Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I won't get into the theories, here.....I'll just give you a scenario. I've only butchered 19 deer in my day.....so I can only go on my limited experiences.

Is it possible to shoot a deer through BOTH backstraps and not down the animal (via a spine shot). I mean.....have that animal leave your set like it's fine.

Knowing what I have experienced about carving the backstraps out of the backbone.....I say "NO".

What say ye experts?

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I agree.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I would say that in exactly the right and freekish circumstances, yes it could be done. With that said I would say 97.376% of the time I would agree with you. ;) Never say never! ;)

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

The no zone is not through the back straps. The no zone is below the spine, but above the vitals. The no zone does exist, and most hunters will hit it some time in their career.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I don't believe that area just mentioned exists. I believe many hunters hit over the spine and don't know it.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Agreed or they make worse shots then mentioned. Making the deer a much harder recovery. They blame the void, cuz it can't be just a bad shot.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Just so I understand you......the arrow goes through one backstrap......through the spine....and through the other backstrap.....and the deer walks away, seemingly unscathed?

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Not sure, but it appear justbelow the orgin of the back straps and just behind the shoulder. I process my own deer as well, and a few years back I sent an arrow at a deer that hit a branch and slipped just below the back straps. My arrow had blood on it, but not much. I couldnt blood trail the deer, and gave up after the day had ended. A month later, I down a doe in the same area, and when I was processing it, I noticed two spots on the deer, just below the back straps, and right behind the shoulder blade. It had been the deer I had shot earlier. It had closed up nicely and the deer seem to have suffered no ill effects.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

If you sever the spine it will drop. I beleive it is possible to catch the area desribed with no fatal damage.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I have heard of the arrow going above the lungs and below the spine before which they call a grease shot. But Im sure you would down a deer if you hit the back strap.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

A few years back i hit a buck right behind the shoulder, but high. I waited 45 min. before tracking, and never recovered the deer.

Side Topic: Do you feel that a deer can survive a one lung hit. If so, that would also be another reason why some deer are not recovered from high hits. Just a thought.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I believe if your hunting out of a treestand with the angle down its hard not to clip a vital. There is a dead area there.I butcher all my animals and make all my meats myself. I would say if you hit this(dead area)you would have to have a straight on shot from the ground. Ive seen deer butchered already with wounds covered over on there chest just below the spine with broken blades stuck into the ribs. And I also seen deer butchered with a complete broadhead stuck next to the spine! Hope this helps you understand a little.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I believe it could be possible, under highly unlikely circumstances, to cut both backstraps without severing the spine. Not cut them seriously, but possibly a light cut. Either over or below the spine, with the arrow rotated correctly where just the blade of the broadhead passes between the vertebrae, but not deep enough to sever the spinal cord. It would be a matter of fractions of an inch, if indeed it were possible.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

This "no mans land" or "void area" does NOT exist. HOWEVER, when shooting a whitetail with a broadhead, it is possible to hit the lungs without calapsing them or causing enough hemorage to kill the animal and yes, it will survive. I wouldn't have believed this until I read "Tracking Dogs for finding Wounded Game" by John Jeanenne. They did autopsys on a controlled hunt from an island in NY and found broadhead scared lung tissue. (Pictures in book).

When hitting the lungs, the upper back lobes of the lungs have less blood vessels as the lobes low and forward on the deer. You can possibly send an arrow through these upper lobes without major injury to the animal. Remember, broadheads kill by hemoraging.

If you shoot a deer and pass high under the spine without damaging the spine YOU WILL still catch the upper lobes of the lungs, possibly without mortal damage. You cannot pass under the spine and not hit some lung specifically from a treestand. You will catch the opposite lung, think abou it. And yes, it is possible for a deer to survive on one lung, humans do it all a the time and I think deer are tougher. If disease or infections don't set in, deer can survive tremendous odds.

First off, Read or Reread the Recovery thread pinned at the top of the page. Under your circumstance I highly think you pushed the deer regardless if it survived or not.


I LOVE IT...I'm watching Deer and Deer Hunter and they are talking about this very subject right now and say too THERE IS NO BLACK HOLE, NO VOID, NO NO MANS LAND....IT DOES NOT EXIST.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

As long as nothing else was hit then yes, some will recover.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Now, you can shoot behind the lungs and in the upper large intestines, it's called a slot shot....you are still catching the intestines which will kill the animal, probably 8 hours later. You may be high and too far back.

It is also possible to go high above the lungs but forward of the lungs, high through the shoulders and if you don't catch any major arteries, you could only flesh wound the animal.

Knowing your deer's anatomy prior to going to the field is of the utmost importance and using the tips in the Recovery thread as well as those who post to it might just make or break a recovery. Good luck guys and girls.


NO VOID area!

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

No i was just watching Deer and Deer hunting and they said u have a better chance of getting stuck by lighnting. An examination of the deers body once it is dead is useless because the lings expand up to 3 times the size filling up the void zone. This is what Deer and Deer Hunting said I dont know what to think so i posted this.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I just saw this topic on an episode of Deer and Deer Hunting, they said "there is no black area" also they explained when you cut open a deer and see the space between the lungs and spine is because the lungs are deflated, when the deer is alive the lungs expand almost 3xs their size. Also something that i thought was interesting is that the inside of the deer's chest cavity is pressurized so if something punctures it and causes the chest to depressurize the deer will eventually die.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Yes but the lung membranes are attached to the ribcage inner wall. So...whether or not the lung was inflated or deflated would have no bearing on whether or not you hit lung tissue (membrane).

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

lol jim, i guess you saw the same episode but you beat me to the punch:D

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Most of the time, I believe that more then just a lungwould be hit. It would be very to extremely hard to identify just a single lung hit. When in doubt I agree that it is better to wait. However, if a single lung hit is identified, it would be better not to wait long periods before tracking it. As John Trout has mentioned though, he'd rather go after an intestine hit deer then a single lung only hit deer. Recoveries are very tough and total recoveries are not out of the question.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I’ve seen 3 old wounds on deer that lead me to believe ANYTHING is possible.
1st wound- doe shot with an arrow, completely healed over from previous year. Hole thru 1 scapula, under spine, chunk taken out of other scapula. Most puzzling thing I have ever seen in my life.
2nd wound- buck shot with arrow, wound less than a week old, not completely healed over. Entered just in front of last rib, just under spine, cut the inner loins, exited one more rib forward. Noticed inner loins were “cut” during gutting but could not tell buck had been shot until skinning it.
3rd wound- Doe shot with gun. About mid-way between last rib and front of rear leg, above spine. Hole completely thru, breaking the little top ridge off of a vertebrae. Wound was a little nasty, and oozing white gunk. Whatever bullet they used went thru leaving a rather large hole, but failed to break spine somehow? I bet the deer had to have dropped and got back up.

Those are my observations on deer I have butchered.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Here is the picture, study it well. The no man's land exists but NOT in the deer's chest cavity. The lungs fill the entire thoracic cavity. Before someone jumps in and says but I dressed a deer and there was a bunch of space around the lungs............ Yes there was and always will be. The lungs work in a negative pressure environment, atmospheric pressure in the chest is lower than that outside. Take away negative pressure and the lungs immediately collapse and will not reinflate, hence the term collapsed lung. As soon as you enter the chest via the diaphragm or though the chest wall they deflate and appear much smaller than in a live scenario. The only way to see the lungs in their natural state is with and ultrasound or CT scan. There is no space between them and the chest wall.

To answer the original question, you can absolutely hit a deer through both backstraps and not kill it, knock it down or even hurt it badly. I would guess about 99% of the shots where people say I shot right under the spine and above the lungs actually was above the spine and through the backstrap. How this happens, look at the picture above, the blue line denotes the path of the spinal cord, it travel within the vertebral body in the vertebral canal, totally encased in bone. Each vertebrae has what is called a dorsal spinous process, these are the bones you see sticking up along the top of the spine in the picture. In the cervical and lumbar spine these are very short. In the thoracic spine they are long, 6-8 inches in a mature buck. The backstraps, composed of the epaxial muscle group attatch to these processes. In the picture, essentiall everything above the blue line (spine) is backstrap and dorsal spinous process, you can even see the top of the shoulder blade overlies this area. If you hit a deer high near the shoulder you will go through both backstraps, maybe or maybe not break a dorsal spinous process and exit with the deer basically unharmed. Make sense?

For you guys that dress your own, this fall after you remove the front legs and take off the backstraps take a look at these bones sticking up off of the indiviual vertebrae. You will see what I'm talking about. Take a pair of pliers and break a couple off, it won't open up the vertebral canal and you won't be able to see the spinal cord.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Nicely done mez, if you don't mind I'd like to add that post to the Recovery thread.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

There was a huge thread on the bowsite a Veternarian posted some very good information including diagrams and pictures showing there is no No man's land. You can go there and do a search.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I've killed quite a few deer with a bow... And I have shot a deer once and seen the arrow hit the deer just below the spine... The deer jumped and walked off... I watched this deer walk across a creek then go up a steep mountain... I watched her just walk off as if nothing happened... She paused and looked around a few times and just walked off with the other deer that she was with... I keep her in view for about 150 yards before she faded off in the woods... I got out of the stand and found my arrow... The arrow had a VERY light film of blood almost unnoticeable... There was a film of fatty looking stuff on the shaft with some hair...


So yes I do belive there is a area on the deer that you could call the no mans land shot...

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Mez:

WOW. Good stuff. Thanks!

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

After all these years Now I know,THANKS MEZ! Man that was just good!!! But like Longbread said I to have seen them hit in this area with a fatty film and very little blood.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Here is a link from another forum. Not sure if that's allowed or not but I'll try.
I see no way to hit below the spine and not take out the lungs. I honestly believe when looking at these pictures, it's just a bad shot and the hunter doesn't realize where the arrow is going.

http://forums.mathewsinc.com/viewtopic.php?t=21358

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Thanks Pops, I have that link in the recovery thread for the pictures as well.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Mez, saw your post after mine. Nice picture and great explanation.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Some humans have this phenomena also its a voidlocated high and between the ears. [:o]

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Where between the eye and the brain.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I might believe that this exists but I dont belive that you can shoot into this area and not hit something. You are talking about an almost 3" cutting diameter. No way. It might be there and I could see something passing through and not hitting anything but just sliding along through there. But the circumstances would have to be perfect. Like shooting a field tip and accomplishing this NO ZONE but nothing else.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I've never hit it. I can't remember the last deerI shotthat didn't fall within sight with a pass thru. Did anybody know there was a "Recovery Thread"????

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I know.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Now I can add another geek to the list... Dude don't you have a hard drive that needs backing up

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Do you guys think that instead of stating that you hit a “void”, do you think the statement of “You can hit a deer in what would presumably be a vital area, and still have that deer somehow live” be more accurate?

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

Jeff, I would like to answer no to the question. However I took a buck with a 3 blade broad head stuck in the spine. Bone had even grown over the broad head. Now I understand you asked about if the arrow went through both backs straps and through the spine. I still think this was a very rare instance, but never the less it happened.

RE: Help me understand the No man's land"
 

I don't mind at all.