Here's the answer Marsh. How many triggers were pulled during the season to kill those 30? A safe bet is that if they put 30 on the tailgate, there were probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-250 shots taken at running deer. Pure swag on my part, but probably fairly close based on what we used to do when we ran dogs back in the late 70s early 80's and if that is the case, Marsh, you're correct in saying that there are quite a few deer running around with a pellet or two in them from bad shots, long range shots, spraying and praying, brush deflections, etc, that were called misses. Like you said Marsh, unless the deer is knocked down, there is rarely much in the way of a blood trail to prove it was hit, unless you really get into one good. We ran a good buck all day one day. Dogs jumped him around 10 and if I had to guess, I'd say he was probably shot at 15-20+ times by no less than 6 or 8 standers. He messed up and came out right in someone's lap and finally killed him right before dark. When we skinned him, the buckshot was literally raining out on the floor of the skinning shed. He was bruised up from neck to rump on both sides and there was buckshot all over the place in the tallow, just underneath the hide from long shots taken after everyone already knew he'd been hit. First, every stander wants to get a shot and they will shoot until the gun is empty or until the deer goes out of sight, whichever happens first. Second, most dog hunters I have been around have the mentality that you cannot kill one if you do not shoot at him so it's a regular occurrence that a lot of marginal shots are taken, at distances and situations they should not be shot at with shotguns. Third, deer are tough animals and can take some serious punishment and keep going, hence, a lot of deer running around with buckshot in them.