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If the arrow went through both lungs and ended up in the guts, deer would be dead, hence you recovered it.
Perfect shot ends up in the guts
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Hey I was just wondering if anyone has experienced this or knows anything about it…I shot a whitetail buck this season with my bow, perfect broadside, and perfectly placed arrow. I watched the deer react to a gut shot so I waited the adequate time and long story short recovered the deer. My arrow entered at a perfect spot for a double lung shot. But the exit wound had the arrow sticking out, hanging on by the fletchings, and the broadhead was completely gone. It looked as the arrow ricochet off a rib bone and took a bad angle. Shooting rage hypodermic 2 blade expandable’s, 430 grain arrow, 70 pound Mathews vertix.
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Only deflection I personally seen was on a coc slick trick razor head.
It either was a deflection or you miss judged the angle of the deer .
It either was a deflection or you miss judged the angle of the deer .
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Deer react fast, sometimes so fast we have a hard time registering what happened in our brain. I shot a doe the other day that was nervous, I was 22' above the deer at 20 yards, the arrow struck in the spot I was aiming mid body tight behind front shoulder but the exit was at the top of the opposite shoulder, actually above the entrance. The deer dropped to load her leg muscles and leaned away from the sound of the bow so quickly a great shot became a marginal shot, the arrow did not deflect and turn up the deer changed the angle.
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Sometimes weird things happen.
My strangest hit to date was in 2003 on a broadside chunky young buck and have never had a remotely similar occurrence since.
I took a broadside shot into his lungs at mid body height with a nap shockwave tipped arrow but upon impact he unexpectedly dropped in his tracks, kicked in a circle with his front legs and then crawled over 20yds before expiring. Snapped the arrow off right at the insert when he dropped to the ground and the bh was later found lodged in the spine in such a way that you'd thought the deer was in a treestand and shot from underneath instead of the other way around.
Really wish I'd documented things more like I do now a days via pictures, but "hero" shots are mostly all we took back then. The blood in front of his shoulder in the 2nd pic is from his mouth and I didn't even get a pic showing the entrance area on his right side.
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My strangest hit to date was in 2003 on a broadside chunky young buck and have never had a remotely similar occurrence since.
I took a broadside shot into his lungs at mid body height with a nap shockwave tipped arrow but upon impact he unexpectedly dropped in his tracks, kicked in a circle with his front legs and then crawled over 20yds before expiring. Snapped the arrow off right at the insert when he dropped to the ground and the bh was later found lodged in the spine in such a way that you'd thought the deer was in a treestand and shot from underneath instead of the other way around.
Really wish I'd documented things more like I do now a days via pictures, but "hero" shots are mostly all we took back then. The blood in front of his shoulder in the 2nd pic is from his mouth and I didn't even get a pic showing the entrance area on his right side.
So the arrows was hanging by the fletchings and as the deer ran dragging the arrow which caused the broadhead to unscrew. Sounds like these braodheads better be glued on!
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You said it. "Rage." One of my two failures with a Rage was when it carwheeled off the shoulder of a a buck. When one blade opens before the other,there is a deflection. You found out first hand how bad that deflecdtion can be. Glad you were able to recover your deer. There will not be a third failure for me.
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Probably deflected off the primary lung….🤨
I had the same problem years ago. I was shooting 400 spine carbons out of a compound. 60 lb bow
skinny carbons, with expandable and muzzy type broad heads, around 500 grains total weight
I was hunting an area with a lot of deer, and was taking 5-7 a year off the property
quite often a perfect broadside shot would exit funny, out the brisket, out the guts.
I finally figured out that it was the arrow deflection after hitting a rib square. if the arrow went in
between the ribs, the arrow would exit the other side in line.
if I hit a rib square. I believe the carbon arrow would flex at the hit, and when it straightened out
would go anywhere it wanted too, exiting funny, not in line with the shot
so I switched back to aluminum, and found over the next 20+ deer I killed that all shots went completely thru at the angle of the shot.
helped quite a bit with quicker recoveries and better tracking
skinny carbons, with expandable and muzzy type broad heads, around 500 grains total weight
I was hunting an area with a lot of deer, and was taking 5-7 a year off the property
quite often a perfect broadside shot would exit funny, out the brisket, out the guts.
I finally figured out that it was the arrow deflection after hitting a rib square. if the arrow went in
between the ribs, the arrow would exit the other side in line.
if I hit a rib square. I believe the carbon arrow would flex at the hit, and when it straightened out
would go anywhere it wanted too, exiting funny, not in line with the shot
so I switched back to aluminum, and found over the next 20+ deer I killed that all shots went completely thru at the angle of the shot.
helped quite a bit with quicker recoveries and better tracking
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I shot a doe a couple years ago with a similar confusing arrow path. At the shot, she was more or less broadside at about 25 yards, and I guess pretty alert and high strung. Only thing I can figure is at the shot, she loaded her legs(ducked) and started to spin. The arrow passed through, but instead of being buried in the dirt like normal, it was laying on top of the ground perpendicular to the angle of the shot. Pics of entrance and exit. Weird stuff happens
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Broadhead was gone from the moment I saw it sticking out of the exit woundSo the arrows was hanging by the fletchings and as the deer ran dragging the arrow which caused the broadhead to unscrew. Sounds like these braodheads better be glued on!
That's exactly what I was thinking. That primary lung is pretty tuff and you can have a hard time making it through it sometimes, especially with a flapper
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is it possible your arrow easily passed through the secondary lung and deflected off of the much harder primary lung? luckily it deflected into the guts rather than the primary void
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I hit a big doe straight broadside once.....entrance hole was maybe 3 inches behind the shoulder.....arrow exited out her front right at the base of her throat. 3 blade fixed broad head.....arrow was intact. How does an arrow make a 90 degree turn inside a deer's body and not break? I know.....maybe she wheeled away from me at the shot but....that is not how I saw it. Go figure.
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100%. Many times what we think we see is not completely accurate, wonder if this deer was actually quartering to enough to make it seem like broadside.
Weird stuff definitely happens. When i walked up on the buck I shot this year it looked like I shot its legs to death. The shot looked good and I heard him go down 40 yards away, but the entrance wound was in the near side leg and the exit wound was in the off side armpit. When I gutted him I found I had centered both lungs. He must had reacted a lot more to the shot than I thought he did.
Glad you found him.
Glad you found him.
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That happened to me many years. I thought my shot was perfect. The deer didn’t react like he realized he was shot. One jump and then just stood there until it wobbled and fell over dead. The broad head seemed to deflect off a rib and then back through the guts. Yuck.
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I had this exact same thing happen to me several years ago. Wish I had a video of it because, as you said, it took a while to process what exactly happened. The only difference was the deer I shot didn't seem to be nervous at all. She was fast though!
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