My son and grand-daughter and I were invited to a camp-out and hunt on a friend's 1170 acre hill-country Texas ranch last week.
It is a beautiful almost semi-arid area with dominant hills and lots of wildlife including bobcats, racoon, fox, deer, and other critters. The ranch is only bounded by a common 3 strand barbed wire fence.
I was there to enjoy camping with family and friends and to spend some time hunting. There are no buildings there, so we set up cots in a 20 foot long steamship shipping container that is ordinarily used to store an ATV. It turned out to be very comfortable.
The hunting was a big success. We shot 3 whitetail deer.
One deer that was taken was the biggest I had ever seen. The antlers measured 16 inches across and had 10 points. That deer came home with us. I was later told that it is considered a "trophy" animal.
The deer took a hit centered on the lungs (right side) from about 130 yards. Bullet was a 165 Nosler Partition out of a pre-64 Winchester in 30-06, loaded to about 2600 fps.
The entry was clean, not hitting any bone on the entry side, then the bullet passed through both lungs and hit a far side rib bone. The bone broke and protruded through the hide on the far side. The remnants of the bullet were found against the rib bone. The recovered bullet weight was 104 grains, with virtually none of the front lead remaining. Some of the forward gilding metal did fold back and the remnants of what was the front of the bullet, you might call the leaves expanded to approximately 0.5 inches.
After being hit, the buck immediately bolted and showed no indication of being hit.
An inspection of the impact area revealed a dominant amount of blood with what appeared to be part of an internal organ that was about the size of a golf ball.
Tracking was started (around dusk) and was easy for the first 20 yards, then the spoor became very difficult to follow. Our equipment was set down at the last blood drops and we fanned out to find the next place with blood. The deer had changed direction and the next spot was 10 yards away and was only a single drop on a pebble. We moved our equipment and continued the tracking. We repeated the finding of one or two drops several times and saw that the deer had changed direction at least two more times, with a continued migration toward the hillside he had originally come from. The tracking was very challenging and we often had to reassemble at the equipment and renew the search for the next spoor indication which was usually only a single drop of blood. After over an hour, our group of five searchers finally found him. He had traveled over 150 yards before laying down. To all of us, that deer showed amazing stamina, and we stood quietly in respect, for a while after finding him.
Would post a photo if I knew how. I do have an emailed photo sent to me after arriving home.

Isn't it amazing how far a "dead" whitetail can sometimes travel?! But then, on the next hunt, a poorly placed shot might drop one right in its tracks...go figure!

Pic for Bob

Great looking buck, excellent story.

Lucky you.Thats a nice Buck!!!!

Nice, Congrats.

Nice buck! Congrats.

Beautiful buck!!! Sometimes it's amazing how far they go with a well-placed shot with a good bullet. Back in the 60s I saw a guy blow a big doe's heart in half with a 12 gauge slug up here in Michigan and that deer went almost 200 yards before dropping dead. I would not believe it to this day if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

Congrats on a great deer. It's been my experience that a Nosler Partition is not the very best deer bullet. I think a 165 gr Sierra, Hornady, or Rem Cor-lokt will put a deer down quicker out of a 30/06.

Animals are amazing sometime.

And funny enough, one of the toughest have been impala.

Years ago we were trying to shoot an impala. He was feeding in a clearing, and we managed to get downwind of him to about 60 yards.

I hit him in the junction of the neck and shoulder as he was facing us. The bullet went completely the whole length of his body, and stopped under the skin a couple of inches from the tail.

The impala made a slight flinch when hit, then stood a bit, then walked as if nothing was wrong with him.

We watched in amazement.

He lay down, and after quite sometime, he died.

I was using a 375/404 with a 300 grain Barnes X bullet.

By all intentions, that impala should have been thrown 10 feet up in the air if we follow Hollywood!

We now have proof, the minimum caliber requirement for Impala is a 416 rem mag.

I shot this antelope back in October. I stalked two miles to get to the herd and got to about 200 yards before running out of cover. I stayed hidden in the sage for about 10 minutes before he was clear of the rest of the herd so I could take the shot. When I squeezed the trigger he jumped forward with his mouth open and took off with the rest of the herd. They had no idea where I was and actually ran towards me and passed me in a group at about 50 yards; I didn’t have an opportunity for another shot because he was in the group. When they passed I did not see any blood, but they were moving at top speed. They ran through a small depression about 600 yards away according to my rangefinder then continued up the wall of the valley; I watched them pause half way up the wall and look back down at the depression, but I couldn’t see anything in the depression.
I looked for blood for twenty minutes, but never found a drop. I was very disgusted with myself at having blown such an easy shot, but, even though I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t get rid of the mental image of the herd stopping and looking back. I decided that the only ethical thing to do would be to walk out to the depression and take a first hand look rather than relying on my Swarovskis. It had been snowed, but was mostly melted, so it was a muddy mess and the walking was miserable. When I got within about 100 yards of the depression I saw a patch of white that I first thought was just some snow, but as I got closer I realized it was the pronghorn. I had hit him through both lungs, exactly where I was aiming, and he had still managed to run nearly half a mile!

The opportunity to take this buck was unique for me. I began hunting the area beginning about 2 hours before dark. As I watched a clearing from a spot up on a moderate hillside (mostly hidden at the base of a cedar tree), I spotted a nice doe. I was going to be satisfied to just bring home some venison, so I lined up on the doe. For some reason I flinched badly and the rifle sent the bullet way off to the side of the doe (I saw the dust fly). Maybe it was the thought about the scopion that almost dropped into my lap several minutes before. That doe immediately bolted, not to be seen again.
After about a quarter of an hour, a spike buck strode into the clearing, sniffed around, broused a bit, then went on alert and shortly after took off as I watched. Five minutes later that spike buck returned, but behind him was a fork horn buck. The two of them broused the area for a while, then they both went on alert and bolted as I watched. I don't know why I didn't set up to take one of them, but that's moot.
Shortly afterward, there was some loud clatter off to my left and getting louder. It was that nice buck. He passed within about 4 feet of where I was sitting. I was so amazed that I watched in awe as he followed the game trail down the hill toward the clearing. I had my rifle up, but the only shot would have been from directly behind him, so I waited. I've never shot a deer in the butt before and although a spine shot would work, he was moving too fast through the scrub and trees.
That buck was traveling like he owned the whole area and showed no inhibitions at all. Maybe a rut indication, because as I mentioned, there had been a doe grazing in the clearing.
The rest of the story is now a wonderful memory.
By the way, everyone thoroughly enjoyed participating in the tracking effort. None of us had ever been so challenged by a tracking situation like that before. Even my grand daughter (age 10) made a couple of spoor discoveries as we searched. She was very excited about that and told the story a couple of times on our 6 hour ride home.