Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Oddest thing after shot

Biggest Washington deer I ever personally put hands on was a 26 1/2" 5x5 mulie from last season. We had hunted the morning without luck and decided to spend the afternoon steelhead fishing. It was a good call as there were plenty of fish stacked up at the mouth of the Clearwater River. We ended up fishing until almost dark and were headed out. The road back to camp includes a steep windy downhill section of dirt road for about 3 miles that is maybe 10' wide with a 15' cut bank on one side and about 120' steep drop off on the other side.

We were making a good clip down it in my new F350 pulling my 19' sled. Upon rounding a hairpin corner said buck jumped off the cut bank about 50' in front of me. There was no way I was going to be able to stop so I got over as far as I could and hoped for the best. The buck tried to run downhill and across in front of us and I had no choice but to take him down my passenger side between me and the drop off. He ducked just as my mirror went over his back and surpisingly didn't hit the mirror and we heard no impact to the truck or boat. We all commented about what a close call it was and it was a shame we couldn't manage to harvest a buck like that.

We got back to camp and I started dinner as we waited for the rest of the guys out hunting to return. When they got back they started flipping us all kinds of chit asking why we took the boat hunting without them. I told them we didn't hunt and to check the fish box of the boat to which he replied "I would if you would have dressed and hung your big ass buck so it wasn't in the way".

I walked over to my boat with my flashlight and sure as chit that damn buck was laid out dead on the floor of the boat with almost no blood on the deck. We hung him up to dress him and there was no visible exernal damage, neck and spine were intact no broken legs etc. We opened him up and it looked like a bomb went off in his chest. He had 3 ribs that were missing about 4-6" of bone, lungs were jello and his heart was damn near ripped in 2. The meat was damn near perfect and there was almost no bloodshot meat just a little at the sight of the rib fractures.

We looked over the truck and boat in the morning and could find no damage to either, just what appeared to be a little of the loose dust from the road rubbed off the bow area. All we can figure is he cleared the truck and thought he was home free so he hooked a right and got struck by the bow of the boat rolling him over the side onto the floor. It's my guess that the rib chunks from the impact are what took out his lung and heart killing him.

Filed a salvage tag with the game dept the next day after the morning hunt and went out to fill our tags. We all got good deer that trip but all we could discuss was getting long cocked by the Alumaweld.

Still the damndest thing I have ever seen while hunting.