Have you ever shot an animal that had a previous wound?

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Founder Since 1999
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Some of you have got to have some good stories and maybe photos on this topic.....right? Have you ever taken an animal and discovered it had already been shot by someone else?

My wife shot a bull a couple years ago that had a broadhead in it. I think it was a wound from earlier that year.
 
Cut this out of the backstrap of an archery bull I took a few years ago. No indications at all of the wound. Hit it with a knife while I was cutting and wrapping.
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yes my buddie drew a nevada unit 131 early rifle deer tag in 2007. The first day of hunting he killed a real nice heavy horned 4 pt. When we got back to camp we hung and started skinning his buck. When we got to the hind quarter i noticed a large bump in the meat so i exposed it with my knife and found a capsule pocket with a old muzzy broadhead in it. The sore had healed completely with no infection or around it. It looked like to me it was a year old and this buck had been hit the year previous.
 
I have shot a couple whitetails with .22 shells under the skin.
I guess the poachers thought they could kill one with a rimfire, or just stupid people shooting at whatever they saw,
 
When I was a kid my uncle killed a cow elk with 2 oxidized bullets in her, one in the front shoulder one in the hind. Both wounds completely healed.

I killed a whitetail doe with a complete passthrough of the front foreleg(shank). Also completely healed.

Tough animals.
 
First deer my son took. It had been hit in the front left leg some time earlier in the season. He took this buck on the second to last day of the two week season. Wound was severely infected and nasty. We ditched the entire front leg.
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I have taken two bulls with wounds. I was up by Lake City CO in a horrible snow storm. About 30 minutes after shooting light a few cows came walking across the small clearing I was setting on followed by three bulls. I shot a rag horn and the other two just walked off. When I dressed my bull out there was a fresh bullet wound just in front of the front quarter. Waited to load the bull but no one showed up after an hour.

I was hunting on Willow Creek on West Divide Creek. About an hour after shooting light a big 5 point came walking into the clearing. He was acting normal. I shot him in the neck and down he went. In about 30 minutes this guy comes walking up and says" well glad you got my elk". I wasn't very nice but asked him what he was talking about. He says " I shot him about an hour ago and have been trailing him since". I had just gutted it and had found no wounds. I ask him where he had hit and from what side. He said the left side of the elk but wasn't sure where. My shot was from the right side in the neck. We got to looking and found a wound just above the knee on the left rear leg. In no way was this a fatal shot and the elk was not limping. Had a tense discussion but he left without "his elk". I hate confrontation but he was wrong. If it had been a serious wound I would have given him the elk and hauled it out for him.
 
Quite a few years ago, my brother and I were bowhunting in November on the Wasatch Front and came upon a pretty nice 4 point buck laying in the snow with a bunch of blood all over the place. We looked him over to see what killed him and he had severe gore wounds all over his body from fighting with another buck. He was still warm when we got to him, so must have died just before.

Didn't shoot him but he definitely had some previous wounds :oops:
 
I have three animals over the years that had previous wounds. One Colorado buck that had a old broken rear leg from a muzzleloader bullet. The Leg bone had healed completely and the bone mass was the size of a softball. No physical indicators prior to the shot and I only noticed it when I was skinning the hind leg. Off side antler was adnormal as the theory goes with wounds and antler growth. One archery deer I killed that had been hit low in one hind quarter by another archer (non fatal) no physical indication of the hit from the buck before I killed it. Small altercation a short time after I killed the buck. One archery antelope with another archery wound that was probably a week old in the neck area. No physical indication he had been hit and he actually jumped a fence just prior to me killing him. Wound had infection and maggots in it.

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Quite a few years ago, my brother and I were bowhunting in November on the Wasatch Front and came upon a pretty nice 4 point buck laying in the snow with a bunch of blood all over the place. We looked him over to see what killed him and he had severe gore wounds all over his body from fighting with another buck. He was still warm when we got to him, so must have died just before.

Didn't shoot him but he definitely had some previous wounds :oops:
I watched two mule deer bucks fight one time. I can't believe they both didn't die. Really brutal. mtmuley
 
I watched two mule deer bucks fight one time. I can't believe they both didn't die. Really brutal. mtmuley
Kind of amazing more don't die from the rut and fighting. The dead buck we found must have been in a pretty intense and very brutal fight - he had multiple gore wounds into his chest cavity and all over his hind quarters and other parts of his body.
 
I shot at a running blacktail buck and found blood one year. I went back to the cabin and got a bunch of guys and a dog and went back to look. The blood quit, it got dark, and the dog even gave up. We figured a flesh wound only. I was hunting the same spot a couple weeks later and found the same buck and dumped him. He had a wound on him where I just clipped the back ham that was nasty looking but healing up. Nice shooting, Eel.
 
My dad shot a 175 mule deer in Wyo range about 15 years ago. That deer had deep scratch wounds on both haunches. The local G&F guy was certain it was a cougar- and was pretty shocked that the deer escaped- claiming that if a cougar gets his claws on one- it's almost always over.
 
I have gone moose hunting in Northern BC several times with an excellent outfitter. There have been 3-4 of us each trip. About 50% of the bulls we have taken have had serious wounds from fighting. Once we were setting on a look out knob and watched a bull with three cows up a drainage over a mile away. From our right we see a very nice bull come walking up the drainage about a mile from the others. He walked right up to them and all ***l broke out. There was willow brush clumps flying in the air.They fought savagely for about 10-15 minutes and the new comer won. We went back the next day and the outfitter called the victor from about a mile right up to my buddy. If you have any interest in seeing photos of those big bulls PM me.
 
2 falls ago in WY on elk hunt. I was down in a hole looking for elk. When out on a more main road, 2 ATVs pulled up and let off like WW2. Then it got quiet for 20 minutes and further away again a second WWII opened up. When I was leaving that area that afternoon in the sage 80 yards from the 2 track I was on and like 100 yards from the main road where the shooting started I see a calf elk. In the sage head up, her lower jaw was blown off and one of her front legs. The ATVs were flock shooting and never went to look. I finished her off and put my tag on her, I reported to the area game and fish officer.

I have taken 3 cow elk over the years out of mercy killings that have had the lower jaw blown off or in half… Really sad in the winter when they can eat anything at all.

2 other times where I have found dead elk after a flock shooting instance.

Those issues aside, I had an archery elk that had a hole clear through his neck. It appeared gored by another bull…

Also my sons whitetail had his ear partially ripped off in a fight just before we shot it, had blood all up and down his side….

My archery bull from WY was shot in the forehead the year before by an archery hunter breaking his skull plate. I killed the bull a year later less than 200 yards from where the guy the year before shot the bull… there are still metal flakes in the wound…

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Wife killed a bull several years ago that had about an 8 in piece of broken aluminum arrow shaft lodged through his spine. It was an older wound as it was totally incased in scar tissue and nasty infection. I killed a 300 inch 5 point about a quarter mile from her bull that had a huge gore wound running up and and through his front shoulder. It was really infected and was probably the worst smell that I've ever dealt with.
Also I shot a desert sheep that had a small caliber bullet hole through his one horn. I would guess it was an attempted poaching.
 
I forgot about one other deer that I killed in Idaho years ago. It look like a shoulder hit from earlier in the rifle hunt that did not penetrate. There was about a soccer ball size infected hairless wound on the hit shoulder. I glassed up the buck and observed the injury on the buck. After watching the buck, I decided I did not want him to figure out a worse way to die besides my bullet. I punched my tag on a smaller buck than I would have due to the situation but it felt right to me in the situation I was in that day. Expensive NR tag for a mercy kill. I must be good at finding the wounded animals with a total of four now.
 
I’ve had two mule deer in NV. The first one was a 4x4 around Austin back around 1998. The buck had a broad head stuck right below his nose and knocked out a couple teeth. His face looked nasty. Another small 4x4 near Elko I shot two years ago had a small wound in his muzzle that appeared to have been made from a small (.22 ?) caliber.
 
Shot a 10-point whitetail several years ago that had a 50 Cal muzzleloader bullet in the neck, a 30 Cal rifle bullet in the hind quarter and some number 5 bird shot in the backstraps and front shoulder-all healed.
Some of our deer have a tough life.
 
Shot a javelina a once that had a broad head completely buried in it’s nose. Seems like someone shot him facing head on and hit him squarely in the nose. With the rooting habits of javelina I am guessing it caused quite a bit of aggravation!
 
Shot a this buck in 2021 that had this broadhead under shoulder.



Didn't penetrate the ribcage and it had formed a big ol' hard mass on the underside of the shoulder blade bone where it is normally smooth.

Homeboy had been shot the year before and had been rolling like it was no big thing.

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I shot a late season muzzleloader buck many years back that had a crossbow bolt stuck in his back , just under the skin. Must have tried the Texas heart shot …… a little high ! Also had a neighbor take a huge whitetail that was wearing part of my power belt bullet in what used to be his brow tine ! Never forget that shot , thought he was dead so I never reloaded. After the post shot celebration we walked up to the buck, he got up and took off ! Must have been knocked out cold for a few minutes was all ……… whoops !
 
Shot a this buck in 2021 that had this broadhead under shoulder.

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Didn't penetrate the ribcage and it had formed a big ol' hard mass on the underside of the shoulder blade bone where it is normally smooth.

Homeboy had been shot the year before and had been rolling like it was no big thing.

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Man, I probably would have cut myself on that puppy!
 
So you're just assuming it was an arrow? Could it have been from one of the previous rifle or muzzy hunts? Doesn't look like any kind of arrow wound I've seen.
Well, since the guy who stuck it contacted us with pictures of it after he hit it.....
He congratulated us on getting it finished so he could ease his mind after 3 months, so I'ts safe say there wasn't any "assumptions" (although you were obviously hoping otherwise) on what happened.

Having said that, 3 months leaves a lot of time for insects, birds maggots, etc, etc to drastically change a wound.

No argument here Wiffy, move along ?
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Years ago I got a big buck that had aluminum arrow shaft and broadhead in his backstrap, all healed over. There's been a few others, but last year my boy took a bull with a funky side. He had a bullet in his neck on the opposite side. All healed over...
 
Well, since the guy who stuck it contacted us with pictures of it after he hit it.....
He congratulated us on getting it finished so he could ease his mind after 3 months, so I'ts safe say there wasn't any "assumptions" (although you were obviously hoping otherwise) on what happened.

Having said that, 3 months leaves a lot of time for insects, birds maggots, etc, etc to drastically change a wound.

No argument here Wiffy, move along ?
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Dang haha! Ok congrats on a great bull!
 
Shot A Tom In 1991! (Not a Turkey!)

Somebody had Been Close Enough To Him At Some Time To Put a Few #2 Lead Pellets from a ScatterGun just barely Through The Hide!

Nobody Here Local Would Admit To It! (Imagine That!)

And He Didn't Die Of Previous Lead Poisoning!
 
I shot a whitetail during gun season that had an arrow sticking right out of it’s forehead. The coolest one I’ve seen was a whitetail doe. I shot her in the heart and when I was skinning her I found a 4 inch piece of trailer taillight between the hide and muscle. The deer must have run into someone’s trailer and survived the ordeal.
 
Every time I see this pic the size of that bear is still amazing.
Did you get the skull measured?
I measured it at 19 7/8” if I remember right. We thought he’d make B&C for sure, but he had a ton of meat on his head, and his skull was smaller than we expected. His head was the same size as my Montana bear I killed a few weeks before this one, that squared a foot smaller.
 
I measured it at 19 7/8” if I remember right. We thought he’d make B&C for sure, but he had a ton of meat on his head, and his skull was smaller than we expected. His head was the same size as my Montana bear I killed a few weeks before this one, that squared a foot smaller.
Idea on what he weighed?
 
I killed a big blacktail buck in the Trinity Alps in the mid 1990's. He had an arrow wound that had healed about 5th rib back. The scare had hair growing in it. It also had a recent cougar slash on his hind quarter that was healing.
 
I have had several over the years. The one that stands out is a whitetail buck. Looked just fine when I shot it. When I gutted it out I reached up in to get the lungs and got one lung and a hard mass. Had a couple of inches of arrow shaft and a broadhead in the chest cavity that had taken out one lung. Had to have happened at least a year ago as it was completely healed. Whitetails are tuff
 
No pics as it was just before cell phones and at night at a primitive camp.

I killed a roughly 200 pound boar hog with a 3 inch tusk broke off in the top of his shoulder. The skin had healed but the top of his shoulder and back strap was green, soft and smelled worse than it looked.
 
I was doing a euro an a nice buck and hit something orange with my knife just below the bridge of the nose. I peeled the skin back and could see what looked like plastic, it turned out to be fletching from an arrow stuck in the nasal cavity. After I boiled it out you could see the marks from a 3 blade broadhead passing through, the deer looked fine when shot.
 
I killed a nice buck with a bow that had a broadhead in its spine. Interesting, it was MY broadhead from 6 weeks earlier. During archery season I had hit this buck high and never found him or my arrow. Sorry, no pics of recovered broadhead. Attached is a picture of a hog I shot that had a snare tight around its snout. Didn’t notice it before I shot him. I like to think I did him a favor.

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In 2008 I shot a really nice Bull in Arizona. 45 yard shot, I felt like I could not have placed my arrow any better. He walked off, I kept glass on him for an hour until dark. Came back in the morning expecting to find him piled up. Nope, he was chasing cows and bugling with my arrow sticking out of him. Hunted him the last 2 days of the season. Found my arrow in one piece, had good penetration (Thunder Head 100g). He was doing fine when I left.
 
I can think of 3 animals that had wounds I have taken.
A mule deer buck with a looked like smaller caliber bullet hole in the low shoulder that stunk so bad walking up we didn't know what was up.
Took a pronghorn buck late season that literally had at least 5 bullet wounds, was really sad to see actually.
My 335 ish bull form a couple of years ago had a floppy shoulder and a would to his leg, we later found 2 other older healed bullet wounds too.

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I can think of 3 animals that had wounds I have taken.
A mule deer buck with a looked like smaller caliber bullet hole in the low shoulder that stunk so bad walking up we didn't know what was up.
Took a pronghorn buck late season that literally had at least 5 bullet wounds, was really sad to see actually.
My 335 ish bull form a couple of years ago had a floppy shoulder and a would to his leg, we later found 2 other older healed bullet wounds too.

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Holy sh!t! That's some horrible shooting by various folks, to say the least. Some people just suck.
 
I shot an old bull in the Madison Range in Montana that had a .308 caliber bullet at the base of his skull. It was completely healed and may have been there several years. I'm guessing it was a long shot that probably dropped him and before the hunter could get to him, he must have got up and escaped.
 
This not exactly the same... but years ago when I was a Ranger. I got a report of a deer that had apparently fallen on ice and could not get up. A small three point buck, pretty wasted away body-wise, all skin and bone. I dispatched him. This was in January, and season had ended in November. He'd been shot in hindquarter- I was surprised he'd survived so long!:cry:
 
Cut this out of the backstrap of an archery bull I took a few years ago. No indications at all of the wound. Hit it with a knife while I was cutting and wrapping.
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I have done the same thing with a buck I killed a few years back in southern Utah. There was a .22 bullet in his backstrap. Completely healed, and didn't notice until I was cutting it up. He had to only be an inch away from paralysis. The .22 bullet was completely intact though, never mushroomed at all.
 
In 2009 I hunted moose in Maine and dropped a nice bull just after he bred a cow at the edge of the woods on a farm. I called my buddy who lives there and he showed up to help me and said he had seen this bull in the past. Apparently, someone had dropped a bull three years earlier in this exact spot using my buddies 300 RUM with Triple Shock bullet. When they walked up to it, the bull jumped up and ran into the woods. The unlucky hunter thought the bull was dead and left the rifle in the truck!

When I went to pick up the meat from the local butcher, he handed me a 30 cal Triple Shock bullet he found near the spine just ahead of the hindquarter, encased in scar tissue.
 
I've shot plenty of animals with all manner of bullets and arrows healed up inside.

The worst was a cow elk my son killed that had hundreds of tiny lead shotgun pellets all through the meat. It was a total waste.

Please don't harass edible critters with shotguns and bird shot!
 
Back in the 1970s when California had lots of deer....
I hunted on a 6500 acre ranch that was loaded with blacktails. There were 20 members who paid $200/year to hunt and you could take two bucks. Guys started bringing in bucks that had chipped antlers. Nobody could figure out why until one rack had a .22 hole through the antler. Come to find out the ranch owner was shooting bucks in the antlers to try and educate the deer to make them harder to hunt. It didn't work very well, but he tried. :mad:
 
I have twice. I shot a wild hog that had a 3 blade Cabela’s lazer mag broadhead stuck in the shoulder blade. The outside of the hide was healed over completely with no evidence of a wound. Also while hunting Axis Deer on the island of Lanai. I shot a buck that had approximately 50 lead shot pellets (looked to be # 6 size) under the skin. Again, the deer showed no sign of being wounded in the way it acted before being shot and the skin was completely covered with no sign of a wound or scars.
 
I know I left a Bear Broadhead in a deer's shoulder blade many years ago, but I don't recall ever finding a previous human wound in any I've taken.
 
2022 deer. Someone had shot off his jaw on the previous rifle season.
Poor thing was dying a horrible death. He had extreme muscle atrophy.

I tried shooting him the first time we located him but his will to live was still strong. Took us a couple days to relocate him and put him out of his misery.

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2022 deer. Someone had shot off his jaw on the previous rifle season.
Poor thing was dying a horrible death. He had extreme muscle atrophy.

I tried shooting him the first time we located him but his will to live was still strong. Took us a couple days to relocate him and put him out of his misery.

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Hornyman
Can you shoot me a PM where this buck was killed? I friend of mine said he shot a big buck Colorado Muzzy season. Said he jumped him and his jaw was hanging. We spent several days looking for him, but never saw him again.
 
I shot a bobcat while rabbit hunting many years ago that was clear full of healed over bullet wounds. We got a deer once in an area crawling with mountain lions. It had a big chuck of meat and hide missing on one hind quarter. We got a small four point buck once with its lower jaw shot off about five minutes after daylight opening day. We got a big 2X4 in Colorado that had a gore wound in its rib cage. A good sized chunk of hide was pushed between two ribs into the chest cavity and it really stunk bad. A friend shot a big 4 point through the head with an arrow. It ran around with the arrow sticking out of both side of its head for a long time. It finally broke the arrow off on both sides leaving a piece of aluminum shaft through its head. It finally died when below zero weather hit that winter.
 
Several years ago, shot a bull that had been hit the week before during rifle season. He'd been hit in the hind quarter which had broken his leg up high.
He was a 320ish bull and not what I was looking to shoot. He was hobbling around so bad he could harldy travel at that point. I figured it was the best thing to do for him. Got him processed and hung in a tree and kept hunting with my daughter. She killed a bigger bull later that afternoon about 2 miles away.
Next day took 4 mules and got them both.
Easy decision since I'd killed plenty of bulls prior to him and easy to get out.
 
I Found A Dead Bull One Time That'd Put A Different Feeling In a Guy!

Somebody Had Shot the Bull With What Appeared To Be A Fairly Good Sized Weapon(Only Guessing!) at the First Joint Above The Front Hoof!

There Was Quite A Good Sized Hole in The Dirt Where He Had Flipped & Pawed It until It Separated Completely & that Piece Was Lying There A Couple of Feet From His dead Body!

I Felt Sorry For That Ole Boy!

Can You Imagine Pawing Until Part Of Your Leg Fell Off?
 
Yes, a few years back I arrowed a nice buck and sliced him along his jaw, came back a week later and killed him within 50 yards of where I shot at him the previous week. I’d seen him 3 years before in the same exact bed I drilled him in. It’s the buck in my avatar. Glad I got him, the shot on his jaw had broken his jaw and I didn’t know if I had even hit him the previous week. Thought I’d missed.
 
The bull that is in my profile picture had a bullet in his shoulder. I shot that bull about 6 years ago. When I saw him, he was walking just fine. But when I skinned him, I found a slug in his left shoulder. It was encapsulated in the muscle, but no infection around it. The weird part about this bull was that the left side of his antlers grew really strange. It grew more towards the center of his head and had some strange characteristics. He was missing his brow tine, but had a unicorn point, which was probably his original brow tine. He is also missing his third tine one the side.
 
I had a friend in the mid ‘80’s hunting somewhere in Colorado….he snuck over a ledge looking down on a sea of big sage brush…..just below him at about 200 yards was a 34” typical pointed straight away from him……he unloaded his gun on it and it never moved…..he reloaded and shot one more time and could see hair fly from the middle of it’s back….still never moved……he worked his way down to it and discovered it had been dead at least a week and was perfectly propped up in that thick sage brush…….

He tagged it and bragged for years about his Colorado monster….
 
Did He Say How It tasted?:D
I had a friend in the mid ‘80’s hunting somewhere in Colorado….he snuck over a ledge looking down on a sea of big sage brush…..just below him at about 200 yards was a 34” typical pointed straight away from him……he unloaded his gun on it and it never moved…..he reloaded and shot one more time and could see hair fly from the middle of it’s back….still never moved……he worked his way down to it and discovered it had been dead at least a week and was perfectly propped up in that thick sage brush…….

He tagged it and bragged for years about his Colorado monster….
 
About 10 years ago I was hunting in Wyoming on a leftover antelope buck tag. Not a lot of accessible public land on the unit, and I was having a hard time locating a buck on public. On the third day I spotted a buck walking along broadside at about 250 yards. A quick look through the binos showed him to be a decent buck. Good enough!
After the shot when I walked up on the buck, he was a little smaller than I had originally thought. I was a little disappointed until I noticed the wound on his throat. He had been previously shot through the throat, tearing open his trachea and esophagus. He would not have been able to eat or drink, and would have probably been eaten alive by coyotes when he got weak. My opinion of the buck instantly changed at that point. I felt like he was the buck I was meant to take.
 
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A guy who worked with one of my sons killed a buck in Utah during rifle season (oct) that had an arrow stuck in its back. Archery season is in Aug/Sept. Half the meat was a nasty brown color. DWR officer inspected it and said "it's not green, it's fine. eat it." lol.
 
7-8 years ago I was archery hunting whitetails in Texas where I was living. I noticed an area where all the deer kept crossing so I decided to grab a camp chair and go sit in the tall sunflowers nearby to see if I could get lucky. I noticed a big bobcat walking down the fence line in front of me and when he got in front of me he sensed something was wrong and stopped. He sat there 2-3 yards from me for about 5 minutes trying to figure out what I was and what was going on. He finally turned to walk off and went behind some brush. I sat up as tall as I could while drawing my bow. The bobcat stopped and poked his head up from behind the brush at about 7-8 yards. I tried to hug the brush and shoot him in the face but I still shot higher than I hoped. I watched my arrow skip right off the cat's forehead and launch about 200 yards out into the field I was sitting by. That cat ran off shaking his head over and over like he had his bell rung pretty good.

So I didn't kill him, but I'm sure if someone did after that fall he probably had a nasty scar right in the middle of his forehead.
 
So the first branched antler archery bull I shot in like 2000 had a puncture wound clean through his throat. It was a hole bigger around than my thumb, that went all the way through left to right behind the throat and in front of the meat.

It was clean and no blood at all. Only 2 things we can explain. He got gored by an antler, or a Muzzy hunter tried a neck shot and failed. No infection, nothing but a clean hole one side to the other…
 
The day before I shot my first deer....I ran in to 3? guys that were dragging a deer our. Its foot had been shot off. The nub was callused over....it was at about the 1st joint.

My first elk:

It had 2 other bullets in it. A bullet that I didn;t find...a powder of lead up against the shoulder blade/bone. My guess is, from a .22LR bullet. I can't remember if there was a bullet or not.

Also, it had a .24 or .25 goldish bullet base. It was mushroomed, a bit, and about 3/16" high. I do not remember where I found it.
 
A buck antelope with a nasty north/south wound running down his back. Probably from scooting under a barbed wire fence.
 

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