Lung, shoulder or head?

jjohnwm said:
What is with this obsession to "bleed out" a game animal? I have never had a meat-cutter or butcher suggest that this procedure is necessary; I have never done it in 45+ years of hunting, and never felt the need. I have hunted with guys who insist on doing this, and I have never seen or tasted any benefit from bleeding.

Head shots are so easy to mess up, resulting in protracted and inhumane suffering on the part of the animal, that I simply won't consider them. Why risk this? Oh, that's right, I forgot: the head-shooting experts are such perfect marksman that a slip-up is impossible. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I myself have never understood it either, my comment of if the heart ain't beating it ain't bleeding, is usually met with harsh criticism of I don't know what I'm doing.

As for the shooting prowess wanting to be touted by some, go to the range and put your skills on the paper against a peer.Big difference when someone is watching. ;)
 
Changing the subject a bit. I found the android app called "animal vitals for hunters" to be pretty useful for seeing the anatomy of deer, moose etc. It's pretty useful to see where the vitals are at every angle.

FWIW, I have shot three deer, at fairly close range looking straight at me, in the neck just below the chin. Came down like a sack of hammers in each case. In these cases, waiting for a broadside shot would have been a worse idea, in my opinion. If you want to wait for a broadside in those conditions, more power to you but I won't. In longer range situations, however, the broadside lung shot has worked well for me, but sometimes they run for a bit first. Took a bit of searching in one case to find it.
 
Kelly Timoffee said:
I myself have never understood it either, my comment of if the heart ain't beating it ain't bleeding, is usually met with harsh criticism of I don't know what I'm doing.

As for the shooting prowess wanting to be touted by some, go to the range and put your skills on the paper against a peer.Big difference when someone is watching. ;)
Click to expand...

Yes, with heart/lung shots most of the blood ends up in the chest cavity anyway, just dump that sucker out.
Sometimes you can bleed them though, for example, last year I shot a nice buck on a down angle with 50cal muzzleloader. It was down and not moving, but heart still pumping. I assume I cut the CNS, so I cut the throat and watched the blood pump out. Unless the animal is crippled like this one I wouldn't recommend it as you could get an antler in the guts.
 
personally, I try to wait it out for a good vitals shot.Sometimes though that doesnt work out..and sometimes i lose meat because the only decent shot i have is to whack him in the shoulder. Shot placement is key..but we all already know that.
 
My goal is always a double lung when I can get the right angle. Quartered away with my bow, but other angles work with the gun.

Through the shoulder broadside is a good shot with a gun but not always with a bow (example: bears with their huge blade bone).

I personally haven't taken head shots at big game because I feel the vitals are a bigger and better target, providing more room for error. But head shots are my favourite at birds with shotguns or small game with rimfires.

My grandfather always used to rail against a big game head shot saying a miss could blow the animal's jaw off and cause it to die a horrible long death filled with suffering. I do know a lot of people who have had great success with that shot though. No tracking!
 
When guys talk about neck shots, is that only when the animal is facing you?
Or taking a neck broadside shot? That sounds risky?
 
If I'm confident of my shot (distance or whatever), I like a neck shot. Have anchored critters with both head on and broadside shots. In my experience either they're down, although a followup might be needed, or it's a miss and the critter is gone clean. Otherwise a heart/lung shot.

Head shots concern me in that, you could shoot their face off and they escape to die a long lingery death. Have seen it happen on small game.
 
Ideal shot placement for me is just behind shoulder and about 1/3 up from the brisket to take out both lungs and possibly heart. If I pull the shot a little left/right I'm still in the vital zone. If I damage a shoulder I don't care. The older I get the less I care about losing a bit of meat.
My feeling on 'head shots' is I'd rather wait for heart/lung shot than risk blowing the jaw off an animal and losing it. Just my opinion to be clear.
 
Much depends on the circumstances of the situation. If one was on a guided hunt and paying dearly for the tag to take a animal then aiming for the point of shoulder and wasting a little meat and having the animal down on the spot would be preferable to having to search for it or not retrieving it all together as you will pay for the wounded animal regardless.

That being said I have always had the best results with placing the shot just bit behind the near shoulder. That usually takes out both lungs and if the angle is off it may take out the opposite shoulder. Never had an animal go more than 50 yards, and many dropped on the spot. In my old moose hunting gang one fella always claimed that 6" below the top of the hump was the only place to shoot a moose. Well I tried that on a young bull standing 110 yds away and broad side to me. I was sitting in a hide and had a good rest for the rifle so I aimed what I thought was 6" down from the top of the hump and fired. The moose took one step forward and stood there. Surprised I aimed and fired again, same reaction he took one step forward. I aimed and fired once more and he dropped like a bag of rocks, twitched a bit and was dead. Upon examining the moose when I cleaned it out. The 3 shots were all within about a 3" circle. That moose was only about 7" - 8" wide at that point and the first two shots went zipping right through hide - lung - hide and never expanded a bit. The third shot just clipped the lower half of the spine and that dropped him. The point of story is a hump shot is essentially a spine shot and a moose's spinal column at 2" or so in diameter is not a big target. I would consider neck shots to be spinal column shots which as the hump shot a very small target. Hitting the lungs that high up around the hump doesn't cause a lot of immediate lung damage so a moose could travel quite a ways in my opinion before dying form the injuries. That was the first and last hump shot on a moose. The last bull I got he was facing me at 40 yds. Hit him square on between the front shoulders, he turned and trotted about 30 yds turned and got all wobbly legged. Shot him again just behind the shoulder as I did not want him taking another step into the crap bush and scarified stumps that were in front of him. He dropped where he stood. All my moose have been taken with a M-70 in 30-06 loaded with 165 gr, Nosler partions.
In regards to head shots many years ago my moose hunting partner shot a cow about 40 yds away in the side of head twice with a 30-06 as at the time that's all of her he could see through the alders. All she did was stand there and shake her head after each shot. She finally walked forward out of the alders and he tucked one in behind the shoulder and down she went after she trotted into the river. Long story short we got a line around here neck and a floated her down river to camp where we got the truck on and got her out of the river and all cleaned and hung up. Curious as to why that moose never fell over dead from being shot twice in the head we proceeded a couple nights later to examine and dissect the head. We had never before dissected a moose's head. Vital area being the brain is not much bigger than a grapefruit and sits up top by the ears, all the rest of that big head is basically sinus cavities. And that's were he had shot this moose was through the upper sinus cavities. She probably would have eventually died of infection after suffering for quite some time. That ended any further attempts at head shots.
These are some of my experiences over the past 46 yrs. in what shots worked best and what did not.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom