I thought I would share this, as its a first for myself. My father and I hunt primarily PA. On the second night of the season 10-1-18 I was working night shift and my dad hunted a spot close to a bedding area. He called me at work to say he had hit a pretty good buck. He thought it was a good shot so he went to the truck to change and get his light and knife. Knowing my dad was out alone I called a buddy to meet him to help with the drag out. Once my buddy got there, they immediately got on good blood. They tracked it to a logging road. At the logging road the blood started to thin out a little bit. They were able to stay on the blood for about 300 yards, just walking right down the road. Eventually the blood ran out and they weren't sure if the buck headed into a goldenrod field or to where the actual logging was going on. They decided to back out. The next morning we all met up and started tracking again. We searched for a while unable to find any more blood. We then started grid searching with no success. We even asked the loggers to keep an eye out. Later that day my dads friend brought a dog down (figured it was worth a try now that its legal in PA), the dog couldn't even get us on the deer. We were all pretty baffled as to what could have happened. Based on my dads account, he said it was a 20 yard shot. There was hardly any downward angle to the shot because we have the stand on a gradual slope. The buck was very slightly quartering away. When he saw the buck run away he thought he could see part of the arrow sticking out but I think we all assumed it hit the far side shoulder. Anyway we gave up on finding the deer. Personally I figured the buck was probably dead somewhere. This Monday I went back to that location to do some scouting and check our cameras. We only have 2 cameras there and we had not seen the buck since. As I was scouting I found some fresh scrapes and figured I may as well hang a camera on them to see what bucks are moving through. I checked that camera today and the attached pictures are what I found.. We are 99% sure this is the buck he shot. There are not any other hunters on this property. Regardless if it is his buck or not, you can see the wound. It is amazing how tough these animals are.
Same thing happened to me a few years ago on a doe. Shot was just under the spine from ground level. Got pics of the deer later on. Tough tough animals.
Now you know where that “no man’s land” is located on a deer. Inspite of no vitals it still looked like a big wound channel. Surprised it didn’t bleed out. Tough and glad he made it to spread some “seed”. He’d forever get a hall pass from me as long as that wound scar was there. He won and deserves to live. Imho Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Tough is so true. I shot too late one evening many moons ago and hit the deer in the neck and it flipped end over end and began flopping around. I climbed down did up my stand and waited for it to expire. After a few minutes the deer jumped up and ran off. Many hours of searching and nothing. Two weeks later in rifle season a hunter shot him and my bhead plus inch of so of arrow was in his neck by my friend who processed the deer. Remember the old Savora swept wing heads?
Awesome story. Glad to see buck lives to see another day. I've seen some pics of a deer that was missing his back hooves and was on bone from it looked like and it was doing just fine.
That's about as low as you can hit without spining or taking out lung. Straight through the backstraps. Regardless of what anyone says, there is no void below the spine. You hit the spine or lower the deer is dead as long as it isn't a steep quartering away single lung or something.
