My luckiest deer ever! Buck with No bullet hole!

[AJ Peacock]

While I was in College, my dad and went up near Paonia Colorado deer hunting. We had been walking and glassing most of the morning and were heading back to the pickup for some lunch when we stopped to talk to 3-4 out of state hunters (I think they were from Texas, but can't remember for sure). It was near the end of the season and all the Texans had left for licenses were some doe tags; back then it always amazed me that out of staters would pay good money to shoot a doe!

While we were chatting, one of them spotted some deer climbing out on a ridge above us; we all immediately started looking at them through our scopes as 3 of the out of staters started firing away. After 6-7 shots, they decided the deer were just too far away, even with their "300's".

Once they gave up, we started chatting again. One of the Texans kept watching the deer with his binoculars as we talked. After a couple minutes he said "Theres another one, and it has horns". Now thats all I needed to hear, as it was late in the season and all we had left was my buck tag and my dads bull elk tag, and I hadn't taken a shot at a deer all season. I confirmed that none of them had a buck tag and asked my dad to spot for me. Unlike the out of staters, I sat down and used my knees for support (they had all been firing away off hand). I turned my scope up on 9x and sure enough, it was a medium size buck.

The Buck was walking straight up hill away from me at around a 45 degree angle; It was as if I was looking down on him from a tree stand 600 yards tall. There was a very slight breeze blowing left to right and I decided that a 2-3' lead should be about right to catch him in the back over the shoulders. I placed the crosshair even with the left side of his body (to account for the wind), aimed in front of him a couple feet and sent the 154gr spire pt from my 700BDL 7RM on its way. I saw the buck flinch a little and lunged to the right into a tangle of scrub oak and cedars. The out of staters started cursing and asking me what caliber I was shooting.

One of the Texans said he'd walk up and make sure the buck was dead if I wanted to keep watching the area to make sure he didn't decide to get up. The Texan ended up shooting him between the eyes with a 22 pistol, but he was down and couldn't get up.

Upon gutting him, we couldn't find any entry or exit wounds. There was blood in the cavity, but no obvious damage, other than a little blood around the liver. We were stumped. After we got him home and pulled the hide, we where really amazed, as there were NO bullet holes anywhere in the hide.

It took a much closer inspection to figure out what had happened. On the right side of his body about 1/3 of the way back from the shoulder, there was a 3-4" long burn mark where the bullet had just grazed this buck. When we looked inside the ribcage, one of the ribs had a splinter missing about the size of a toothpick. Evidently, that little splinter cut into the liver and that was it.

To this day, I am amazed at how close I came to missing that deer. I got him and my bullet never entered his body! I'd post a picture of the horns, except that a few years later I gave them to a friend of mine (Charlie) from Houston.

If I remember correctly, the buck was a 4x4 around 24-26" wide.

Hope you all enjoyed the story,

Don

 

[Jimm]

AJ

That was great ! I always called shots of this nature " a really good miss " /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Thanks for sharing ,

Jim B.

 

[davewilson]

now that's bullet performance!

thanks for sharing

my brother's first long range kill was around 700+ yards and the only hole we could find was in one of his hooves. dropped him like a beef.

 

[Roll-Yur-Own]

I shot my luckiest deer this past november. I was hunting with a friend of mine who is a pretty novice hunter. After he missed a doe at less than 100 yards, I moved to another location and told him to wait while I made a pass to see if I could drive something to him. Truth was I had to go to the bathroom and needed some privacy....

.......After seeing a flicker I dropped my toilet paper and picked up my rifle......30 seconds later bang....

I also had no entrance hole or exit hole, but my friend said he found the hit in the shoulder while butchering the deer. We problably didn't look hard enough....

 

[stxhunter]

my luckiest shot on a deer happened when i was 20 i was hunting on a buddys ranch in duval county we had been up pretty late the night before drinking beer use to drink back in them days anyways i would allways wake up before everyone else and walk to the back of the ranch and find a spot on the back fence line to sit and wait for them to drive the deer to me when they would drive out to there blinds in the jeep.so i find my spot and get comfortable as the sun is starting to come up my stomach starts talking to me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gifand i can't hold it any longer so i have to take care of buisiness and while i'm doing that a small buck comes out of the brush about 200 yr away so i have to shoot off hand hunched over with my pants down it falls right where it was shot so i cut off my shirt sleeve to finish my buisiness and start walking over to the deer now heres the lucky part as i'm walking up i get about 20 yrd from the deer it jumps up to run off like it wasnt even shot i had my 243 slung around my shoulder so i went for my ruger blackhawk drew it fanned the hammer shot from the hip pure reflexs i hit that deer in the head and blow off one its antlers if i live to be 100 i doubt i could ever do that again i can shot a pistol better than most but that was pure luck the rifle shot hit high by the way going through the musle below the spine

 

[radnur22]

my son shot this deer at 35 yards with a .308 shooting 165gr interbonds. the impact was in the low sterum right behind the leg and the exit was through the opposite leg. the chest cavity was not penetrated at all, but the heart was fractured in several pieces covered with clot. apparently, the bullet hit the sternum and transfered 2,000+ ft/lbs of energy into the right chest wall. this caused the heart to fracture by energy transfer. post mortem, there were no broken ribs and the sternum was intact.

 

[Roll-Yur-Own]

stxhunter, I never leave home without some toilet paper and back-up napkins. I cut too many pairs of underwear into strips to forget it again!

 

[41mag]

A young fellow bought the house across the street from me several years back. He was in his early 20's and was a hunting addict. He had a friend who had never taken a buck in his several years of hunting. Both of them got on a decent lease and together hunting season came along. They had been working it hard all summer to patturn the deer and such. The friend had set his box stand up several yards off a nice trail and was in it well before light one morning.

Well as things sometimes happen, the deer don't always follw any prescribed trail, and as such, he was sitting there when the young buck comes in right beside his stand. He had a 243, the make of which I cannot recall. The deer was up so close that he could not get the gun at an angle on the deer to allow him to properly see through his scope. More or less it was right outside the window, and in his excitement of trying to get in position he touched the trigger and the deer bolted. IT ran out about 20 yds from the stand, turned to look back and fell over dead as a hammer. The young fellow was elated in taking his first buck.

When they got home that evening, they came over and got me to show off his first buck. IT was mearly a yearling, but to one who has hunted for several years to take his first, it was a nice one. THen they stretched out the hide and told me to find the bullet hole. With the hide laid out hair side down, we all looked it over and there were no holes. The ribs were all fine as were all the rest of the meat. No damage what so ever. The only thing we could figure was he scared it to death when he shot so close to it, figureing heart attack. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

stxhunter,

My pop always told me to never leave the rifle in the stand when you head out to answer those calls. One year I was stalking through the underbrush, following a pack of several does which had at least two which were looking pretty buck ready. I figured that in the dense cover I might have a chance of getting a decent one coaxed out, if I could keep from being busted. The morning was cool, and drizzling rain with hardly a breeze, which made slipping through the undergrowth nice and quiet. I had followed for several hundered yards keeping them just in sight as they grazed along at a slow pace. A couple of them decided that one little knol was a nice place to take a little nap and they all just sort of hung up there. As I was watching I got that notice that it was time to answer the call. Well I eased back to a point I could just see the heads of two or three which were still standing, and found a nice tree stump which was about the perfect height for a sit. I carefully eased into position and about the time I was through, I caught a glimpse of movement off to my right. I slowly moved my head around to see that I was totally busted sitting there with my TP in one hand and pants down. As I reached with my left hand to get my rifle, I could make out horns which extended out past the ears, and that they were decent in mass. The buck was standing less than 40 yds from me with his head down looking at me through the limbs and such, like what the heck is this thing doing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif With the low light, and his dark horns up against his side and the dark undergrowth behind him, I couldn't get a count of points but could see he was decent. I slowly eased the safety off and shooting left handed, I drew a bead on his neck at the shoulder junction, and fired. The 130gr BT droped him on the spot and I finished up with my business. I was laughing to myself thinking ain't nobody gonna believe how this all came about. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The buck turned out to be a real suprise having thirteen points which could hang a ring, and seventeen including broke tips and nubs.

 

[stxhunter]

mike isn't funny how that allways happens i don't know how many times i've been on bob hall pier and decide to walk down and get something to eat or use the restroom only to come back and find out a big king or tarpon hit my slide line and one of my buddys end up catching it