What are the chances?

[nhbowhunter]

Instances like that are rare but do occur. I remember one year my hunting buddy's wife shot a buck with her .270. Buck ran forever... very little blood. We never found him. 2 weeks later my buddy shoots a nice buck with a .308. We hang it and begin to dress it out, guess what we found? His .308 entrance and exit wound along with a .270 bullet lodged in front of the shoulder. We did not tell his wife about the bullet... the second she came out to have a look she said "That is my buck!".

As for arrows hitting deer and them not know. 2 years ago I drew back on a buck at 15 yds. As I came to full draw my glove snagged on the release. The arrow flew right under the buck with a big POOF of white hair. The buck stood there and stuck his head under his front legs to look at his belly. He looked back up and spun his head from left to right as if to say "What the...". He looked back at his belly. In the mean time I had drew back a second arrow and nailed him square. When I got to him my first arrow had shaved his belly without ever breaking the skin.

[size="1"][ 02-02-2003, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: nhbowhunter ][/size]

[buckee]

I think the chances of him getting nicked like that and not getting too alarmed over it are pretty good. Deer (all animals) are getting pricked and biten by ticks, insects and thorns all the time in there every day travels and tend to take a prick like that caused by a glancing shot, as a fact of life sometimes.He probably hardly felt it.
It's ussually the sound of the bow going off, that causes them to jump, in a situaton like that.
If you have a fairly quiet bow, there would be no red flags going up in the deers mind.

[JimPic]

Back in '99,I went to my cabin for a week of bowhunting.The 1st morning out I had a chunky 6pt come down and pass by my stand at 12yds broadside.I thought I had moved away from the tree far enough and when I shot,my recurve"s upper limb smacked the tree-sending the arrow porpoising right over the deer's back.The deer jumped and ran about 20yds and just looked around then walked off.It soundd like a tree limb breaking off.Five days later I see a buck coming up a two-track heading for some apple trees.I whistled him to stop-he stops and,I shoot and find him 60yds away.Same deer-I could tell from the palmated right antler.When I had him hanging,I noticed he had a shaved patch on his back right above the shoulder that had started to scab over.

[Ohiobucks]

I've seen on the videos that deer will have a bald spot on top of their backs from going under barbwire fences.