Trail cam pics showed this guy wearing a nice new scar on his right shoulder. I figured it was either an arrow that bounced off his shoulder or possibly a gore from fighting. While peeling his hide yesterday afternoon I saw that it was indeed a big two blade broadhead that made the wound, but it didn't bounce off. He had an exit wound under his opposite leg, meaning the arrow passed through, inevitably double lunging him. The first and second pics show the wounds and he is very much alive and well in those pics. Somebody made a perfect shot but that deer didn't die. While gutting him I did notice his lungs were deformed and odd.
After skinning him down and removing head, the taxidermist began caping out around the skull and antlers. Before cutting the skull plate I noticed he had an absses between his bases, so I started digging. Embedded in his skull was the broken antler tip of another buck.
If not already wondering how this deer was even alive, while carving meat from one of his front quarters my knife sank into a puss pocket. Inside was a the broadhead with broken arrow in the last pic. It had a tough, firm, almost sinew like encasement that my knife could barely cut.
I have no idea how this deer was alive. He'd survived two very serious, usually quite fatal arrow wounds, plus an antler puncture in his skull from fighting. My arrow was the third time he'd been shot, and that's what finally brought him down. I feel grateful, sad, fortunate, and amazed all at the same time. He left two hunters before me completely heart broken. What a monarch.
