liver with a broadhead, you need to wait for him to shut down and die before trailing, lest you jump
deer and drive him off your property to be lost. How long to wait? If the temperature will stay in the low 30s you SHOULD be able to leave it; the meat should be okay, but
no guaranteesthe deer might have died 2 or 10 hours ago, you don't know if gangrene has set it, etc. But if the temperature will be in the 40s or 50s or higher
some or all meat wil certainly spoil if you wait 12 hours. In this case, wait at least 6 to 8 hours if you hit him in the paunch. If you think liver, want at least 2 hours.

Tough call--its a judgment call, but if its 40 degrees or more at night I say track it with lamps. Frankly, some ofdeer I've left have been fine, others not so good,
you never know, but now I track w/lights if it's warm

# Posted By hanback | 9/8/10 10:50 AM

I did this ONCE.

Med. size doe during early archery here in SW VA. Overnight temps in low 40's.
Shot right at dusk, and the hit was a liver hit. Trailed by flashlight until my batteries were almost dead.
Backed out, went back the following morning. Found her almost immediately.
Took out the knife and started "The Chore". Discovered that I had not done the deer any favors by letting it marinade overnight.

I did my duty and tagged and checked her in, but no way in the world would anyone eat that deer.
It was AWFUL. Horrific. Foul. And many other adjectives.

Now I bring enough flashlights and extra batteries. Or back out, get a coleman lantern and track ASAP.
The only thing worse, in my mind, than tracking and loosing one, is letting it sit and finding it AFTER it's become unedible.

# Posted By TDHoward | 9/8/10 10:55 AM

Early season on a good hit - back out, grab a soda from the truck (your going to need some pulling power) Call a friend to come help and go after him. Early season they don't last long. Later in the season I would say back out for the evening for a couple of reasons, 1. visiblity - you can see a lot easier in day light hours, 2. There is a very good chance the deer is dead and your not going to bump him. 3. day time "in the field" pictures are way better then night. 4. If its Sunday evening you just go out of work for Monday!!!! its always a judgement call but remember waiting over night to find a deer is way better then taking after him and pushing him into the next county. If you bump a big buck chances are your not going to find him or if you do he is going to be in the nastiest stuff you will ever see. Good Luck Everyone - 10 days left and the big boys are dropping there velvet!!!

# Posted By Jon - WI | 9/8/10 11:11 AM

One should never, ever leave a deer in the state of Texas. Even on the coldest nights it's still too warm.

# Posted By Rodger | 9/8/10 11:28 AM

The worst feeling in the world, is to not recover a deer you have wounded. You OWE it to the animal to make the right decisions. If you don't know were the arrow/bullet hit and you only have drops of blood. You have to back out. I know the guts get blotted with gas, but that dosen't mean the meat is spoiled. MOST of the meat dosen't even touch the guts. Maybe a little bit inside the rear quarters, but if you don't go hacking around like a crazy man with a machette, they are fine.

# Posted By Silverback | 9/8/10 11:29 AM

I don't like to leave them overnight. Make sure you are prepared with a quality tracking light such as a lantern, or my favorite, the RECHARGEABLE Mag-Lites, and you will find the deer most of the time, within short order. I don't like the LED's for tracking because the blue/white color doesn't pick up blood.

What irritates me, is when TV (or local) hunters make a good shot, track for 50 yards, then "back out and come back in the morning". What they are saying is "I don't care anything about the meat, I just want the rack". Most of the time, they come back in the morning with 3 guys, and they find the deer in the next 50 yards. There's no reason to do that. If you make a good shot, the deer has been dead for 10 minutes by the time you step foot on the ground. Go get the deer. This TV trophy culture has caused an increasing trend of leaving the deer overnight on a double-lung shot. I bet they don't do that when they shoot a doe. You would think they had never tracked a deer in their life.

# Posted By David in NC | 9/8/10 12:25 PM

Went to meat cutting school and have processed my own deer for 35 years. Have had absolutely no success in saving meat on animals left overnite in field. Most recently my elderly father shot at 2 does in evening. We found no blood that nite and returned at 6:00 the next morning. Temperature was 30 degrees. Found both deer and gutted both. Tried to salvage meat but were unsuccessful. I sometimes wonder what is important to the hunters on TV shows, the horns or the meat.

# Posted By bking | 9/8/10 12:26 PM

Come to think of it, after reading Jon's comment, I wonder if they do that on TV, so they get better recovery footage the next morning.

# Posted By David in NC | 9/8/10 12:28 PM

overnight to me and overnight on TV is tow diff. things......... if i wait it's usually 8 hours at the longest... which may mean tracking at Midnight, or 5 am......... but don't like to leave them too long.....if it's under 40 degrees i would wait longer..... if i thought i had too, if it's hot i prefer not to wait over 5......... it takes a while for the body heat to leave an animal anyway so you need not get on them immediately if you don't know where you hit them......

the bad thing about leaving them is someone else find them.......buddy of mine lost a one Lung Giant that way......saw it walk slowly off and lay down...... slipped out that night, came backe at first light and found body with no head or back straps.........someone else must have saw it go down and helped themselves............. sad

# Posted By Flatlander | 9/8/10 12:46 PM

I do not believe 1/2 the crap shown on TV hunting shows, watch close and you'll see an awful lot of gut shots with bows and the hunter gasps,"and he's down" within 3 seconds of the hit. Makes you wonder just how many poorly hit deer never make it thru the edit room.
In northern Pa where I often hunt whitetails during Oct. and Nov the evenings as a rule are cool enough to keep the deer from spoiling over night and I've often left deer lie til morning when they didn't drop at the shot..... I've hunted in Africa where game animals aren't gutted in the field as the norm but left with entrails intact for a few hours in 90+ degree heat...all that meat get's eaten

# Posted By Big Daddy | 9/8/10 12:46 PM

Everyone is making valid points. I have backed out and recovered deer the following morning, but never again! Yotes nawed on the hind quarters! Now I just make the call to the wife and let her know I will be there when I get there. I will wait it out with the time periods depending on shot placement like alot of others on here. I keep plenty of batteries on-hand just in case. I quess from experience in bumping them further and having to drag them from one county to another taught me a few lessons.

Does anyone one here age the meet after the deer is skinned? I have seen guys let it hang for a week or longer (Upstate N.Y.) when I hunted that area. Just curious.

# Posted By Buddy in South Central Viginia | 9/8/10 12:53 PM

Had to do this with the buck I took two years ago. I made a good shot. Double lung upon autopsy. But when I went to recover where I knew he was laying about an hour and a half later, he popped up and walked away, in quite poor shape. It got down to around the 40 degree mark, and I let him go overnight. I found him quite a distance from where I left him the next morning around 9. We're approaching 15 hours since the shot. I wanted to wait until I was home to gut him, because with the shot I made, and the distance he went, I wanted pictures. Got him gutted around noon, with the temp hovering around the low to mid sixties.

Ate every bit of that buck and he was delicious. Not a bit of spoilage. I'd rather not leave a deer overnight. But doing so isn't an instant write-off at the dinner table in northern Indiana.

# Posted By Trent M. | 9/8/10 1:18 PM

I guess I should also mention, though it may be another WWYDW, that I brine my meat, not age, or insta-packing.

Best way to go IMO.

# Posted By Trent M. | 9/8/10 1:20 PM

I do my best to follow up when I get down... It might have looked like a double lung or poor shot but you know better when you check out the arrow and blood trail. If things look good, pack things up and head back to the truck, change out of your good clothes you worked so hard to keep scent free, call a friend if its an option and head back in.

If things dont look good, pack everything up, change your clothes and head home if not to far. Put away your gear, have some dinner, grap a friend and head back out with quality flashlights. If your tracking goes on and you find a bed where you jumped the deer, back out and come back in the morning. If you had headed home and waited and still jumped the deer, the deer is not dead yet and doesnt mean the deer was laying there all night to waste... some meat may be lost but not all. Make sure if you coming back onto the property that you let the landowner know so they are not surprised by headlights coming down the lane in the middle of the night.

Dave

Do your best to make the right shot, no quartering to shots and watch out for those small limbs in the fading light. Tuck it in behind the shoulder and follow through.

# Posted By outdrdave | 9/8/10 1:30 PM

That's right outrdave... Aim small miss small!!

# Posted By Bill | 9/8/10 1:34 PM

I always try to find them within a few hours uless i jumped it and the deer is heading off the property then i might let
it sit over night if its going to be cold enough. All depends on the situation. I had one go bad doing that before to but i dont want to
take the chance of running the deer off and never finding it at all. sometimes you just have to take the chance that it will be ok

# Posted By Scott from MI | 9/8/10 1:45 PM

bking, fantastic comment thanks that is the kind of hard-core stuff from experienced guys you get on BIG DEER!!

# Posted By hanback | 9/8/10 5:34 PM

Last year, for the first time in 15 years of hunting I tried letting him go overnight. I knew it was a liver shot and I knew where he was bedded. Not wanting to risk jumping him and losing him for good, I backed out and let him go for the night. I found him 15 minutes after daylight the next morning, right where he originally bedded. Unfortunately he was mutiliated by coyotes. Our coyote situation hasn't approved any, so i guess I'm going to be forced to go after him this year. Or maybe I'll aim for the lungs this time.

# Posted By PAUL | 9/8/10 6:29 PM

paul, feel your pain. this is happening more and more, coyotes eating the deer. i think in this situation it is best to
wait, but go back in the dark late that night, perhaps keeping the coyotes away in addition to not leaving meat on
ground for so long.

# Posted By hanback | 9/8/10 6:38 PM

....then after deer season ends get in there and do some calling and smoke those yotes!

# Posted By Scott from MI | 9/8/10 6:54 PM

bking----

What specifically was wrong with the meat? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't understand, given the experience I had. I am less worried about leaving a deer go overnight than I was before. I am just curious what it was about the meat that wasn't salvagable. I can understand if they were gut shot and you had stomach contents, that would make the meat rancid in a hurry, but well hit deer, in those conditions? I'm just curious...

# Posted By Trent M. | 9/8/10 7:24 PM

I think the takeaway from this is like most things, middle ground. Shoot it, maybe leave it if u have to, but return later in the dark
but hours before dawn to minimize hrs on ground and run off coyotes. it requires tracking by light, something the old timers all
did but for some reason many hunters don't do know. maybe they watch TV and see the big names backing out, so they back out?

# Posted By hanback | 9/8/10 7:30 PM

Never wait over night, to many chances.
Let em' lay and expire for an hour or two, then go slowly after them.
Only take "kill" shots!!!!

# Posted By Buckwheat | 9/8/10 9:36 PM

I hunt more evenings than mornings over the course of an entire season, and more often than not, the deer are coming in within the last hour of daylight. I track most of my deer at night.

# Posted By David in NC | 9/8/10 10:39 PM

I once had to leave a buck overnight that I gut-shot. I didn't like leaving him overnight, but we had gone back later in the night after I shot him and we jumped him up from his bed. I wasn't able to go look in the morning because of school, but after school I got the chance to go look for him. After only walking a hundred yards we found him dead. The temperatures had been in the upper 40/ low 50s all day and the meat was still fine. It did help that he died on a very shaded North sidehill. So in answer to the question, I will leave a deer overnight if need be.

# Posted By Kyle | 9/9/10 1:21 AM

I don't every remember finding a deer the next day if we didn't find after the hunt. We usually went back to camp to let it lay (if we didn't drop it) and get a tracking party together. Of course it has been a long time.

FYI, the BEST thing to use to track a deer at night are Coleman Lanterns. Not the battery operated. You can see blood really good.

# Posted By Mark (NC) | 9/9/10 1:33 AM

Mark (NC) absolutely right about the old coleman lantern, better than any flash light.........also put foil around the back and it projects the light further forward.......... just be careful to not set the lantern in dry grass during a dry year (fire hazard)

# Posted By Flatlander | 9/9/10 9:59 AM

We took out a doe late evening. When we tried to go in and pick up the deer, we got stuck with the truck. We loaded her in the back of the truck and left her through the night. We took care of business that night but in our haste, we did not properly cool the deer laying in the back of the truck. We put her in the truck so the coyotes would not take our prize. It was in the twenties all night but she still spoiled. So lesson learned, unfortunately.

# Posted By Wayne | 9/9/10 10:00 AM

Trent M... The most obvious sign of spoilage is the smell. We actually gutted those two deer and dragged them away from the gut piles to make sure what exactly was making the smell. It's a slightly sweet smell that you will find on any meat that has been left too long. I think one point that has been missed is that the time of death has a lot to do with success. If a deer died soon after it was shot and was left overnite, I don't think it will be in very good shape regardless of temps. A deer is 98 degrees and doesn't cool very well laying on the ground. On the other hand if that deer doesn't actully expire until 3 or 4:00 in the morning and you find it at 7:00, it should be fine. Just my two cents.

# Posted By bking | 9/9/10 12:20 PM

Bking-fair enough, like I said, just looking for clarification.

I think you are probably right on when the deer dies. Given the distance my deer went, I believe he made it quite a while before expiring, which I'm sure saved the meat.

Good discussion guys.

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