You sure are getting a real kick out of that Edit button aren't RC? Must be real dull livin' in NY. :rotf:
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head shot
- Thread starter evan
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:rotf: I tried but just can't keep up with him. :haha:
RC said:
Oh no...my priorities are always the heart first assuming I can see it, with the rest like this:
1) Heart
2) Low double lung
3) Neck
4) Head
This is all based upon hunting in thick stuff, close shots, standing deer, etc...
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If you know where your gun hits consistantly and you can shoot the same.You've got no other shot other than the head and your sure you can shoot the Deer without risking wounding it.Go for it!I have upon occasion taken one with a nice soft round ball behind the Ear. :v
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i'm really confident in my gun..when i's huntin, but he'd havta be a dandy.....and, well if he was a dandy....oh god yes!
Old Ironsights
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And almost no bloodshot meat. Gotta love it. :hatsoff:
Old Ironsights said:
It was either a .50 or a .54 (I think a .54) Not a small caliber anyway. And I saw a box of Hornady roundballs in his truck but can't say for sure what was in the gun.
When we found the deer it was already chewed pretty bad around the entry hole. The neck wasn't broke tho.
This guy is not new to deer hunting and has trailed and found wounded and dead deer for several other hunters who lost the trail. I hunt the same area and have hunted in the same spot.
From where he shot the deer on the top of a dam between a dry pond and a drainage you can see forever. There is one main trail that runs the length of the drainage for a little more than 150 yards and he watched the buck run all the way down it then turn and run across a hay field to a point of timber.
He said he walked the trail thru the cattail drainage looking for blood but didn't find any. Then he cut across to the place where he had seen the buck drop into the timber. No blood there either so he figured he had missed.
This guy shoots good and looks hard for signs of a hit. I can't believe he woul have missed blood.
The kid who spotted the rack first cut it off and took it home. When he showed it to the guy who shot it he recognized it. He said he KNEW he couldn't have missed that close but he couldn't find any signs of a hit.
He won't be taking any more neck shots and I wont either. Just to be on the safe side. I've lost a couple of deer over the years and I still feel bad about them.
my 2 cents.
A deer can dodge an arrow. Give one an opportunity of a "klack-bang" from damp priming or primer and it's as likely to move it's head as not before the ball arrives.
You also have a good chance of making eye contact, and a deer may think you look like a stump until then, but a stump with eyes is "the enemy" and they will scram fast.
As far as the neck: hit the spine anywhere and the deer will be down, probably to stay. Hit the windpipe or frontal throat and it will die in a few weeks, maybe less. In the drawing above there's 50% of neck that contains nothing but muscle. Poor target material.
I go for the statistical prime area and aim for he center of the lungs. Just behind the imaginary line of extending the line of the back of the foreleg up. If I'm off a tad, or a bit of cover interferes, or the deer moves, or all of Murphy's Laws fall on me at once I still have a good chance of a quick kill.
I've taken close head shots, as close as 15 feet, and the result is not the way for a beautiful animal to die IMHO. I had a deer moan and cry out for what seemed like 30 seconds with nothing left above the lower half of the eye sockets. I doubt very much it was in pain, but I suffered. Soured me to head shots.
You also have a good chance of making eye contact, and a deer may think you look like a stump until then, but a stump with eyes is "the enemy" and they will scram fast.
As far as the neck: hit the spine anywhere and the deer will be down, probably to stay. Hit the windpipe or frontal throat and it will die in a few weeks, maybe less. In the drawing above there's 50% of neck that contains nothing but muscle. Poor target material.
I go for the statistical prime area and aim for he center of the lungs. Just behind the imaginary line of extending the line of the back of the foreleg up. If I'm off a tad, or a bit of cover interferes, or the deer moves, or all of Murphy's Laws fall on me at once I still have a good chance of a quick kill.
I've taken close head shots, as close as 15 feet, and the result is not the way for a beautiful animal to die IMHO. I had a deer moan and cry out for what seemed like 30 seconds with nothing left above the lower half of the eye sockets. I doubt very much it was in pain, but I suffered. Soured me to head shots.
If I absolutely can't have 'em run off, I try to break the shoulder on the other side of the deer. That way they drown, before they can git back up. :winking: If you manage to take off the top of the heart they'll probably die in 10 seconds or less, but they'll run as fast as they can for every last one of those seconds. I never expect a bang, flop, although I have had some.
Stumpy,Stumpkiller said:
I believe we owe the
animal we hunt, the quickest and most humane
form of harvest. Having said that, I myself
have and always will attempt to make the most
responseable shot to that end, as I know we all
do.IMO
snake-eyes :v
I can think of one good reason to never take a head or neck shot. If you miss the small head of the deer, you always run the risk of shooting the lower jaw out. That is not a leathal wound....at least not right away. That deer is going to live quite awhile, but it's going to starve to death. It cannot drink or eat. Same with a neck shot. You can miss the jugler vein and just hit the trach. It will still breath, but it cannot eat or drink.
Hit it in the hear\lungs. There is no meat in the rib cage, and very little in the front legs if you damage one of the front legs. The majority of the good meat is in the upper back and the hind quarters.
If you do a double lung shot, you've got your deer and all of the meat, at the risk of losing nothing.
So, why take the head shot? Doesn't make sense to me.
Dave
Hit it in the hear\lungs. There is no meat in the rib cage, and very little in the front legs if you damage one of the front legs. The majority of the good meat is in the upper back and the hind quarters.
If you do a double lung shot, you've got your deer and all of the meat, at the risk of losing nothing.
So, why take the head shot? Doesn't make sense to me.
Dave
I hate to admit that I did this, but maybe someone can learn from my stupidity. I was 14 and shot at running buck with a 20 gauge shotgun, smoothbore bead sight. Slug hit the deer in the back of the head and exited the eye. The deer cart wheeled and crashed, then it started to get up, I shot it again in the back. The deer still took a few minutes to die. The bullet must have just grazed the brain. Not even headshots are perfect.
Probably the worst hunting experience I ever had, first deer too. I think that I only took the shot because I had 4 more rounds in the tube. When my kids get old enough to hunt I will never let them hunt with a repeater until they are old enough to buy one themselves. This is one reason I hunt with a muzzle loader, it makes you take the perfect shot and that’s the best for all those involved hunter and hunted.
Probably the worst hunting experience I ever had, first deer too. I think that I only took the shot because I had 4 more rounds in the tube. When my kids get old enough to hunt I will never let them hunt with a repeater until they are old enough to buy one themselves. This is one reason I hunt with a muzzle loader, it makes you take the perfect shot and that’s the best for all those involved hunter and hunted.
We had a deer with the jaws shot off wandering around town last year. This sort of thing does the hunting fraternity no good. A reverent feeling for the spirit of animal should be part of the hunt. It drives me crazy when I see guys on TV like Roger Raglin cackling with glee every time he shoots something.
I have to agree. If it is not a good shot, why bother? It is not worth the chance that you take on injuring the animal and losing it. Nothing breaks my heart like seeing a wounded animal struggling to survive because of a bad shot. I am not without fault. One year I shot at a doe just before dark in a very shady grove of pines. I wound up shooting off her front foot and someone got her the next season. I looked for that deer in a rainstorm the next afternoon because I felt so badly.I know it is different than a deer starving to death because of a missing jaw, but caused suffering is something that I try to avoid. All of you seem to agree. We owe it to the animals and ourselves to dispatch them quickly and humanely.
I agree too. I have helped track to many deer that were neck shot. We found lots of blood at first then after a mile or two nothing more and no deer until the buzzards showed up. Same with head shots blown off horns, holes in the ears that got blow flies who ate half the face off before the animal died.
Best go for the boiler room shot, or half way up and down just behind the front leg. This is where you find heart, liver, both lungs all fatal in seconds.
I agree head, neck and spine shots will drop and animal in its tracks. But I've never had to go over 75yds on a boiler room shot animal why take the chance. As said before these animals deserve to be dispatched as humamily as possible.
Now to be fair I have taken deer with head shot and neck shots and both times it made me sick much better to see the animal run off, then go find it piled up dead than watch the suffering.
Fox :hatsoff:
Best go for the boiler room shot, or half way up and down just behind the front leg. This is where you find heart, liver, both lungs all fatal in seconds.
I agree head, neck and spine shots will drop and animal in its tracks. But I've never had to go over 75yds on a boiler room shot animal why take the chance. As said before these animals deserve to be dispatched as humamily as possible.
Now to be fair I have taken deer with head shot and neck shots and both times it made me sick much better to see the animal run off, then go find it piled up dead than watch the suffering.
Fox :hatsoff:
I have seen deer wounded in many places, gut, flank, jaw....it happens, heads shots must be well thought out and one must know his and his guns limitations, I am past the head shot days myself though at one time if conditions were perfect I would not hesitate and never lost one, it is an individual choice based on ones own confidence and skill level.
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