Deer not bleeding when shot with .44 at medium range

[Treach]

I was hunting yesterday or the day before, in the .44 mule deer competition. 2 or 3 times when I ended the hunt I received a message from Doc about "bagging the animal" (ie: I had shot but not confirmed kills).

On these particular animals (mule deer bucks) I shot at them with the .44 magnum at medium range. As I always do, I went to the spot where they were standing when I shot at them and looked for the initial blood trail. No blood was present. I was fairly certain I had actually hit them, so even though I didn't see blood at that location I tracked them for 500-600 yards or so, figuring I'd either see blood or find their corpses. In all cases, I never found blood, and they didn't die.

Obviously what's happening is that I hit them at a range and location on their body where the .44 is only wounding them, and they're living for a very long time. I realize this. The problem is that they never bleed. Not that I could find. In all of these I went back and forth over the ground many, many times in the location where I shot at them. At least 2 were in open fields, so the tracks were easy to see. Since I could not find blood anywhere, and they weren't dying, I figured I must have missed them.

[MonacoSteve]

Well, a very weak hit (lile a .44 bullet on very long distance) causes a wound which in fact gives only one initial blood spot (unlike normally, where you get at last 3 subsequent ones after a hit). If you miss that single initial spot for whatever reason (sometimes, tracks can disappear in certain ground structures), you get the impression of no bleeding at all. In fact, even this animal occasionally bleeds, but chance that you find the track are minimal.

[mud074]

Wait... so you are saying it is a bug that you tried to shoot a mulie at med range with a pistol and you found no blood?

you probably missed it.