View Single Post
Old February 23, 2008, 12:10 AM   #24
MeekAndMild
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 2, 2001
Posts: 4,988
My 2 cents worth.

I never take a head shot on a deer. Deer will jump at the sight of a muzzle blast and jerk their heads up to see what's going on. I've been hunting with guys who've told me about head shots missing from as close as 75 yards; the deers get their jaws blown off and disappear in the woods to slowly starve.

I don't particularly like heart shots. I've never had a heart - shot deer to run away but I've had several which ran off into the woods before they died. Actually I've only made a few heart shots because I prefer to shoot higher. A good lung/shoulder shot will knock the deer down where a heart shot won't. Also, a deer heart is only the size of your fist but his lung is the size of a volleyball.

My favorite shots are lung and lung/shoulder shots from the side and shots into the part of the body which would be just higher than the collar bone if deer had collar bones (which they don't) from the front. I'm not sure what you call it on a deer but the sweet spot looking at him from face on is kind of a dimple between his neck and shoulder. Those shots will go into the big blood vessels at the roots of the lungs and drop the deer quickly. If you don't know the angle of the deer just find its front legs and aim between them halfway up it's body height.

I've taken a couple of neck shots and if you concentrate on the neck very close to the body they drop the deer immediately. I've never had a neck-shot deer do anything other than fall over, but I only shoot the part of the neck closest to the body. From the front that's at the bottom of the white spot and from the side its in front of the shoulder.

I also never bow hunt. I tried it a few years ago and had a really nice doe lined up. She saw the arrow and jumped out of the way of it so that it barely nicked her in passing. I have no idea how a deer could contort their body into the shape of a question mark so fast but she did it. Never again. Too much chance of missing, just like head shots with a rifle.

(BTW, stay away from shots too far aft. Deer stomachs contain 2 or 3 gallons of a really nasty fermented liquid which gets all over everything if you happen to hit them.)
__________________
In a few years when the dust finally clears and people start counting their change there is a pretty good chance that President Obama may become known as The Great Absquatulator. You heard it first here on TFL.
MeekAndMild is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.04579 seconds with 8 queries