Shooting a deer in the anus with virtually any modern rifle will drive a slug up through the body cavity and destroy vital organs. Makes field dressing unpleasant, though. Black powder weapons will do the same. I shot one through-and-through with an in-line muzzleloader two years ago; the bullet entered right at the base of the deer’s throat and exited from its ass.
Damn, that’s quite the hunting story! I’m glad they didn’t leave it to suffer.
I can’t believe how many t.v. hunters just walk off and wait until morning. To each his own but I find the practice unconscionable. If you shoot something, you get your ass up and go find it. First, so that you can put it out of its misery if necessary, rare but it happens.
Second, so nothing happens to your meat. If the temperature is right, is less of a concern but there’s still the matter of a warm body cavity full of guts. Personally, I want to get the guts out of my kills ASAP. Even if the weather is fine and you’re not worried about gutting it immediately, scavengers and predators are a concern. How fucking dumb would you feel if a bear or a coyote chewed up your deer?
Oh, c’mon, stop picking on my brother - he’s not a bad shot and it’s not like he missed on purpose. 
Since I was trained by my grandfather that if you shoot it, you eat it, I don’t think I’d want to wait around 12 - 14 hours for it to die and let all that bacteria get a head start. We’ve always hunted them down and finished them, and sometimes, butchered them by the headlights of a truck. Hard, nasty work, but mighty tasty down the line.
I’ve wounded a few deer in my time - but remembering to carry spare grenades and a rocket launcher in case of an unclean shot will help you finish them off with ease.
Sometimes extraordinary measures are required even if you’re a perfect shot, as in the case of this bowhunter profiled in last Saturday’s newspaper:
*When the big buck got within about 20 yards, Esker let loose a bolt that he was sure found its mark. However, in the haste to grab more video he took his eye off the prize and ended up following a different buck, one of several stacked in the same area, through his viewfinder. After waiting a couple of hours, Esker went looking in the direction he had pointed his camera.
Turned out that his mistake sent him in the wrong direction altogether. He didn’t know, and wouldn’t find out for almost 24 hours after a fruitless search that involved a veritable posse and a dog, that the deer he’d arrowed lay in a different direction about 165 yards from his stand.
To find the deer before the vultures did late on a warm Oct. 1 day, Esker hired a helicopter for $300. Taking off from the spot where the bucks had gathered the evening before, Esker said it took only about a minute to find the deer.
The arrow had passed through both lungs and the heart, Esker said.
“I’m a little surprised the buck got as far as it did,” he said.
The venison, after laying in the heat for a full day, went to waste. However, Esker said the cape was in good enough shape to allow a full body mount. The plan is to display the massive mount at the Deer & Turkey Expo in March."*
I’m not about to miss that spectacle at the Deer & Turkey Expo, I can tell you! It should be a blast.
I’m not much for deer trophies, but I did save the skull of the unfortunate doe that mysteriously turned up dead in my yard last month. I did not find the deer before the vultures did, and they performed a nice cleaning job, leaving me some interesting Halloween ornaments.
I’m glad there still are hunters out there after those rats with hooves. Saves wear and tear on my garden.