Yesterday, I shot a Roe Deer during a drive hunt. The hounds chased a deer out of a pine-wood towards me. As the animal bolted towards the opposing bushes, I led it and it went down at my shot. It trashed for a few seconds and got up before disappearing in the bushes, going back in the direction it came from (NB. : a sure sign something was wrong with it). I fired my second shot which was most certainly deflected and never reached the target. Troubled by having wounded, I had just reloaded my first barrel, when, trough an opening, I saw the deer laboriously climbing the hill at 70 m, as if heavily hit. Having only one tube loaded and seeing only the deer's back, I aimed carefully and placed my bullet to break it down and stop an escaping wounded animal. I hit the backbone, with the resulting damage expected from a 9,3 slamming onto heavy bone, and the deer went down for keeps. Upon examining the beast and apart from the "atomic" damage created by the anchoring shot, I found out that my first shot had merely creased the back, leaving a hairless streak but without cutting skin ! That the deer went down convinces me that I must have hit/shocked an underlying apophysis*, but then without breaking skin The more I watch bullet behaviour, the less assertive I become...
* a common occurence with driven Bild Boar as the erect hair on their back makes them look taller. A bullet merely creasing an apophysis rolls a boar over like a rabbit. The animal lies motionless for a few minutes, then regains its feet (the wound being superficial) and takes off at high speed, leaving behind a confused hunter.

------------------
Andr�

You are most likey right hitting it in mid air most likey caused it to fall a little shock from hitting hard. then it recoved and took off.

I doubt that shock played a hand in this scenario..I suspect that the deer felt the bullet and reflexed hard from it and knocked itself down...If you have ever had a pet deer, try petting it on its back, it cannot be done, he will drop his hindquarters and slip away fron the lightest touch..thats what this deer did when the bullet skimmed it and it lost its balance from a violent reflex...
Thats my call, for what its worth.

I did see a deer shot through both hindquarters this year at about 300 yds fall and die..The bullet broke the pelvis, bladder and thats about all as far as I could tell..My son in law shot it after someone else had broken its leg...He used my 8x57 with GS HV 160 gr. bullet...We quickly washed it out in a stream and let the cold water run through it and the meat is excellent..Actually ruined very little as itwas low in the hindquarters..there was lots of blood in the body cavity....?????????

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

I doubt that shock played a hand in this scenario..I suspect that the deer felt the bullet and reflexed hard from it and knocked itself down...If you have ever had a pet deer, try petting it on its back, it cannot be done, he will drop his hindquarters and slip away fron the lightest touch..thats what this deer did when the bullet skimmed it and it lost its balance from a violent reflex...
Thats my call, for what its worth.

I did see a deer shot through both hindquarters this year at about 300 yds fall and die..The bullet broke the pelvis, bladder and thats about all as far as I could tell..My son in law shot it after someone else had broken its leg...He used my 8x57 with GS HV 160 gr. bullet...We quickly washed it out in a stream and let the cold water run through it and the meat is excellent..Actually ruined very little as it was low in the hindquarters..and there was lots of blood in the body cavity....?????????

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Atkinson...blood in the body cavity...I'd ASSuME that it was from severing the femeral artery...a lot of blood gets pumped through the legs, and I know of a Woman who shot a Grizzly bear in the butt with a .22 rimfire and killed it just by grazing it's femeral artery. It was terrorizing her animals and she had her choice between 2 or 3 big game rifles if she wanted to kill it, but chose the .22 instead to merely scare it away...I dunno who was more sad, the lady or the game warden for having to write her up.

------------------
God Bless and Shoot Straight

Atkinson = I worked in the ER in Idaho Falls for about a year after high school. On one occasion a woman had been in a car wreck. She was brought to the ER with many broken bones, but was awake and alert, (although in terrible pain). The doctors started to assess and treat her wounds when all of the sudden she went into cardiac arrest, and could not be saved. They later found that she had broke her pelvis and the movements of transporting her had caused the major vessels in her pelvis to rupture. I was very upset about this so I asked the Dr. what went wrong. He stated that anytime a person breaks their pelvis in a trauma, they have a very low chance to live. To many major vessels in that area.

------------------
Monyhunter

Makes since to me, I suspect thats what happened.

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

I had a similar experience this year

The deer was trotting at about 200-250. I called the shot in the front of the shoulder/rear of neck. The deer hunched up momentarily and then ran out of sight as many mortally wounded deer do. When I finally killed the animal I found the first shot had neatly severed the hide on top of the neck but nothing more.