I guess I should clear the air before a few of you completely stroke out, I was actually trolling a bit with this post as I wanted to paint a grim picture of what shooting at running deer is like from what I have seen, which is ironic since we now know the thread started out as a trolling thread.
My last deer I shot on the run was 10 years ago, I broke its spine which proved to me that shooting at a running deer is a fools game, haven't done it since, when hunting on my own.
However, I hunt with a number of different groups for deer/moose with hunters of various shooting abilities. Whether they make questional shots or its buck fever, there are usually a few bad shots. I have seen a few wounded animals and because I can track quietly and I am a good shot I usually do a lot of the followup finish work or drives to chase the wounded animal back. When I am trying to finish off a wounded animal the gloves are off in my mind. If I get a safe shot I take it to put it down. When you flush a wounded animal from its bed they usually don't stick around and give you a perfect broadside shot so running shots are the norm. More often then not, if I see the animal I can hit it well enough to put it down for a proper finisher, its not always pretty but it gets the job done.
Before the holier than thoes show up, no I don't make all my hunting partners take a shooting test before the hunt. The worst shots are usually friends of friends, or a young hunter that made a bad shot which I am gulity of as well in my youth and my uncle helped me out like I do now.
I picked up some sarcasm in that post you made
I certainly don't think that anyone's comments here are out of line. I have shot deer and moose that were certainly not standing still. I've shot deer (2 in 20 years) that offerred the perfect 50 yard broadside shot and made bad shots, 1 of those deer made it several hundred yards, one I never found despite 3 days of searching.
But, I've never poked a shot at an animal I was not sure I would hit where I wanted to to drop it fast.
Shooting ability is certainly a factor as is experience.
But to think that you can use some mathematical formula to calculate a kill shot on a white tail deer that's running.... There is no answer to that.
Now if you were using one of them smart bullets from some kinda "future weapon" , I'm sure the targetting system enable shooting glasses would allow a guy to lock onto said target and all you have to do is pull the trigger....
But that isn't reality.
the real world tells us that, yes, a person can kill a white tail deer that's running. Some do it badly, some do it well.
Terrain, angle, animal speed, direction, wind speed, direction, bullet velocity ect, are they variables needed to calculate lead. Nothing short of a targetting computer will give you dead on hits 100% of the time, in any given scenario.
I don't think "all guys who shoot running animals" are unethical hunters. But I do think that hunters who do it badly and keep doing it because it's accepted in their deer camp shouldn't be hunting at all
