Toughness of Deer Never Cease to Amaze Me....

[Mohawk]

  My dad called me this evening with yet another espisope of witnessing the toughness of deer. He was hunting at our ranch on our far northeast stand. It's a 25 footer in a big oak. It was a normal hunt for a while. He saw six bucks ranging from spike to 8 pt, and 15 or so does. But one of the does seemed to have a pretty severe limp at her front legs. This doe came closer, about 20 yds or so, and my dad noticed that the deer's top half of her scapula was missing. Apparently by a firearm, not a bow. He said it appeared someone tried a high "shoulder" shot, hit the scapula above the spine. And the amazing part was that she was still escorting her fawn and eating like it was nothing. Amazing! Not many humans could overcome such trauma and still maintain normal daily life. Anywho, thought I'd share.

[Terry1]

A deer's will to survive is amazing!

[efremtags]

I shot an ugly 1 horned spike several years ago in an archery only zone. The deer had a large scar patch of flesh visible from a 100 yards. Aparently this deer took a bad broadside shot from an arrow and it left some wound scar. I decided to kill it becuse it was miserable looking. When dressing it out, I found 2 more wounds in the back but and leg from other poorly placed shots. That's 3 hits without a mortal wound. The wounds were likely at least a month old based on how much they were healed.

[kix]

   Several years ago here in S. Texas I saw a pretty good buck traveling with two does and upon scrutiny I noticed the buck had no right rear leg, just a blackened skin hanging down, obviously an old wound of some sort but it seemed in no big distress, just walked along on three legs with his doe friends. I overestimated the range, held on the top of his back and shot over him. Later I determined he was probably about 240 yds. away, point blank for my .270. Darn. Of course I never saw him again.  Kix

[charles p]

Two quick stories.

I was dog hunting one day with a shotgun and buckshot.  Heard a deer coming up a steep hill right toward me.  It crested at about 15 yards and I shot it with a 3" load of 000 buckshot.  I could see the shot hit the buck.  It ran about 60 yards and fell dead.  When I examined it, one of his front shoulders had been shot weeks earlier and that leg no longer worked.  I put 10 buckshot completely through the shoulders of that deer at 15 yds and it didn't even go down.  Ten pellets going in and ten coming out the other side.  If I hadn't seen the shot hit the deer's hide, I would have assumed I missed.

Second story.  The largest buck deer I have ever shot at was about 250 yds away.  I hit it low and foward with a 25-06.  It disappeared for an entire year.  I thought the shot was perfect.  I looked for days with no sign.  The following year it was trailing six doe deer on opening morning.  I killed it.  It had sixteen points with not one point or beam over 6" long.  Both shoulders were stiff and hardly worked.  It had lived a year with two damaged shoulder and was going strong.

[Graybeard]

I killed a deer once many years ago and when field dressing it almost cut myself on a broadhead and about 4" or 5" of arrow that were still inside the body cavity on that deer. Clearly it had not done the job as there was no evidence on the outside of the entry point for it and no bleeding inside around it so it had completely healed up with the broadhead and a few inches of arrow inside the body forward of the diaphram.

[Siskiyou]

This buck moved into the area last month.  First off I noticed that the left branch was smaller and miss-shaped compared to the right side.  I tried a sneak on this guy and get a picture, and he split and I was unable to get a good picture of the rack.  I was able to see his back end as he left out.  It appeared that one rear leg was out of the hip joint or the buck has a broken hip.

This is an old injury because it had to occur before the antlers formed last spring.  Today’s date is December 31, 2008.  The deer appears to be in otherwise good condition.  It’s hide looks health, and he appears to be well nourished.  The antlers on some of the bucks start appearing around April so this guy appears to be doing well.

It will be interesting to see what his 2009 rack looks like.





This guy appears to be a little more vigilant, and tougher to get good pictures of then some of the other deer around.  This doe was watching me while I was trying to get the bucks picture.



The bottom line is these guys can suffer a major injury and survive. 

[longwinters]

Probably 15 years ago I was bowhunting on the Michigan opener, Oct 1.  A doe came thru and she had an aluminum arrow stuck behind her right ear. I figured it must have been from the previous year since there was no blood and the arrow had no fletchings left on it, but it was unbroken/full length.  She showed no sign of distress etc.

I did not want to use my tag on a doe that early in the season but I sure did not want her walking around that way, and could just hear the rifle hunters in Nov (of which I was one) cussing out the bowhunters for wounding all the game.  So I shot her.  She did not go far, maybe 50-60 yds.  I tried to pull the arrow out, no go, it was all healed up around the entrance.

As I cleaned her out there was a BIG lump, and I thought "what in the world, does she have a big tumor to boot?"  I opened up the sack and found 2 fawns.  Completely formed with hair hooves etc. Very small but still completely formed.   I could not believe it. I figured that she got her chemistry screwed up by the arrow.  The next day I called the local DNR biologist and explained to him what I found, thought he might be interested in taking a look etc... but he was'nt interested.  He did think the same as I about her inability to drop the fawns.  I asked if it would have killed her and he said "no".  Her body would "re-absorb" the fawns.  I don't know if he knew what he was talking about or not, but she sure was a tough one.

Long

[Land_Owner]

I shot an ugly 1 horned spike several years ago in an archery only zone. The deer had a large scar patch of flesh visible from a 100 yards. Aparently this deer took a bad broadside shot from an arrow and it left some wound scar. I decided to kill it becuse it was miserable looking. When dressing it out, I found 2 more wounds in the back but and leg from other poorly placed shots. That's 3 hits without a mortal wound. The wounds were likely at least a month old based on how much they were healed.

Based on your descriptions, it sounds like your deer got "Tore Up" by a larger buck instead of being shot four times in a month.