Bucky the Invincible

Tennessee Deer Sporting & Deer Hunting Community Forum

Help Support TNDeer | Tennessee Deer:

U

Urban_Hunter

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2012
Messages
8,544
City & State/Province
Hendersonville
Hunting with my cousin again this weekend when a pretty big 5pt (thought was 6) came in. There's a long story here, but to get to the point he waited to give me an opportunity for a shot on another deer before shooting the buck himself in the thicket. Shot the deer quartering away and he fell and flopped around. The other deer stayed around us for about an hour before we managed to come down. 5pt was floppin and kickin for 45min+. The whole time my cousin keeps saying he doesn't know why he isn't dead he thought it was a good shot. We get to the deer... still alive and tries to run off. We made the cut and he expired quickly. Entrance looked great, but no exit. We gut him... BIG hole through one lung and 50 cal hole right through the middle of the heart!!!! I don't mean like it cut it high or low... RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE!!! How did this deer live for over an hour after a shot like this? When we cut the throat he poured like he was going to die any second anyways but if he had not taken out the opposite shoulder... that deer could have ran for... AN HOUR!!! Would have never believed it if I hadn't seen it myself! Thoughts?
 
Have no idea but I do know they have a will to live like none other! Crazy story but glad he fell where he was and didn't run.
 
Dang that's nuts. My first archery kill was a big doe and I hit her low on the heart and she bled real good but was still alive 2 hours later. Every time I have drilled a deer straight through the heart, with a bullet or arrow, it died very quickly. That's crazy and yeah they sure do have a will to live.
 
I couldn't sit there and watch one flop for 45 minutes. I would have shot it again as soon as I could reload.
 
I'll agree with Stik and Poser.

Another lesson I have learned in a situation like this is BE QUIET. Three times I have had deer drop at the shot, I get to rustling around trying to get ready to go get my deer, and the deer gets up. Regardless of what happens when you shoot remain still and quiet until you can get some idea of where the deer is and if its dead.
 
The deer I shot in Kansas, I shot 20 minutes after daylight. He was quartered away pretty hard. I aimed outside shoulder, and hit him exactly where I meant to. We waited an hour and a half to start tracking...8:30 Jumped him at 9:45. He had gone 600-700 yds, bleeding good the whole way. Waited til 2:30, picked him up where he crossed a road 400 yds from where we jumped him. Tracked him across the section, thats a mile, line of sight and I spotted him 200 yds out right before dark, bleeding the entire way. He was standing, and we watched him bed, get up, bed again 20' away. He was right there the next morning.

My estimate is this... He went 600 yards, conservatively, then ran 400 across a winter wheat field, so 1000 yds. Then we picked him up and measured on GPS... 1.34 miles. That totals to just shy of 2 miles. This is EXACTLY why it is so important not to push deer when they are wounded. If you jump them, they will run out of hearing! I also learned that when we lose a deer around here, to expand my search parameters much farther than I initially anticipated.

Oh, yeah... the shot... It went in high behind his last rib, and exited out his armpit, went thru his front leg. It was a 19 yd shot. I believe, that guts, along with a high wound, clogged the back hole. The shoulder itself, held the blood on the cavity wound, and I believe if I hadnt jumped him he would have died right there.

The only blood we were tracking by was the front leg wound. Every time he took a step, we would find blood in a hoof track. it got hard when he went across a plowed field, because the dirt would build on the hoof. He would shed the clot, then we would find blood again.

The broadhead was a slick trick 100gr. I cannot complain with the performance of it at all. it hit where I aimed, I got liver and a single lung. I will know in the future to aim for the front of the outside shoulder on a hard quartering away shot.
 
stik said:
I couldn't sit there and watch one flop for 45 minutes. I would have shot it again as soon as I could reload.
Click to expand...


Should have clarified a little better. The deer was in a very thick thicket. It's part of the long story I tryed to keep short. I was trying to get one with my bow so my cousin let this one walk past us to give me a shot at one down the hill. When I realized mine wasn't coming I told him to go ahead and shoot, but it was too late. There was a small hole where a tree had fallen and the 5pt walked through the little 10" window we could see through and he took the shot. When he shot the deer fell out of the window and we could just barely see him. Upon firing the shot, the deer I was hoping to bag came back up and walked all over the shelf we were on for 45 or so minutes. I drew on him 3 times but couldn't get him to stop. We were between him and bucky so my cousin couldn't reload without being busted. When he finally left out we came down. There was no way to make a second shot without decending and we were trying to A- not educate them any more than we had to and B- were trying to get a shot on another deer anyways. It definately wasn't an ideal situation, and if we had known he was going to stay alive for so long then we would have changed plans. We had no idea he would live that long. We thought he would expire any second... but he didn't. Sorry if it's offensive, in no way was it intentional to let him lay like that. My cousin was VERY confident in his shot and convinced it would be a short ordeal, and he is very experienced and I trust his judgement as much as my own.
 
Bone Collector said:
what type of bullet and what powder load?
Click to expand...

I don't remember what brand he is shooting now but it is a 250 grain copper jacket hollow point with the black sabot. Sits on top of 100 grains of pyrodex.
 
I had that happen to me last year, but fortunately I was able to get to the deer quickly enough and shoot again.

Experiences like this always teach us more than we expect. You can't put a value on perspective.
 
I shot a small buck yesterday right through the proverbial boiler room with a 300gr Hornady 4500 HP at around 40yd. He kicked and then ran like he wasn't hit. I gave him 30min or so to make sure, then I got down to a "Ray Charles" blood trail (one so obvious, even Ray Charles could follow it). It was obvious lung blood, and I found blood spatter literally 12ft past where I had hit the deer broadside. The blood trail was literally 6ft wide in some spots, pumping out both sides, and was over 100yd long. I have no idea how it ran at all, much less over 100yd. They can do some amazing things with their will to live.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top