Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Deer question?

Deer cannot see blue, the spectrum UV’s of items appears “blue”. So if you wear clothing that reflects certain spectrums of light, you appear as a blue blob to them. This is from Texas A&M studies of the past. Supposedly the spectrum from blaze orange is close to foilage.

I think synthetic materials initially reflect the eye grabbing spectrums because you see deer looking up at hunters way more than the old days.

Its possible the deer blew in the sense of gasping or exhausting air, highly unlikely it were the typical type of warning or discovery blow.

I’ve killed hundreds of deer with blue jeans on but now I mostly wear Khaki Wranglers with a camo (darker top) to break my outline up better. I lay them in the sun for two weeks in the summer and wash them only with hunting detergent.

It would be a near impossibility for a deer to sustain a chest hit from an arrow or a bullet that penetrated the chest cavity that did not compromise at least one lung. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I am saying it’s a near impossibility.

There's a spot where you can shoot a deer just below the spine and above the lungs where the deer will survive. The high shoulder shot is the best kill shot unless you shoot 1"or 2" below the spine and 1" or 2" behind the shoulder.

All I do is lung shots firearm or archery. Archery, they usually flinch like they got bit, you get the wet paper bag sound, they walk or trot off and fall within 40 yards. I usually listen for their path and crash, then get up and go get them.

At the end of the exhalation phase, the lungs are still occupying the entire space within the chest cavity, the volume of the chest cavity is just momentarily smaller, but the lungs are still occupying that entire space. The pressure within it increases also.

I understand that, but when the diaphragm is pushed upward or forward(in a deer) squeezing the air out of the lungs , obviously the cavity is smaller, but there has got to be some room between that and the stomach and the liver. I know the timing has to be perfect, but what got me thinking of this many years ago was a shot on a bull a hunter took and my boss put an arrow into a doe, which I ended up tracking for two hours for him as he was color blind. Both the bull and the doe travelled for a few hours before they were found. Chest cavity penetration but lungs and heart intact. The doe completely stopped leaving a blood trail. All of our guides back then were former ski patrollers and current fire fighters, and we were all current or former EMT's so we were always in discussion about such things and everyone knew their anatomy. These are just merely observations, not anything factual , mind you, but interesting still!

Very interesting thread.

Nope. Wives tale. There is no vacant space inside the body except inside the lungs.. If there was, the diaphragm and lungs wouldn’t work the way they do. If an arrow or bullet punctures the chest cavity, that leads to a “sucking chest wound” which then will usually collapses one or both lungs.

I beg to differ from my experiences, I've shot deer there and killed deer that have been shot there by other hunters with both gun and bow. Most of the time it'll knock them down and then it's off to the races. I've also heard deer blow air out of their chest cavity that sounded like they were blowing at a hunter or varmint, how is that possible with a collapsed lung or two?.

Double lunged deer will (can) not make a sound. A "perfect" shot disabling the heart and lungs will often result in a difficult blood trail also. Even though they may be "dead on their feet", they ain't pumping and blowing blood.

The volume reduction of the thorax from exhalation is EXACTLY equal to the tidal volume of the expelled air. Not more, not less. The lungs still will occupy EXACTLY the same percentage of the thorax as they did at peak inspiration. The chest itself expands and contracts during respiration. The mesentery play absolutely no role in respiration. It is an abdominal organ and while it will move a little during respiration, as will all the other abdominal organs, it plays no more role in respiration than say kidneys or colon.

About the closest you can get to putting a projectile, bullet or arrow, through the chest with minimal damage to lungs is to insert it low from a dead on facing deer so as to run it just above the sternum. That shot will run an arrow through the heart top to bottom and will generally exit the heart through the left ventricle. After passing through the diaphragm the arrow will exit the abdomen in the vicinity of the umbilicus...I have made that shot a couple dozen times and have yet to do so without substantial damage to at least one one lung. When the angle of the deer is facing dead on, the usual outcome is both lungs with well more than enough damage to kill the deer as the arrow cuts them both up anterior and posterior to the heart. I have seen one lung more or less completely deflated while the path of the arrow appeared to be well centered down the sternum. Something I attributed to blade position by rotation, but for all I know it may well have been anomalous anatomy.


If I had to bet money on being able to run an arrow through a deer's chest and not damage lung(s) enough the be a cause of death of and by itself, I would try a field point as above and try to keep it right down tight on the sternum. I wouldn't bet much on it though.

I’ve had that same experience but it’s not because the shot went through an empty space. The deer’s lungs are right up against the spine just like yours. A shot just below the spine can momentarily stun the deer and knock them down and they may survive because it didn’t do enough damage to kill the deer. It’s not because the shot went through empty space. I’ve had the same experiences and seen similar reactions out of a couple of deer on a high hit and a low hit too.

Years ago I shot a buck head on and hit him too low. He ran about 100 yards and when I got on him again he was head down and I could hear him coughing and could see him blowing blood. Another shot put him down.

Another time I hit one right below the spine at 150 yards with an in-line muzzle loader. When he dropped on the spot I knew he might get back up so reloaded quickly (as quickly as you can do it with black powder 😊) and hit him again as he started struggling to get up. That did the trick.

I’ve never killed a deer

But I can sure post a hell of lot of “Hillary is about to be INDICTED” threads

Funny you bring this up

Had one get shot through the lungs last year by my son. Deer ran about 20 yards straight toward us( was at maybe 75 when he shot). Turn around and look the opposite direction and start blowing and stomping at the wood line like it thought that’s where the shot came from. Did it two or three times then stumbled and fell down. Autopsy confirmed double lung lol

Suppressor made it hard to determine where shot came from.


I wouldn’t have thought they could do it after a lung shot otherwise

I use Lumenocks now too.

Dayom. Never seen that.

All i TRY to do is lung shots too. Running i may be off a bit.

Huge buck running away gets a Texas heart shot.

Alert bull elk standing behind a big tree trunk with other closer trees blocking a forward shot but i had a rest and a 300 Rum at the base of his tail put him down right there. He crawled a bit before getting another 180 gr Siccoro hit.

Jag

It’s hard to determine where a suppressed shot is coming from if your not beside the gun. I was surprised how hard it was

We have shot multiple deer now that ran to us, or the deer with it ran closer to us looking the wrong way after the shot.

Shot a coyote that I missed on first shot at 275. The second shot at 50 was when he stopped and looked back toward where he was previously looking to see the danger.

Just never seen a well shot deer stomp or blow before that

Me neither. They often run away from the last noise they heard though, whether the bullet hit the ground or something past them regardless of whether the bullet missed or went through them.

Im not going to call someone a liar for seeing something i havent without more knowledge of the reporter.

The first deer i got had the arrow pass straight down grazing the spine allowing air into the thoracic cavity. It kept feeding a good while before dying.

I trailed one doe a mile when the arrow clipped the back of one lung.

I cannot remember the last time I saw a deer double lunged with anything I loaded that had anything but red soup and the odd piece of lung in it's chest. Even a muzzle loader will destroy them.