I posted in another thread about my neighbor killing a deer with the lower jaw broke, Sat. evening. I had killed a deer that morning and did not go hunting in the afternoon, and He called me to come help Him find his deer. In the past I tried to keep a tracking dog, but currently had none. I did take the house dog with me to pick up my deer that morning, so I grabbed Her, and the neighbors Lab was there, and followed along. We went down to where the deer was, when He shot it, and He showed me a piece of meat, but there was no blood. I started looking at a good deer trail close by, entering a thicket, and the little house dog was smelling around and went down the trail sniffing along. Any place that she seemed interested in, I looked hard, but found no blood. In a minute or two, the lab came by me, in a hurry, and on down the trail, followed by the little dog, and out of sight. I kept looking down the trail, still finding no blood. My neighbor came to where I was, and we were talking about not finding any blood, when the dogs started raising hell, the opposite direction from the one that we were going. We went back to the ATV's and rode over to another patch of woods and started in to the dogs, when they came to meet me. I petted them and started back the way they came, and they went right back to the dead deer. He had hit in the top part of the near shoulder, and the bullet exited behind the far shoulder. When dressing it, the bullet had hit the top part of the lung, clipped the spine doing little damage, just a mark there. Blood stayed in the deer for a long ways. We never found any except where the deer was laying, but looking inside it was hard to imagine that deer going more than a few feet, and it was nearly a quarter of a mile as the crow flies. Not knowing the route, but I figure it went well over a quarter by trails. 240 Weatherby and Barnes bullet, complete pass through, broke shoulder on near side, broke ribs on the far side. I doubt that we would have found it without those dogs. Strange things happen while deer hunting. miles
