Barry, I hope you did not take my comment as people not understanding the deers anatomy to be directly at you, it was a general statement. As I said in my first post I think it can happen, but is rare and IMO the deer has to be on a exhale breath for this to happen. The rib cage serves only one purpose and that is to hold the lungs and heart. When fully inflated the lungs fill the cage entirely and when exhaling they can create a small area that could make a spot for a arrow. But I think this has to be a perfect shot type of thing. If it was easy to do then it would be more of a fact and hunters would be schooled on it and how to avoid it. But since it does not happen that much because of the low chances of it happening the is not a need for the education on it. What I meant by Happy Pappys pic is that to me that pic shows a shot above the spine. The area directly below that arrow is in one of the lowest dips in the spine and that pic looks like it is above the spine to me. I feel that alot of guys hit real high on deer and then think it is this dead zone when in reality they shot the back straps above the spine never even coming close to the lungs. Could a arrow skirt the top of the cage and nick the lungs, as said before by me, yes, but I think it happens alot less then people think.

But this all comes down to knowing your equipment and your game. I can say proudly that I have not wounded deer like that and not found them. I keep my shots close and I know where every arrow is going to go before it is released. I have missed only four times in the past when I first started hunting, once in a freezing rain hunt, CB was covered in ice, to excited to think about cleaning it off before shot. Oncewhen I hunted indown pouring rain, arrows stuck in dirt in front of deer, third was when hunting in hard winds and arrow missed cleanly, and once when I had a experience with the thumb on the rail! These where situations that I was not familiar with and learned from them. I have been lucky to not stick deer and not find. I think if more people took better shots these type of situations would never happen. And again this is a in general statement not aimed at any one ion this thread, but practice is thekey!