They float. Two years ago I was part of a deer"drive" and we pushed a hillside on the side of a lake. Kicked out a big buck and my buddy shot him where he then had nowhere to run because there was about ten of us "surrounding" him,so the buck dove into the lake and swam about fifty yards out untill he died and just floated there with his huge rack sticking out of the water. We were very lucky because we had happened to see 2 hunters who were on their boat watching the hillsides where the bucks like to hide. One of most interesting and exciting hunts so far!