so what do you think happened?

watch out

A deer that drops "dead still" at the shot is a heads up. I too have been in on more than one tracking episode of deer that fell instantly, then got up to run.

Not just head shots, (which I don't recommend) but also a bullet near the spine might cause such a reaction.
 
Deer have the strongest will to live than any creature I know of.
Click to expand...

Sometimes I think they just don't know they're dead. Wild animals do not lay down and lick their wounds while the adrenalin is still flowing. And they seem to have an endless supply.
 
This is very true, a friend of mine downed a little doe with his bow, he said the shot was broadside quartering to him a little, 25yds, arrow went completely through the deer and the deer went down. Now my friend should have stayed in his stand and nocked another arrow and waited , but HIS adrenalin would not allow for that as he watched her get up and take off with blood running out of both sides. So he called me up at about 8:00 pm, and said help me find this deer dude, so I packed two flashlights and took off for the woods. 1 hour into the track the blood had dribbled down to just a speck here and there, and we were playing the old "leapfrog" tracking scenario. I then made a disasterous discovery of where she laid for awhile and bled. The whole point is that IF given the appropriate time an animal WILL go lay down, and usually die. We never found the doe, and if it wouldn't have been for tornado sirens we'd a stayed til daylight. I think it's reasonable to think that your buddy may have KO'ed that deer and when it got it's stuff together it split!!;)
 
It was posted 11/23 that was the first day of southern zone gun season, so I'm quessing a rifle or a shotgun
 
I figured firearm as opposed to bow based on the verbage, but rifle type, bbl length, type of round, distance and trajectory to target. WHat was the temperature, what type of stand was he using, was the deer left or right handed?.....ALL of these things must be taken into account if we are to give a respectable hypothesis...

(snicker)
 
Should of waited ...

My dad has a scar on his leg from a knife a deer kicked into his leg.
He dropped the deer with one shot, got down out of the tree stand, pulled out his knife to field dress it and when he rolled it over it came too and kicked the knife his leg.

Dad went ahead and finished it off with the knife but now will sit in the stand a little longer before he gets down.

I have got a shot at another before when you drop one the others come over to see what happened.


Doug
 
I was erroneously taught to get right from the stand to the deer after it dropped. Though my grandfather always brought a 3" revolver with us and finished them with that. He instilled how much responsibility you had to the animal after you shot it. "Once you wound it, you don't stop until you kill it." It's cruel to let a wounded animal go off to suffer to death. So he trained me to shoot for the vitals every time, and we always hurried up to the deer after a drop-shot. We never had to chase one more than a few seconds, but then he was a much better shot than I.

I now see the wisdom in keeping an aim on a downed animal in case it rises; but I still can't reconcile not finishing it as soon as I can. I tactically train as well, so keeping a weapon on the animal as I approach isn't that difficult unless we're in some steep terrain. It's just how I was taught.

For what it's worth, I think he knocked this deer out, or hit it high and close enough to the nerve cord to overload it's system and cause a black-out. It came to and bolted.

~LT
 
I have overestimated range and held a little high,when in fact the critter was at near the high point of my mid range trajectory.Like the dorsal fin in a fish,at the whithers are some rib like bones sticking up.3/4 inch higher,I would have missed.I just nicked the tip of one of those bones and knock the critter cold.(I think it was an antelope,but could have been a deer,I forget)
It soon began wobbling up.I was still in place.I give a couple minutes.
The post mortem showed the near miss.
 
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