A tough spike buck

[osage outlaw]

The spot is not on the camera lens.  I have other pictures of the deer walking around and the spots are on it.

[BowEd]

If his hide ever gets tanned you'll see the answer from the scars.

[PEARL DRUMS]

I think you have a spot on the lens. I know anything can happen, but hard to believe a deer would survive that shot.

No doubt. that deer will die every time with an arrow making those marks. That's double lung city. My bet is gore marks from another buck.

[osage outlaw]

A small buck like that shouldn't be getting into any fights serious enough to leave gore marks.  I've watched spikes spar several times and it's nothing that would cause an injury.

[PEARL DRUMS]

I've never seen a sparring match hurt a deer myself, but getting gored doesn't mean you were looking to spar or fight. Wrong place at the wrong time when a hot doe and a mature buck were around.

[Pat B]

Years ago when I lived in coastal SC the state biologist that was over our hunting club, Joe Hamilton, one of the founders of QDMA, shot a buck opening day of archery season(Aug. 15 in that part of SC) with his bow. He said it looked like a good shot with the arrow sticking out both sides of the deer as it ran off. He never recovered the buck. At the beginning of the rut that year, Joe was hunting with his rifle. He shot a buck following a hot doe. When he went to recover the deer it was the one he had shot with his bow and it still had the arrow going through it, high and behind the buck's shoulders. Obviously it hadn't hit anything vital.

[Buffalogobbler]

The first deer I ever shot was a button buck during the firearms season, my buddy Joe shot a nice buck that same day. His dad was a butcher so a few days later he taught us how  to butcher our deer. after skinning the deer and taking off the head and legs the next step was to cut it down the middle of the backbone with a saw, I had no problem with mine but when Joe did his, when he got to just behind the shoulder, the saw was'nt cutting so good any more, we spread the halves of the carcass apart and there was an aluminum arrow shaft inside the buck and he had been living with it for several weeks at least.
After that I have always believed that there is an area in what we consider the "Kill Zone"  that is not lethal when you hit it.

Kevin

[bjrogg]

I don't know but it sure looks like the walking dead to me. The more I look at it the more it seems that has to be a letal shoot if those spots are from a shot.
Bjrogg

[Pappy]

Their may be an un lethal area in a deer's chest but I have never seen it, and I would say that ant it. I have a rule that has always panned out for me, anywhere behind the shoulder and in front of the hind quarter, 4 inches down from the back and 4 inches up from the chest is a dead deer, may not find him but he/she is going to die. Any where else they may die or they may live on, until you get another shot or they die from old age, they are tough but a shot through the chest  will take them down.I would say that is a wound from something else. JMO.
 Pappy

[Bob W.]

Looks like that hit would be fatal, Lucky guy  I guess!

[JoJoDapyro]

Perhaps he wasn't shot with a broadhead.