Friday morning I shot a decent 3X3 muley buck with the 357 Maxie, the shot ended up hitting him too far back & from a distance I watched him lay down & then move 3 times. The last time I figured he was dead. Not knowing exactly where he was hit I stayed put. My load was a 205 gr LBT over a heavy dose of 2400, the load has proven itself several times before.
I waited about 1 1/2 hrs & then went around the moutain to my 4 wheeler & circled over to where I had him marked....he was gone! I looked for quite a while & then when back to camp & got 2 of my son's & we searched again, & again we couldn't find him, I was upset, I had never lost a deer.
The next morning I was back looking again but still couldn't find anything that gave me any hope. The next day (sunday) was the final day of the season & it rained hard all day with a little snow mixed in for good measure so I didn't go out.
My wife & I had been camped for 16 straight days & it was time to leave. Today I decided to have one more look, knowing that sometimes the magpies will find your game before you do. Thats exactly what happened, I saw magpies fly out of the quakies & when I got up there my buck had been worked over pretty good by magpies & coyotes.

A pretty decent 3X3 muley buck.




The scoped 357 Maxie is an excellent caliber for western muleys & antelope.



On the day I shot the buck I was riding out of the mountains & a ruff grouse was scratching for lunch in the trail. At 21 paces the 357 Maxie gently took the top of his head off....gently!



Dick

Unfortunately sometimes deer are lost with an "iffy" shot.I've seen deer lost with bad shots from a 12 gauge slug,but when put in the boiler,buckets of blood everywhere and they usually don't go past 50 yards.With a liver shot you have to give deer quite a few hours to expire.If the lungs haven't been hit,this gives him some air that he can get up and move from bed to bed.

I lost my first deer bow hunting two years ago. Never did recover it. I was sickened for days. Congrats on your kill and for not giving up.

Attaboy, Dick. That Boise State Camo is still working well for you!
Ken

Nice work as usual, Dick! Congratulations!

Dick,

congratulations on your buck! Glad you were able to recover him...

How far away was the recovery spot from the last area where you saw him bed down?

Congrats on finding your buck, Dick. Here it's usually coyotes and crows that find them. Happened to me twice.

Nice buck. How fast is the 205 grainer in the Max?

SChunter, when we looked for the buck the first 3 times we gave everything a very thorough search on each side & above where I last spotted him. The cover was very thick & covered with some pine, quakies, chokecherry, huckleberry, sarvaceberry, snowberry & dingleberry (made that last one up) it was a real jungle, a squirrel would need a chainsaw to get through some of it, yet that buck had managed to go almost straight up the mountain another 150 yds above where I expected to find him.

jwp475, It's been a while since I ran it through the clock but it seems like they were running about 1500 fps, a very potent load on deer size game. This was the third buck taken with that load in the last few years.

Dick

That's funny...as I was reading each ...berry, I was thinking "holy-crap-berry" and then got to dingleberry and laughed out loud.

Congrats on your muley Dick.

Congrats on the kill and not giving up.

Sorry to hear about the frustration. Sooner or later it happens to most, if not all, if you spend enough time in the field.
Glad you were able to find him.