IIRC in P.O.Ackley's two volume book he got a deer that ,the autopsy showed, had been hit twice in the lungs in the past and had healed up....I talked to a new handgun hunter who had shot ,from the front, a deer. It went down but then jumped up.From the description I thought he had shot low and I was right since a week later someone pulled a deer out that had been hit low in the chest.This shot ,and I've heard of it with rifles too,goes below the heart and does little damage.

I shot a buck today about noon, and he dropped like a stone. The shot was across a canyon about 200 yards quartering away. A couple of minutes later, he got up, ran about 3 steps and rolled end over end down a hill. When I got to where he'd gone down, he was gone. I followed a sparse blood trail for about 3 hours. I must have hit just under the spine. This is the first deer I've ever shot with a rifle that I've lost since starting hunting in the 60's.

Sounds to me like someone else got to him before you.

Pepper: I'm sure the one I shot was down from spine shock. Maybe I'll find him before the season is over.

Hey JD, My experience over the years has shown the bullet probably went just over the spine. I've had it happen to me twice and I recovered the first one because I got to it quickly. In fact, it had been pushed to me by a buddy late in the day and I watched it for about 3 minutes because he got quiet and I didn't know where he was. Finally he made a whoop and I knew where he was and I shot. Left him with the Deer and I went to get the truck closer. By the time I got back, I had to have the lights on and my buddy was trying to keep the Deer from making it into an adjacent drainage canal by whamming on it with a flashlight. I'd taken the rifles with me since it was near the end of legal hunting time.

I know of at least 8 others where the folks walked up to the Deer on the ground and could clearly see the hole "high" or slightly above the spine. Two of those folks got the Deer with a second shot because they were ready for the Deer to come to it's senses.

One guy shot through the backstraps like the other poster mentioned and it cut that Buck a flip that spun him end for end. He got up and ran the way he was headed which was back the way he came from. Amazingly, the rut was on and this same exact Buck was "Grunted In" by another hunter and killed.

And we had a guy shoot a large Doe with a rather long shot. When we got to it, we noticed it had been shot above the spine apparently a year (or more) before and it had healed over nicely.

I don't remember ever having one shot close below the spine that we didn't recover, but perhaps some got away that we never found and didn't know where that hunter's bullet had actually hit.

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Have you seen one shot close below the spine and had it run off to be recovered later? Not challenging you at all, just curious.

Hot Core: I've killed one deer with a broadhead sticking in the spine, healed over. I've shot a couple of deer over the spine that I finished with a second shot. My first African animal was a Blue Wildebeest that I shot below the spine; the killing shot ended up being a THS as he was running away.

I also killed an elk that a buddy shot below the spine. He put a 180 Gr. from a 300 H&H throught the elk and was running down to his prize when it got up and ran off. I managed to put a shot into the base of its neck just before it went out of sight.

Thanks JD. Good info.

I would guess that shots below the spine would mostly be fatal. If you understand anatomy, the thoracic or abdominal aorta run in that location. Dividing this structure is fatal.

Well after several more days hunting the same area, I've found one dead deer and one wounded deer. Neither are the one that I shot. One was a completely field dressed out doe. The other was a nice Muley buck that someone shot in the right front knee.

jd - where are you hunting? seems pretty congested with out-of-staters to me~~

we get that here quite a bit where i am from. not always, but most of the time, the culprits are from Kalifornia or Kalispell~~

Gentlemen: Believe it or not, I got my buck today. He had a bullet wound above his spine which was healing nicely. I guess he's not bullet proof after all. Hot Core guessed correctly.

Tasundkawitco: I think most of these guys are from within 100 miles, hunting in SW North Dakota.

my dad was born and raised in killdeer, and i have a cousin who has hunted all of his life near keene. nice-looking trophies have come from there!

yikes! i forgot to say, congrats on the buck! it is always good to tie up those kinds of loose ends!

Hey JD, Good for you! Sure glad to hear you were able to get it. Anytime a Deer (or any Game) can't be found, it is just mentally stressful. I don't even like to loose a Dove.

But, tell us all about the "two hunts" in a "comparison" mode. Same Bat-Time? Same Bat-Channel? You know, same piece of woods? Same Stand? Deer coming from the same direction? How are you going to count that - 2-shots? 1-knick and a delayed kill shot?

The reason I ask is because your initial post brought back a memory of a Doe that I had just barely shaved the hair off above her Withers. She had walked out of a set of woods on the North end and walked West in the first row of Beans about this time of the year.

She was right on top of me before I knew she was anywhere around, because I was watching an adjacent set of woods about 150yds to the North. Didn't take my time and just made a pitiful shot. Actually thought I'd missed her totally.

One week to the day and 10 minutes later in the morning than when I shot, one of my buddies in that same Stand, dropped her walking down the exact same row. Once we got to talking about it, it dawned on me that it might be the same Doe. We look in the back of his truck and sure enough, there is a "bare spot" of hide just above her withers about the width of a 7mm bullet. We looked real close and the hair was actually growing back in.

At that point a considerable debate occured about if it was a "miss" or a "knick". It really did not look like healing skin on her, but the bare spot and the angle the hair was cut sure convinced me that it was the same Doe.

I missed a couple of Does because a "FOOL" messed with my scope one time. And I barely knicked a decent Buck because I was tooooooo high in a tree and the wind had me swaying maybe a foot, but it seemed like 3 feet.

And that original Deer I mentioned in my first post. But, I've sure put in some miles trying to locate other ones that had been shot high. Some found - some lost and maybe healed up.

ANYWAY, congratulations on getting that Deer and clearing up the mystery.

Hot Core: As I sneaked up to the edge of this canyon, I looked over and saw this buck on the other side. I watched him for about 5 minutes before he presented a shot. I was shooting a little over 200 yds., severe downhill angle. He went down right at noon.

Yesterday, I was hunting about a mile and a half South of there. I hadn't seen a Whitetail all morning, only one Muley buck and a coyote. I decided to walk back to the truck, but there's 2 good hiding places on the way. I got to the first good hiding place, and sat down with the wind at my back. After about 5 minutes I hear crashing in the Buck brush, and out comes my deer. As soon as he turned a bit sideways, I put the bullet right behind his last rib. It exited the chest. When I got through dressing him out, it was 11:52.

Hey JD, Amazing to refind him in a different location and then get him to boot. Good for you.

Best of luck with the rest of the Season.