Last gun season, my good buddy took a shot at a monster buck, and it fell to the ground and started thrashing and kicking, but then it got up and ran off with no blood trail....they looked for hours but found nothing. Does anybody have any idea what maight have happened, because it still baffles us.

Two seasons ago my son had a big 8 point come through and he shot it with a .300 Mag. At the sound of the gun it dropped. He went over and touched it on the eye just because you should and it blinked! He shot it through the neck and upon skinning it we found his first shot had just grazed the skull between the antlers hitting the base of one. I've seen other times when a graze on the head puts them down kicking but when they recover there's no sign at all. Just a thought!

My best guess was that he hit it in the antlers. He was using a 20 gauge slug gun.

The shock of the bullet impact probably knocked him down. Temporary nerve damage[&:]. There is going to be very little or no blood trail if avital organ or artery was not hit. If no vitals were hit, then the buck should survive no problem. The only other problem would be if an infection would set in. Even then, the deer can still survive. Deer are very hardy animals and can survive after being severely wounded.

We think we saw him a couple weeks later alive and well. He had a very wide spread and i did get some video of a large buck at night (in my youtube link at the bottom of the page), but, since we live in a great deer area, its hard to tell alot of the bucks apart.

If you hit one too high in the shoulder, it will will strike the animal inthe vertebrae, which puts the animal in a temporary shock. Then it will recover and be gone with little sign of any kind of hit. If you look at a deer skeleon you will notice wher ethe shoulders are the back bone dips down, however the vertebrae are longer there ans stick up even with the rest of the backbone. If hit it will just shock the spinal cord temporarily dropping the animal.

probably a shoulder shot that didnt shoot through both shoulders

Same thing kind of happened to me. I shot at a doe and it fell, rolled over a few times, and got up and ran off. My dad and I checked where the deer dropped and just found a handful of hair. We followed its tracks for about 100 yards and found nothing else. We figured that i just grazed part of him.

either a shoulder shot or an antler shot

Was he aiming for the head?If so that is very unethical,and has to be the most unethical shot a hunter can take.Do the animal your hunting a favor and don't aim for a head shot.Sure it will drop them dead but if your off just an inch or two,your gonna shoot the jawbone off and it will starve to death.