Head Shots on Deer?

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I've never seen a deer's head where I couldn't get a shot at it's neck.

Far preferable IMO, if that's the shot that's offered.

Otherwise, chest shots get the job done just fine for me.

Daryl
 
Ive never shot a deer in the head adn prolly never will on purpose. Hogs on the other hand Ive shot many of them in the noggin, but still prefer to shot them in the vitals cause I like to hear em scream. I know thats mean but its what keeps me going back.
 
I was raised to take the heart lung shot and now it's pretty much habit. Even when I could take a neck or head shot, It's the heart that gets it
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Thats how I was raised as well.

My grandfather once shot an antelope at over 900 yards (measured distance) thru the left eyeball and into the brain.............after he called the shot. My younger brother also shot a speed goat in the eye......after calling the shot.......at 600 yds (also measured). They were absolutely great shots, and the shooters definitely have the skills to pull them off.......as for myself, I am just not comforatable taking head shots at distances like that. A standing broadside shot at 50 yards.......I may go for the head, but I doubt it. I am pretty sure it would still get a shot to the chest because I am just more confident in my ability to quickly and cleanly put down the animal with a chest shot than a head shot.......to each his own, I do what works for me.
 
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I am a vital shot kinda guy. I will shoot at a deer that is facing me head on but my aiming point is the base of the neck. This shot drops them everytime, at least it has for me.

Cranky...hey man, if you are comfortable with taking headshots, were raised doing so, that's what you were taught to do, & are completely efficent at it...then have at it. No doubt that a correctly place headshot will be instant death for a deer...or any quarry for that matter. I just prefer the vitals, one reason is because I still get as excited when I got a deer in range as a dude getting lucky on his prom night! :D
 
Cranky...hey man, if you are comfortable with taking headshots, were raised doing so, that's what you were taught to do, & are completely efficent at it...then have at it
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I was raised with shots to the vitals, the head shots my grandfather did were few and far between. I have no problem with other hunters using head shots, but they just aren't for me.
 
This is also a safety issue to me as well. If all you can see is a deer's head is it really a good idea to shoot? More than one hunter has been killed by another who thought he was shooting at part of a deer that he saw through the brush.
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If you're looking through a scope, you can tell the difference between a man starting at you, and a deer. Having part of the body covered doesn't make it hard to identify the target, or what's behind it.


I am a good shot, but I am not going to risk blowing a deers jaw off & having it starve to death. we owe it to our game to make the death as humne & respectful as possible.
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There's plenty of ways to wound and cripple an animal. I took a head shot once because the buck was looking right at me from behind a big tree. All I could see was his rear end and his head; I thought he was about to bolt. When I was dressing him, I noticed that one of the front legs was completely shattered. The skin was healing and it looked like a clean entrance, so I assume it was from an arrow. If you're a good shot, you know when to pass up a shot. If you're a bad shot, any shot can be a crippler.

The only down side was I had to pop the eyeballs back in before my wife got there to help me dress it. Big mess in the snow (30-06 @ 70 yards); the gore isn't contained in the body cavity as it is with a lung shot.
 
Patience, as a rule, will usually give me a much better shot than the head.

I'm sure there are times when a headshot is the only shot that will present itself but I can't remember a time its happened to me. Sure it has over the years. I don't practice for that shot so guess that deer walked, oh well.


Although I know hunters who take headshots, Ohio has a deer gun season where shotgun(slug only),pistol or B/P can be used. Trajectory's just not flat enough. I just don't feel comfortable taking them.

Again, I'll just wait and let the deer present me a better shot.
 
Hunters will generally opt for a chest shot on a deer for the reasons you list.
I know plenty of professional meat shooters that will only take head shots, but this is usually done under a spotlight , with a rest ,for culling purposes only.
 
Sure, the problem is that you don't know exactly why or when they will decide to unfreeze.
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You never known when they will bolt either. If you are going to sit there and wait as long as possible, then you will miss the shot, but generally speaking at the distances mentioned that are short range, the bullet will be covering the distance in 1-2 tenths of a second. It isn't really an issue. What is an issue is how long the hunter opts to wait.

Fair enough. But, what will stop some new hunter who just bought a rifle from reading internet forums and getting the idea that head shots are the cool thing to do.
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Absolutely nothing will stop a new hunter from doing something stupid, such as taking shots s/he isn't capable of making. Not disucssing a shot isn't going to stop it from being done by those who can't. Every year hunters take long range shots they had no business taking and by long range, I mean shots beyond which they are skilled or beyond which their guns are sighted for which they don't know how to properly compensate and said hunters end up wounding animals even though they may have hunted for years.

You may not like it and it may not be a shot for neophytes or the unskilled, but that doesn't make it wrong. Newbies probably should not hunt bear, but that doesn't stop the discussions of bear hunting because they think it is the cool thing to do.
 
I prefer taking vital shots and wouldn't consider a head shot on a deer.

While I wouldn't take a head shot, if someone can take a clean, ethical head shot, I don't have a problem with it.
 
There is a reason why people feel the way they do about some things.

My hunting partner for decades is an excellent shot with anything. If nobody has broken it recently he has the third largest bull elk killed in MT. with a bow. I watched him lay down on the ground and shoot a 10 point whitetail at 380 yards through the heart.

But, he also shot the bottom jaw off a deer at 50 yards. Luckily he was able to get off a second shot and finish the deer.

I know he is a fantastic shot. I know he is an excellent hunter. I know he thought he knew when the deer was or wasn't going to move.

Giving up a 10 inch circle for a 3 inch circle that will move several times as fast on you is not logical. Maybe, if it is the only shot you have.
 
I used to do it all the time on does, only at close range, less than 50 yards, and only when they were calm feeding. I did it to completely rule out meat destruction and to keep blood out of the body cavity. I quit doing it b/c it was so messy, massive amounts of blood and brain that are going to get in the bed of the truck and on the outside of the animal. I now use a very high neck shot, every bit as effective. You are going to destroy the blood vessels going to the brain and maybe hit the spinal cord.
 
When a head shot is taken properly they work fine, HOWEVER , when they fail they fail miserably. I was a guide and every year we would find both deer and elk that had had their jaws blown off from bad head shots and were found after they had starved to death. A client tried a broadside head shot on a close elk. His shot was just inches off and totally blinded the elk. The elk escaped. Days later I found the elk with terrible infected wounds and was trying to walk through the forest. It was so stress it just stood there and let me walk up to it. It was just shivering from fright. Tell me this is a humane shot. We as hunters should never take such an inhumane shot.
 
IMO, part of the disagreement here comes about from the difference between stalk-style hunting in the West and the stand-style hunting done in the East and very few folks have done both. Wide open spaces with no baiting/food plots versus heavy cover and food plots tends to allow different styles of what is acceptable.

I know I, personally, do not do head shots due to MY personal ability; however, as I mentioned earlier about someone I knew - he was proficient with his TC Contender. So if you are one of those proficient shooters, go for it.
 
We as hunters should never take such an inhumane shot.
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Yep, and those gut shot animals don't enjoy their life much either, or the leg shot animals. Animals shot in the butt are very unhappy as well.

Hunters clip heads, necks, shoulders, guts, butts, and legs every year trying to make shoulder shots. Some manage to shoot themselves or manage to shoot other hunters. They shoot horses, dogs, and sometimes riders on horses, thinking them all to be be deer, elk, and moose. Sometimes they shoot forest rangers thinking they are coyotes. Sometimes they shoot people inside of houses because they are just that rotten when it comes to maturity and shooting skills.

There is nothing wrong with a humane shot and a head shot most definitely can be a humane shot. There is everything wrong with taking shots that should not be taken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY9Tt753K6A
http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=11568929
http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/73665192.html
http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/99254209.html
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/22772294/detail.html

You can see all sorts of horrible shots on Youtube. Some have been posted on this forum. In fact, every missed shot certainly had the potential to be an inhumane shot as the shot did not go where intended.

I posted the query to the following thread and was fairly shocked by the responses that were similar to mine. There are an apparently substantial number of hunters who start out their hunting season with guns for which they have not verified a zero. http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=401369

Hunting humanely often starts long before the hunter ever goes into the woods.
 
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I understand the argument some are making about gut shot deer and new hunters with ultra mags and no practice, but it is a strawman.

You are tyring to justify a small jumpy target because some can't hit a larger one. Makes no sense.
 
I understand the argument some are making about gut shot deer and new hunters with ultra mags and no practice, but it is a strawman.

You are tyring to justify a small jumpy target because some can't hit a larger one. Makes no sense.
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NO strawman at all - having lived out West, I have seen folks shoot horses out from under a rider, people shooting cows that had "COW" painted in big letters on them, folks with something over 300 mag think they could shoot anything over 500 yards........yet i watched someone make head shots EVERY time he pulled the trigger. Is taking a head shot for everyone with a gun? Absolutely NOT.............but I would rather see a hunter who knows his limitations and is an expert with his choice of gun make a head shot than seeing the YAHOOS who couldn't hit their butts with both hands take random shots at something that moved
 
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