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Tajue17 said:
I'm sure you did, unfortunately it doesn't always work that way and to many times I've seen the aftermath of some that didn't.
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neck shots ???
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I'm sure you did, unfortunately it doesn't always work that way and to many times I've seen the aftermath of some that didn't.
Protrucker
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Wattsy said:
Things happen. Last year I was sitting & had three deer come down off some rock ledges. They stopped about 75 yds off to my left, for long enough to get a shot off. Just as I squeezed the trigger they started to move. As the smoke cleared, I could see a deer on the ground right where they had been standing & the other two running off. My hunting buddy was doing a walk around the mountain to push deer & I still had other tags so I reloaded & sat back down. After a while, when he got there I walked over to my deer. When I saw where I hit it (in the neck) I commented that I had got lucky with a bad shot. The next day we hunted the same area, but I did the walk & he sat. When I got around the mountain to him, he asked me if there were other deer with the one that I got yesterday. I said, "yea why?" He told me that he had found another dead deer with a hole right behind the left shoulder. That's where I had aimed for my shot the previous day. He walked over to the deer & I went to the gut pile where from the one I got. Then I followed tracks from there right to the newly found dead deer. I hadn't even realized it, but apparently the one shot in the neck had stepped into the shot or turned it's head/neck into the shot, just as I was squeezing the trigger.
Unintentionally is easy to believe........things happen. :v
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Sounds like it...and that's the same risk of "taking" a neck shot in the first place...they can just as easily step or turn away during the shot cycle and before the ball arrives...just isn't any margin for error when they do that.Bald Mtn Man said:
The neck shot works great, IF you can manage it. I've downed three nice bucks that way. Last one was an 8 pointer taken on Saturday. Two of the three were taken with MLs as was Saturday's.
The two shot by MLs went down about where they stood and did not require a second shot. Range on each was 60 yards or less. The one shot with a shotgun began wheeling around and required a second shot. That one was shot at a range of 75 yards if I remember right. It was the biggest of the three.
In each case, the animal was either facing or quartering toward me. The quartering shots were taken using the base of the neck just ahead of the on-side shoulder as the aiming point. The one taken head-on used the white throat patch as an aiming point. That buck (Saturday's) had his head up and his nose in the branches of a fir tree when he was shot.
I'd rather not take the neck shot. Aiming for the lung/chest cavity is much preferred. But if the neck shot is the best that's offered, the animal is well inside 100 yards and my hold is steady; I'll take it.
Saturday's buck was relaxed and oblivious to my presence. Also my tree stand is quite easy to shoot from, offering good support to the arm supporting the forend. The sights were as steady as if shot from a bench rest.
The best thing about the neck shot is that the deer doesn't go far. My 50 acre patch is surrounded by posted land. Much of that land and some of my own is a multiflora rose jungle. Retrieving a deer from that mess can be nearly impossible. Most of my lung shot deer have run a ways. One buck, a very big one, went nearly 200 yards downhill after a perfectly placed lung shot with a .54 PRB. That's far enough to cause serious retrieval problems in the area I hunt.
Bob
The two shot by MLs went down about where they stood and did not require a second shot. Range on each was 60 yards or less. The one shot with a shotgun began wheeling around and required a second shot. That one was shot at a range of 75 yards if I remember right. It was the biggest of the three.
In each case, the animal was either facing or quartering toward me. The quartering shots were taken using the base of the neck just ahead of the on-side shoulder as the aiming point. The one taken head-on used the white throat patch as an aiming point. That buck (Saturday's) had his head up and his nose in the branches of a fir tree when he was shot.
I'd rather not take the neck shot. Aiming for the lung/chest cavity is much preferred. But if the neck shot is the best that's offered, the animal is well inside 100 yards and my hold is steady; I'll take it.
Saturday's buck was relaxed and oblivious to my presence. Also my tree stand is quite easy to shoot from, offering good support to the arm supporting the forend. The sights were as steady as if shot from a bench rest.
The best thing about the neck shot is that the deer doesn't go far. My 50 acre patch is surrounded by posted land. Much of that land and some of my own is a multiflora rose jungle. Retrieving a deer from that mess can be nearly impossible. Most of my lung shot deer have run a ways. One buck, a very big one, went nearly 200 yards downhill after a perfectly placed lung shot with a .54 PRB. That's far enough to cause serious retrieval problems in the area I hunt.
Bob
Just a general statement. A deer with both lungs or the heart taken out will get as far as 10-12 seconds will permit. If these organs are truly hit. I have had many people claim they had the perfect lung shot and the deer travels 1/4 mi. It isn't going to happen if it is truly a double lung shot or a heart shot. Either organs are required to take oxygen to the brain. If the brain doesn't get that oxygen, it shuts down. So there is no mistaking my post, I am sure yours was a good hit and I wasn't even thinking that yours wasn't.
Agree...would only add that a heart shot ends it "right now" because the blood stops flowing instantly...whereas lung shots may only "impede" the oxygen exchange to the blood that is still flowing through their undamaged portions.
Is why single lung or high lung shots have limited / reduced effects in the short term... unless / until they fill up with blood or are completely wrecked a deer can still cover a lot of ground...but take out the "pump" and its all over, down in sight...
Is why single lung or high lung shots have limited / reduced effects in the short term... unless / until they fill up with blood or are completely wrecked a deer can still cover a lot of ground...but take out the "pump" and its all over, down in sight...
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roundball said:
Wish that were true but it's not always true.
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True that Swampy there is always that one deer that you hit "just right" every now and then and well they defy any rule of thumb or guideline that nature has set. Out of the millions of deer in this country there has to be the occasional deer with an over active adrenal gland those darn freaks of nature that really hone our tracking skills.
The very first deer I ever killed (12ga slug) was a 4.5 year old doe. I shot her thru the heart only, no lungs, at about 15 yards. The blood trail was huge! It looked like somebody ran thru the woods pouring blood from a bucket. She ran between 100 and 125 yards. And the best part was she ran right to the truck! Fell over 10 feet behind it. :thumbsup:
roundball said:
PS:
While I'm sure there will always be the one in a million story for every well established norm, those one in a million stories don't negate the reality of the norm.
Otherwise it would be like saying "inlines" are representative of the early American traditional muzzleloading era because somebody experimented with one during all those centuries and therefore they should be allowed into the MLF.
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Jethro224 said:
I did basically the same thing with a .12 ga slug on Prudence Isand. After about 200 yards it took one of the guys running up to her, at that point she was like a drunked sailor, and he put one in back of her head. The woods looked like a murder scene. She dressed off at 140 which is big for over there and the slug took the top of the heart off and whats thats called, the aorta? That was my first experiance with heart shots and I didn't want anything to do with em after that.
buttonbuck
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I enjoy and appreciate roundball's logic I have to say 2 heart shot deer that come to mind I shot a doe first gun season this year one lung and partial heart she ran close to 150-200 along the bottom of a gully or dry creek bed. She was the biggest doe I have shot yet about 140-150 dressed. The second was a buck 9pt about 150-160 dressed. He ran 25 yards and practically dropped dead. Most other heart lung shot deer go 25-30 yards at best in my experience. I did drop one buck with a ml neck shot I shot at the brisket but hit high it still took the lungs but just dropped. I recall I had to discard a couple of pounds of meat because of bone and lead fragments so I go for the heart lung shot.
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You can rot your mind with other people's rules and opinions. Shot failures of any type are failures of the shooter. Period. You need to learn the techniques to make the best possible shot, plus the judgment and restraint to pass on marginal shots.
For me it's high percentage shots or no shots. For example I won't take face-on body shots on deer. And like Swampy I won't take head shots. If I've got a great rest and the deer is close and still, face-on neck shots are higher percentage than any other shot and prefer them to the head or body.
Heck I pass on lung shots if there's a chance the ball will range back into the liver or paunch.
It's all circumstantial, and only one hard and fast rule works all the time: When in doubt, pass on the shot.
For me it's high percentage shots or no shots. For example I won't take face-on body shots on deer. And like Swampy I won't take head shots. If I've got a great rest and the deer is close and still, face-on neck shots are higher percentage than any other shot and prefer them to the head or body.
Heck I pass on lung shots if there's a chance the ball will range back into the liver or paunch.
It's all circumstantial, and only one hard and fast rule works all the time: When in doubt, pass on the shot.
roundball said:
I shot a doe on a frontal with a 12 gauge slug that tore her heart into two halves. She still ran 100 yards. I was astounded when I opened her up. Granted, most drop fast with a heart shot. I go along with the "12 second" comment made earlier. I have made solid lung hits with arrows, slugs, round balls and spitzer bullets and a deer so hit has 7 seconds or so to get affairs in order. I've seen them go ballistic and put tracks down at 35 mph until they pile up, just simply fall over or even stand there and look at the shaft and bloody fletching of an arrow quivering beside them and gradually topple down.
I've only taken one frontal heart shot on a buck with a round ball. That was about 14 paces and he never moved his hind legs and just reared back and collapsed. Nice.
I still like the broadside lung shot. Lots of blood vessels and tissue that bleeds in a forgivingly large area.
Too much just plain muscle in the neck (IMHO) for something like a round ball that has minimal shock and collateral tissue damage around the would. I hunt with the round ball like it was a broadhead with 3X the effective range. But even with slugs or bullets I avoided neck shots. You've got the spine, two large blood vessels beside it and 2/3 of the side area that offers minimal bloodletting and no vital organs to take out. I just lack the confidence to chose the neck and I don't shoot unless confident of a kill.
The whole thing about shot placement is choosing the best possible shot there is. Not always the best that is available, but the best shot that there is period. I can remember so many tracking jobs, when the shooter told me it was the perfect double lung,heart shot, neck shot or what ever. You really don't know for 100% sure, until you see the wound channel on the animal laying before you. Many deer I have tracked, just weren't hit where the shooter thought. I have tracked the perfect boiler room shot, until find out later that it was a little far back and it was a gut shot, that we wished we had backed off on tracking. Push a gut shot animal and your chances of recovery go way down. So take the best shot there is, pass up the other shots, and your percentage of filled tags go up accordingly.
Dave K said:
Right on...and there's also a mistake we can make causing us to miss the heart and it has to do with angles. I had the visual impact of angle really emphasized to me back when I started bow-hunting and was practicing most every day in my back yard. I got so used to practicing the broadside heart shot that I started looking for more challenge and one day started shooting at 45* angles from the left and right sides of the deer target.
From habit and without thinking, I still aimed at the same identical spot right behind the deer's elbow...BUT...at the first arrow pull I immediately realized every shaft had missed the heart...they "hit the spot" OK...but the 45* angle of the shots put the broadhead and shaft passing in front or behind the heart due to the angle.
Never forgot that visual lesson and try to "see" the heart inside the deer from the angle I'm getting ready to shoot a ball...and select the POA that let's me "see" the ball tracking THROUGH the heart from that POA
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