Very interesting picture scribe. I never thought I would have seen it with my own eyes. But I do remember hearing a couple hunters over the years come in to have their deer processed by us and telling us that their deer spilled no blood. And I guess the proof is in the picture.

I myself have had an experience where the exact opposite happened to me. I shot a doe broadside at about 63 yards. She bounded straight up in the air, came down and tumbled all over herself doing what looked to be a somersault. She then got up and bolted. I could see the blood dumping out of her from behind the shoulder until she ran into some thick brush and I heard her crash.

My father came over and we waited about 30 minutes to follow the trail. In my mind, I thought that I had made a great hit on her. We walked to the spot where she was standing when I shot her. There was blood everywhere, even a good size spot of blood on an ash tree behind her. We followed the blood into the thicket. It was a heavy trail, blood was heavy on the ground, and all over the trees. We where inside the brush about 60 yards and all of a sudden we hear her get up and go crashing further into the brush. We get to the spot where she was laying down and there was massive amounts of blood in the bed.

My father thought it would be best to return home, have lunch and come back out at around 2:30 in the afternoon and give her about 5 and a half hours to lay down and die. We went home, ate lunch, and came back out where we left off. The trail was very easy to follow and we continued on for about 500 yards or more crossing 2 properties until we kicked her up from bedding again. We waited another 20 minutes and my dad decided that we push her and try to back track on her once we figured out how she was going to pattern.

We played the game and she led us in circles twice for about 500 yards each time. On the 3rd time around, my father was going to have me sit overlooking a spot she circled past twice while we were tailing her. I sat and waited for my dad to give chase and follow her trail once again and lead her to me. To no avail, she crossed back and went in a totally different direction about 100 yards before she would have got to me.

We followed her for about another 500 yards going in the opposite direction until she crossed a property line that we had no permission being on. We stood there at the fence line staring into the pines that she would have headed for. No more than 2 minutes went by and we heard 2 shots. Boom-Boom! We were sure that it was her.

I never would have thought that a deer could dump so much blood, over so many hours and over such great distances and still be alive. Like you said.....Nothing can ever be 100% commonplace.