rcd567

No Man's land is ABOVE the spine and between the vertibre. I've shot a doe here before and swore I'd hit her in the chest cavity. I later found that the doe had dropped at the shot and went thru the back straps. I trailed this deer a long ways with lots of blood which finally disappeared. I shot the doe later which varified this.

BTW, had a complete pass through on the doe and with the arrow dripping with blood was even more sure of my chest shot. (Shows how much I know)

moose1915

i posted this last year, but here it is again to show how tough deer are.

short version-- guy 1 shoots deer, sttep angle, deer was licking its back. THWACK. deer drops in tracks. guy 1 climbs down, deer jumps up and he notices arrow sticking out of skull . he is upset but it was honest mistake. no blood. no deer.

3 weeks later, guy 2 shoots a deer approx 6 miles away from guy1 spot...it was running a doe at the time. it was his first deer, brings it to my shop to have it mounted. thats when i discovered this.......

i called guy1, and he came up and confirmed it was the broadhead he uses. the deer seemed fine according to guy2, and on the inside of the skull the brain was allready healed and GROWN AWAy from the broad head. the broadhead was completely encased in a hard, brown material. it had to be cut away to see the blades. on the outside it was completely healed over, looked like a bald spot.

this is no bs, i have the skull hanging on the wall of my bar.

so, while this isnt related to the no mans land, it is just to illustrate that deer are TOUGH!

moose1915

inside

Antler Eater

Put any label you want on it, strange things can and do happen.

I have watched more than one deer with an arrow sticking out both sides of the chest cavity area. I would say at least one of them for sure was below the spine, simply because I watched this particular buck with a doe for about 45 minutes from about 70 or 80 yards with binos out in a crp field (yes, unfortunately I am the one that put the arrow there).

Look, if a man can survive being stabbed in the top of his head, and carrying around a butcher knife in his brain for part of the day, what can a deer do? I saw a woman last night on TV that had a 2x4 (or something of that nature), that a tornado jammed through her right ear, through her jaw, and finally passed completely through her neck. It was sticking out both sides of her. She survived.

It was recently posted on here again, a picture of a broadhead and broken arrow that had fused itself to the inside of the ribcage of a deer. I wouldn't necessarily consider that "no mans land" but it does show what can happen on occasion.

So many times people form opinions of the impossibility of "no mans land" because in the 25 or so deer they have killed with a bow, even with a few high hits, nothing unexpected has ever happened. Therefore, the picture to the link posted above is positively above reproach. Certainly taking 25 or so deer with a bow is a respectable number but in the scheme of things, a harvest number of 25 is hardly a blip on the the screen.

It is true that many times the "hit" is not in the spot we thought it was. However, it is also true that there is real evidence to show an animal can survive a high hit UNDER the spine. Obviously the odds are against this happening, but on rare occasions, it can and does.

Gryan

I am not guessing where I or the other guy hit the deer. I looked at the physical evidence and saw healed wounds on both the outside and the inside that the arrow passed through the ribcage.

Hey if we want to change this to the how tough deer are post, that same unlucky seven pointer I shot with the arrow wound was punctured through the neck by what might have been an antler. Check it out.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...n/IMG_1260.jpg

This went in on one side of the neck on the bottom near the throat and out the top. It wasn't just under the skin either. Damn they are tough!!!! I'd have been laying someplace in a ball whining about the pain! He was looking for love, I think.

He dodged an arrow through the body and an antler through the neck then he threw himself on my arrow. What an unlucky buck!

Greg

Mathewsboy

Well, I Guess we'll leave it with the old saying, "Stranger Things have Happened"..

I know if I ever was shot with a broadhead tipped arrow somewhere in my body..I most likely wouldnt be moving... THEY ARE TOUGH ANIMALS...

Buckfevr

I know that I spined a doe with a Snyper, the Snyper went underneath the spine and one of the blades clipped the spine. She dropped right on the spot. I got down out of stand and walked over to her and finished her. There was a gaping hole below the spine and her lungs where completely unaffected. She was bleating and raising her head and breathing just fine, she just couldn't move. I also think that these hits are very rare. And occur only a fraction of the time that they are reffered to as a no mans land hit. Most of the times it is a poor blood trai/tracking skillsl or bad hit that is rationalized away by the hunter. I also think that the area just behind the diaphram, above and behind the liver, just below the spine is another area, where they're not going to die. And this is a spot where on a smaller animal it might look like a vital hit, but it is further back than is realized.

I think double lung is the best in terms of a quick kill, second would be single lung/liver. But really I think that close point blank shots is what really kills the quickest.