Harve Curry
Member
I've field dressed and caped out 2 elk that had broadheads deep in the shoulder muscle and the other in a hip. Both were completely incapsulated and healed over.
healed wounds poll
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JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone
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I killed a Blacktail that had a bullet lodged in the fatty tissue of his rump. Long healed, at least a year, maybe two. I've seen Deer that have had a previous broken leg from a year gone by that lived just fine. As long as a wound is not to a vital organ or an artery, most animals are strong enough to make it through. Sure in a high predator area a Deer might have a reduced chance of survival, but they do know how to hunker down when they need to.
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X-Rap
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I have also dressed deer and elk that have had previous wounds from both gun and arrow and heard first hand of 2 different arrows found encapsulated in body cavities.
I personaly believe that there is a higher number of rifle wounded deer than some are willing to admit, simply because of distance and inability to put yourself directly on the spot the animal was standing.
With a bow and arrow in decent light one can usually see the hit and the arrow placement as well as locate the place animal was last seen and formulate a tracking strategy.
A rifle shot on the other hand can often be made at distances covering terrain that may take hours to reach and when one gets there the sun and other indicators will have changed making finding a starting point often difficult if not imposible. Often I think game that does not drop at the shot or show positive indication of being hit are left wounded and if it is a bad enough hit dies.
As for the heartyness of a wild animal, I have little doubt that they have great abilities to recover from wounds from us, each other as well as auto misshaps and the like.
I personaly believe that there is a higher number of rifle wounded deer than some are willing to admit, simply because of distance and inability to put yourself directly on the spot the animal was standing.
With a bow and arrow in decent light one can usually see the hit and the arrow placement as well as locate the place animal was last seen and formulate a tracking strategy.
A rifle shot on the other hand can often be made at distances covering terrain that may take hours to reach and when one gets there the sun and other indicators will have changed making finding a starting point often difficult if not imposible. Often I think game that does not drop at the shot or show positive indication of being hit are left wounded and if it is a bad enough hit dies.
As for the heartyness of a wild animal, I have little doubt that they have great abilities to recover from wounds from us, each other as well as auto misshaps and the like.
doctorxring
Member
.
I took one hog that had about 5 inches of arrow shaft and broadhead
on it. Encapsulated and just inside of ribcage. Shot had too much
angle on it.
I took a whitetail buck and it had a horn wound from fighting in it's
left chest. Wound was full of puss and had migrated into shoulder.
This animal was soon to die. My bullet just made it a little sooner.
.
I took one hog that had about 5 inches of arrow shaft and broadhead
on it. Encapsulated and just inside of ribcage. Shot had too much
angle on it.
I took a whitetail buck and it had a horn wound from fighting in it's
left chest. Wound was full of puss and had migrated into shoulder.
This animal was soon to die. My bullet just made it a little sooner.
.
I shot a whitetail that had a wad of scar tissue on the rear leg next to a joint. In the middle of it, was a little plastic disk that Brennekke uses to seal the bore for their slugs. My brother in law uses Brenekkes and had missed, or thought that he'd missed a deer with one the year before. No way of knowing if it was the same deer or not
Legionnaire
Contributing Member
Hunting in central PA, I worked up on a buck that should have seen me coming, but didn't. When I put him down, I saw that his right eye was completely gone. Don't know if it was from tangling with another buck, or a hunting incident, but it was healed over ... definitely not a fresh wound.
Skinned a squirrel out once, one that I had taken with a .22 to the head, and found shot pellets and a .177 airgun pellet under the skin.
And can't remember if I saw it at a hunter safety course I helped with, or at a sporting goods shop, but someone had a deer's skull that had a broadhead and about two inches of shaft in one of the eye sockets. Owner claimed he took the deer during gun season.
Skinned a squirrel out once, one that I had taken with a .22 to the head, and found shot pellets and a .177 airgun pellet under the skin.
And can't remember if I saw it at a hunter safety course I helped with, or at a sporting goods shop, but someone had a deer's skull that had a broadhead and about two inches of shaft in one of the eye sockets. Owner claimed he took the deer during gun season.
welshgrouser
Member
Over the years we have taken quite a few deer with wounds... I shot a real nice 23" spread 9pt w/a 12ga Brenneke slug in its spine. We have shot deer with broadheads in there spines and front leg joints. (I think we have three of those on the cabin walls)
I have seen photos of a deer shot w/a rifle that had a broadhead in its skull...
Overall they are lots tougher than we are....
I have seen photos of a deer shot w/a rifle that had a broadhead in its skull...
Overall they are lots tougher than we are....
of course animals do heal, but many probably die also just depends on how much damage was done and how much blood loss occured to say that most of them heal is likely wrong, but some of them do.
ive killed a buck once that was completly missing its hoof on its rear leg and was walking on its leg bone and it had been like that for quite awhile as it wasnt bleeding at all but you really cant call it healed either.
ive killed a buck once that was completly missing its hoof on its rear leg and was walking on its leg bone and it had been like that for quite awhile as it wasnt bleeding at all but you really cant call it healed either.
OP
OP
wankerjake
Member
I'm surprised to see this one come up again! I'm still surprised by the results(kinds hard to swallow), over 50% have seen it first-hand and over 75% have either seen it or know someone who's seen it...that would indicate a fair amount of them do survive. Obviosly depends on where you hit them, but sounds like a lot more survive than I originally suspected. And I never had a doubt that they are tougher than we are, I've seen them do amazing things with mortal wounds.
RockinU
Member
Texas White-tail are on the smaller end of all N. American Big game, and they survive less than perfect shot placement with astounding regularity. I have taken two with creases across the back, where the spinous processes were broken, but the deer was otherwise healthy. One with a front leg blown off, and one with a .22 hollow point that had cut a groove through a hind quarter and come to rest in the flank. Over the years I have also seen or taken quite a few with severe hind-leg injuries from fences.
scmerrill71
Member
i buddy of mine bagged a buck that had 1 antler busted off and that area healed up and the other just fell off that day cause it had fresh blood there and had scaring from 2 different shots on its hind quarters and what appeared to be some scars from an apparent road rash incident.
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
My father told of seeing another hunter's buck that had been shot across the top of its neck and was healed over. The shooter said he'd noticed that the buck couldn't hold its head erect.
X-Rap
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This time of year in the wintering grounds of Colorado its not at all uncommon to see dear and elk with limps that are likely caused by auto encounters. This lower ground is full of skeletal remains accumulated over the seasons due to the concentrations, vehicles, winter kill and to some degree wounded game as well I'm sure.
dogrunner
Member
I have killed two Florida Osceola bucks that had bullets in their bodies. One had a fully encapsulated (and expanded) .243 just above the shoulder in the backstrap. The other one carried what I believe to be a .30/30 in a ham. Both were completely healed and showed no evidence of being disabled.
The .243 carrier was believed to have been a deer shot at the tail end of the season the year prior and the shooter stated he recalled a four point of similar size that he thought he'd hit.....same deer? I dunno, point is, that they do survive some rather dramatic wounds, further, these Florida deer are substantially smaller than most Texas deer, likely averaging around 120 or so for the usual buck.
The .243 carrier was believed to have been a deer shot at the tail end of the season the year prior and the shooter stated he recalled a four point of similar size that he thought he'd hit.....same deer? I dunno, point is, that they do survive some rather dramatic wounds, further, these Florida deer are substantially smaller than most Texas deer, likely averaging around 120 or so for the usual buck.
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I cleaned an elk two years ago that had a Broad head stuck in a vertebrae in the C-spine. I have killed dozens of big old boar hogs that have healed over bullet wounds in their shields mostly fragments from CF .22 rounds from guys shooting varmint bullets on hogs. High velocity .22 rounds, frangible bullets and mature boar hogs are not a good mix.
I found a 69 cal lead round ball embedded in the shoulder of a cape buffalo I killed in Tanzania back in 2002. I sure would have liked to know the story on that one mainly what happened to the poacher who pulled the trigger. But the very best one I ever had was in South Africa bow hunting. The year before my buddy had arrowed a zebra stallion he followed the blood trail for about a mile before he lost it. I shot a zebra about 5 miles from where he'd shot that one and on skinning it noticed an abscess in the elbow of the shoulder. It was my buddies broad head from the year before. He had hit the stallion in the femur and the arrow had with time broken off, the head worked itself loose from the bone and had migrated down the leg to the rear lower point of the shoulder where it was simply resting under the skin.
It was a G3 Monotech that I resharpened and am using to this day.
Try that with a mechanical!!
I found a 69 cal lead round ball embedded in the shoulder of a cape buffalo I killed in Tanzania back in 2002. I sure would have liked to know the story on that one mainly what happened to the poacher who pulled the trigger. But the very best one I ever had was in South Africa bow hunting. The year before my buddy had arrowed a zebra stallion he followed the blood trail for about a mile before he lost it. I shot a zebra about 5 miles from where he'd shot that one and on skinning it noticed an abscess in the elbow of the shoulder. It was my buddies broad head from the year before. He had hit the stallion in the femur and the arrow had with time broken off, the head worked itself loose from the bone and had migrated down the leg to the rear lower point of the shoulder where it was simply resting under the skin.
It was a G3 Monotech that I resharpened and am using to this day.
Try that with a mechanical!!usmc1371
Member
I killed a cow elk in northeast oregon about ten years ago with a broad head in its wind pipe that had un screwd from the shaft and heald into place. The wind pipe actuly grew around the broad head. I found it when I reached shoulder deep into the chest cavity to cut the wind pipe off and pull out the heart and lungs, sliced my palm pretty good. She was NOT fine. The only reason I got her was she was the last elk in line and couldn't keep up with the rest of the heard as they ran up a hill I could hardly crawl up.
The next year another guy in our party killed a big old cow with an arrow stuck in the sholder blade that was broken off just under the skin.
The next year another guy in our party killed a big old cow with an arrow stuck in the sholder blade that was broken off just under the skin.
DeepSouth
Random Guy
I killed a whitetail deer with a 22 bullet stuck in his jaw, the bone had grown around it.
Shytheed Dumas
Member
20 years ago I shot my best/biggest buck. I had a bullet graze across one of it's shoulders. It was deep enough to do a little shallow muscle damage, but it didn't limp and would definitely have healed right over.
This year I shot a spike that had a run in with a car. One hind leg had a healed break with hard bony scar tissue the size of a peach, and the other had a relatively dry open gash to the bone. I honestly didn't notice a limp as he came through the brush at less than 30 yds before I dropped him.
This year I shot a spike that had a run in with a car. One hind leg had a healed break with hard bony scar tissue the size of a peach, and the other had a relatively dry open gash to the bone. I honestly didn't notice a limp as he came through the brush at less than 30 yds before I dropped him.
cooch
Member
First hand or seen the photos...
- Dog shot throughand through the rear of the rib-cage. Probably with .22RF. Survived.
- Sambar with 2 expanded .30-cal projectiles in the neck. Recovered.
- Sambar with bullet hole through the upper 1/3 of the shoulder-blade. Approx .375" diameter. Bone growth surrounding the hole argued that it was an old wound.
I agree that those who have never wounded game have not done much hunting. Wounds result from game moving unexpectedly, projectile deflection prior to impact, and projectile failing to penetrate in a straight line. The latter often having to do with the use of an inappropriately light calibre/projectile for the game in question.
Then there are those animals that simply have not read the script. You get that when dealing with complex biological systems.
- Dog shot throughand through the rear of the rib-cage. Probably with .22RF. Survived.
- Sambar with 2 expanded .30-cal projectiles in the neck. Recovered.
- Sambar with bullet hole through the upper 1/3 of the shoulder-blade. Approx .375" diameter. Bone growth surrounding the hole argued that it was an old wound.
I agree that those who have never wounded game have not done much hunting. Wounds result from game moving unexpectedly, projectile deflection prior to impact, and projectile failing to penetrate in a straight line. The latter often having to do with the use of an inappropriately light calibre/projectile for the game in question.
Then there are those animals that simply have not read the script. You get that when dealing with complex biological systems.
TehK1w1
Member
I've seen several. A couple years ago while I was guiding, one of our hunters arrowed a buck that ran off and we couldn't find. About 2 weeks later it was killed out of the same blind by a different bowhunter. The arrow passed just over the spine and was well on its way to being healed.
Just this last weekend, I was out at our lease and one of our other hunters brought in a small buck. THe buck was mostly unable to use his right leg (the reason he got shot), with considerable muscle atrophiation and a knee joint that it didn't seem to be able to flex.
When he got it back to camp we found a half-dollar sized scar, nearly round, and a dark spot in the middle. This scar was on the left side, near the back of the ribcage. The wounds may or may not be related, but I'm pretty sure the scar was from a gunshot wound.
Just this last weekend, I was out at our lease and one of our other hunters brought in a small buck. THe buck was mostly unable to use his right leg (the reason he got shot), with considerable muscle atrophiation and a knee joint that it didn't seem to be able to flex.
When he got it back to camp we found a half-dollar sized scar, nearly round, and a dark spot in the middle. This scar was on the left side, near the back of the ribcage. The wounds may or may not be related, but I'm pretty sure the scar was from a gunshot wound.
What a jerk. Guys like that just need to get popped in the jaw real good one time and it changes them forever. I've been around a guy like that and one time he was just being an a**. I couldnt' take it anymore, (no joke) I snapped and headbutted him straight in the nose. I still see the guy quite often and let me tell you he's a completely different person, very nice. If you spoke to him now you would have never thought he was like that before. I also agree with you Doc, it is a privilege to have Caribou here. I don't think it gets more die hard than him.
cooch
Member
Far more likely to lead to a rash of "No Shooting" signs.
Your attitude only convinces landholders - and I should know, I live amongst them - that hunters are violent thugs who do not respect the rights of the property owner.
They'll make exceptions for friends or maybe paying guests, but huners that they don't know? Not a chance if they've been exposeed to this level of foolishness.
Losing a deer over a boundary is hard. But it's no harder that losing one any other way.
Peter
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