Shot Placement *Video*

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Twice I've hit a deer high right under the spine. In both cases they were really good bucks and went down just as if hit in the spine. Very little blood and it looked like more of a watery fluid than blood. The shot didn't kill the deer but was close enough to the spine that I think it "shocked" them off their feet and temporarily paralyzed the back half of their body (even though they were shot in the front half). In both cases they were on the ground but were able to move the front half of their body. I wasn't able to put a finishing shot on them from the stand so I had to climb down and approach them. This is where a deer's FLIGHT reaction really amazes me. The loud shot. The hit. The drop. Immediately paralyzed, down, and can't get up. The sound of a hunter climbing down or approaching them and the surge of adrenaline is so strong that it overpowers that shock to their nervous system enabling them to regain their feet and make good their escape leaving no blood trail to follow. I truly believe that once they get to their feet and stimulate movement they resume activity and continue to live. Point being...I don't know that I agree with the video. I believe there is sweet spot just under the spine and over the vitals resulting in the above scenario.
 
Mike Belt":r8h7accp said:
Twice I've hit a deer high right under the spine. In both cases they were really good bucks and went down just as if hit in the spine. Very little blood and it looked like more of a watery fluid than blood. The shot didn't kill the deer but was close enough to the spine that I think it "shocked" them off their feet and temporarily paralyzed the back half of their body (even though they were shot in the front half). In both cases they were on the ground but were able to move the front half of their body. I wasn't able to put a finishing shot on them from the stand so I had to climb down and approach them. This is where a deer's FLIGHT reaction really amazes me. The loud shot. The hit. The drop. Immediately paralyzed, down, and can't get up. The sound of a hunter climbing down or approaching them and the surge of adrenaline is so strong that it overpowers that shock to their nervous system enabling them to regain their feet and make good their escape leaving no blood trail to follow. I truly believe that once they get to their feet and stimulate movement they resume activity and continue to live. Point being...I don't know that I agree with the video. I believe there is sweet spot just under the spine and over the vitals resulting in the above scenario.
Click to expand...
he demonstrated how the lungs fill the cavity, you may have hit your deer high in the spine or high in the lungs but didn't cause enough damage to kill the deer. Remember Gil's double lung doe that survived and showed up on trail cam again. Sometimes they are just really tough animals I guess. Also, another member here spine shot a doe this past season, that got both lungs and the bottom of the spine. I saw the pic of the inside of the rib cage.

Since your deer got up and ran off, how do you know your arrow slipped between the spine and lungs?

I think the video was very informative and confirmed a lot of what I had already gathered... Although I never thought or noticed that the lungs actually come higher than the backbone. That makes sense though since the backbone comes down a little inside the ribcage.


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Mike Belt":26ivedkv said:
Twice I've hit a deer high right under the spine. In both cases they were really good bucks and went down just as if hit in the spine. Very little blood and it looked like more of a watery fluid than blood.
Click to expand...


I would wager that you didn't hit right under the spine but right above it instead. Right under the spine is a dead deer within a few seconds from severing the thoracic aorta or vena cava.

There is a 'hollow spot' on a deer. But it's not inside the thoracic cavity, it's actually ABOVE the spine. The actual spine is a LOT lower than the top line of a deer than 99% of the population think. You hit that, and the deer will often drop from damage to the spinous processes of the thoracic vertabrae, but all you end up with is muscle damage, very little blood, and often a deer which recovers.

You want to smoke a deer in an instant with a rifle? Aim 'high shoulder'- straight up the front leg, 1/3 of the way down from the top line. It ends up being where the scapula just covers the junction where the cervical spine meets the thoracic spine. Last 30 or so deer I've shot have been right there. Not a single step afterwards, just DRT- from 50 yards to 660 yards. Just instant and total incapacitation.
 
catman529":ueq1ei5h said:
... Although I never thought or noticed that the lungs actually come higher than the backbone. That makes sense though since the backbone comes down a little inside the ribcage.


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Click to expand...

They don't come above the spine. put the intercostal muscles back in (rib meat) and the lungs can't overinflate like he did in the video. Upon full respiration, the lungs can come up even with the vertebral bodies inside the thoracic cavity, but NOT above the spine.
 
You're probably right in that the shot was just above the spine. That watery fluid would have been blood otherwise. I do believe the deer live after a shot like that. The first buck I knocked down like that went down a narrow, wet bottom. I trailed him by his tracks. At the end of the timber was a field planted in cotton. The farmer was picking this cotton field when I cleared the timber. I stopped him and asked if he'd seen a deer come out of there and he told me had seen a buck come out running a doe across the field. The buck he described seeing sounded exactly like the buck I had knocked down.

You're right about the high shoulder shot. I've taken it many times to anchor a deer on the spot. I've done the same thing on a spine shot and I've intentionally taken those shots when that was all that was presented. Amazing tenacity for life animals! I just wonder if my deer would have regained their footing if they hadn't have had that "push" when I was approaching. I'll never know.
 
I guess the reason a lot of deer aren't recovered from shots as discussed are maybe that the shots are too far back or assumptions made due to lack of or poor blood trails if they missed the aorta? Also, it would seem to me that arrow deflection off the spine could happen more often than hunters realize, thus leading guys to say, "the deer must've been hit through the dead zone because if it was a spine shot, it wouldn't have run off." ??


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