Ever since I switched to my Mathews I started to shoot carbons with Shockwave mechanical broadheads. This mainly because I was not shooting a drop-away rest and with the 5” helical twisted 2213 XX78 fronted with fixed bladed Kolpin twisters would not tune all to well. My medicine became 4” straight veined with mechanicals. They shot straight and my bow was tuned for them. When I made the decision to go to mechanicals I decided only until I had a bad experience with them.
Now, I’ve probably taken 6 or more deer with this setup so far and all have been good clean quick kills. Some of you even saw how quickly when I was filmed shooting a buck on TV 2 yrs ago. Granted most of the shots were broadside shots. One thing I have noted is that my penetration is far less than shooting those ol Lincoln Logs with the fixed blade. I could always pound an arrow through even two shoulders and get penetration beyond belief…. Anyhow on to the story
I’ve been seeing a lot of activity in the woods, mostly new scrapes and rubs. Since Saturday, our opener I haven’t seen too many deer though.
Of course I only hunted Thursday night which was about 82 degrees at 4:00 PM and Friday it rained all day, but I went out around 4:30 and “snuck” around. I about stepped on a doe and she just about met her demise but never offered a good shot.
On Saturday I decided I was getting hungry for Jerky so I had made up my mind I would take a doe if the opportunity presented itself. It was a pretty cold windy morning and around 10:00 I see a nice old grizzled doe and a smaller one coming my way.
They are at 40 yards broadside, then turn and walk to about the 25 yard mark. I come to full draw on the big doe that is now broadside at 25 yards. The smaller doe steps in front of her no longer offering a good shot so I wait still at full draw. The large doe looks up at me and takes two steps kind of toward me and stomps her foot, now offering a slight quartering forward shot. I set my pin right on the shoulder for the angle and squeeze the trigger on my release. Now prior to this moment I had taken many, many animals offering the same if not a “worse” angled shot which never presented a problem shooting fixed blades. I just drove my arrow down through and that was all she wrote…. Not this time, though
As my arrow hit the doe it did something quite unexpected. Because of the angle and the working of the blades opening, the arrow slid right along the shoulder blade and straight upwards into the deer’s spine. Completely opposite of the angle I was shooting!! This created a 6” + gash across the hide. Of course the end result was a doe laying on the ground with quick expiration from a second shot behind the shoulder through the boiler room. As I inspected the shot, I found my first arrow hit NO vital organs even though it centered the shoulder blade on a downward angle. The broadhead snapped off at the threads which I did not recover. The second shot went through the deer practically cutting the opposite leg off. I can say they are VERY devastating on broadside shots, but this shot really upset me. Could I have waited for a better shot? Possibly, but she had me made since she was staring right at me and I made the call. I’m sure I would have had different results had I placed the arrow in front of the shoulder going with more of a Texas Heart Shot rather than drive one home through the shoulder. By the way, I'm shooting 74 pounds in case you were wondering.
The end result…a dead doe, poor performance on the broadhead as far as I was concerned. I never had a problem with the fixed blades taking an easy shot like that. Even though it’s 1 of 6 to “fail” in my book it’s enough. I’ll stick to my heads this season since it’s a little late to be switching around, put on a drop-away next year and go back to my ol Lincoln Logs with Fixed blades. After all, I never had that setup make me think twice about a shot and haven’t lost one yet..
Just a little story I thought you may all like to hear. It finally happened to me! One bad experience is enough for me
