Whitetail POI...... What’s your intended Target?

[wv270wsm]

I straight out meat hunt . Now granted I won't pass up a nice buck by no means . Shot placement depends for me where I'm hunting. If on the outskirts of my property at the camp I'll shoot high shoulder . This does a couple different things for me by anchoring them quickly. #1 keeps them from running straight off into the holler, it is very steep #2 it ensures that they don't try to run and end up getting shot up by the neighbors. While generally you don't hunt directly in sight of anyone but here in Wv the next hunter maybe just 50 yards around the hill and ya not even know it due to the terrain.
If hunting on the main part of the property lung shots are the norm 1-1/2 -2 inches behind the shoulder generally does the trick . Gets them bled out good and most of the time they still don't go far.
My oldest son at his tree stand will let them walk into the road and then head shoots them . That way he doesn't have to drag them . His stand is right along the main driveway coming into our property and there's two more roads in below him that we can access with the side by side or the four wheeler. It's worked well for him so far

 

[ndking1126]

I've wondered if shooting the heart can cause the animal to bleed out a little slower. My theory is if the heart isnt destroyed, adrenaline will kick in when shot and the heart will start beating faster.. pumping blood out faster. Does anyone whose shot a lot of deer have an opinion?

 

[Deleted member 115360]

I've wondered if shooting the heart can cause the animal to bleed out a little slower. My theory is if the heart isnt destroyed, adrenaline will kick in when shot and the heart will start beating faster.. pumping blood out faster. Does anyone whose shot a lot of deer have an opinion?

Heart shots surprisingly aren't always fast kills. I've shot a few and completely destroyed the heart, but after the shot they were able to run long distances, hundreds of yards in two remarkable cases.

I know this seems impossible, but I've killed a huge number of deer. A double lung shot is a much faster death than a heart shot sometimes. A perfect shot would hit the top of the heart and both lungs, but both lungs is what we should always be looking for.

 

[Rick Richard]

Heart and lung area, but never any type of shoulder shot.

 

[snookntarpon]

Nathan Foster wrote a book called long Range hunting. Read the chapter on shot placement. Eye opener for me, and I have been hunting big game since 1984...
SnT

 

[CaptDru]

I prefer high shoulder or just in front of the shoulder. They always drop right there. No tracking required.

 

[SteveALA]

Straight up the leg, middle of the body. Biggest room for error and always drop right there butt first.

 

[wv270wsm]

My good lord if my youngest son seen where y'all have posted about shooting deer in the heart he'd hunt ya down and cut your barrels off your guns ! I mean it he gets all sorts of wound up if you damage the " best eating " part of the deer ! He informed all of us at camp this past November to be certain to hit them higher or a little further back but DO NOT DAMAGE THE HEART. Lol he loves it

 

[TrialbyFireFormed]

I've wondered if shooting the heart can cause the animal to bleed out a little slower. My theory is if the heart isnt destroyed, adrenaline will kick in when shot and the heart will start beating faster.. pumping blood out faster. Does anyone whose shot a lot of deer have an opinion?

Hey Ndking
Thx for replying.
I've shot roughly 25 in the heart, and surprisingly deer will go a long way.
Shortest distance was 30 yards, and the longest was about 115 yards.
One would think that destroying the heart would kill a deer quickly, but as any avid deer hunter knows, they can cover a lot of ground quickly. I think that even if the heart stops, there's enough oxygen in the blood to drive the body for another 30 seconds and given how fast a deer can run and the length of stride on a dead run equals some decent distance.
There's been hearts that have the right side blown apart, left side blown apart, and there's been hearts that were total mush.

With all that said, I bet my experience would be different if I used a rifle that delivered more energy and therefore more hydrostatic shock, but maybe not. I've always hunted in shotgun only areas and the shotgun and load do a very good job, but we can all discuss that in another thread.

I'd say the main reason I'm a heart shooter, is bc I'm a meat hunter and impacting an animal there saves a lot of meat damage compared to shoulder. Now going back to rifled slug days, I shot a few in the heart where the slug yawed a tonne. One came out the deers neck, basically straight through beside the wind pipe, one went in and turned left imbedding into the hip, and I had a couple do the same but not so extreme.
After a few years I switched to sabot slugs and never looked back. I do have a few things to say about sabot slugs and the diff brands I've used and have witnessed being used but that's gonna be a diff thread bc it'll take awhile lol.

Lastly, I've shot deer on the run and deer in terrible tight snotty terrain and many weren't heart shot. As other have said, sometimes you wanna take it down quick bc tracking and dragging in a bad area is horrible, so when that happens I go shoulder lung... If I don't have a heart shot but am not worried about the terrain then I go lung or neck, but 90 percent of the time I'm going heart, I guess it's something that I started doing, realized it worked every time, so I kept doing it, despite the distance they can go.

Oh, I've also never tried to eat a heart, but reading how a lot of members enjoy it so much, maybe I'll STOP impacting the target there lol.

 

[TrialbyFireFormed]

My good lord if my youngest son seen where y'all have posted about shooting deer in the heart he'd hunt ya down and cut your barrels off your guns ! I mean it he gets all sorts of wound up if you damage the " best eating " part of the deer ! He informed all of us at camp this past November to be certain to hit them higher or a little further back but DO NOT DAMAGE THE HEART. Lol he loves it

Lol not sure how ppl are gonna react to ur threat but I'm sure ur just joking around.
As for shot placement, I wouldn't be aiming further behind the heart unless u wanna shoot liver or go further and get into the worst thing ever and gut shoot it.
Higher, yeah. More forward, for sure, higher and forward even better.
Just make sure ur not getting into no mans land. Lots of deer are shot there and never recovered by the hunter. They end up being tasty meals for the yotes.

I wonder how well deer hunters know a deers anatomy and organ layout? (And I'm not targeting you WV but the question applies to you and everyone)
I know there's tonnes of hunters on here that can look at a deer and they don't see hide, they see through it into the skeletal system and the internal makeup, that's how I see them. I bet if everyone did it would definitely increase their success and drastically reduce the amount of wounded/unrecovered deer.

I would wager that 85 percent of hunters just see the outside of the deer and aim in a general area.

I want to read and reply to everyone's contribution to this thread bc I really appreciate everyone's input. It may take a day or so but I'll get there.
Thx for your and everyone's input into this thread. LRH seems to be a great forum with lots of great ppl.

 

[Jcook02]

I'm a "V" shooter. I use to aim for the heart and have had my share of animals run a lot further than I would have ever guessed without a heart attached. I have by far more drop shots by hitting within the "v". I'm about 50/50 split with archery and firearm numbers and I can harvest six deer a year here in Kansas. That shot has provided much shorter blood trails and proves to give much greater room for human error. That's simply my opinion and observations from hunting these beautiful creatures.

 

[TrialbyFireFormed]

I'm a "V" shooter. I use to aim for the heart and have had my share of animals run a lot further than I would have ever guessed without a heart attached. I have by far more drop shots by hitting within the "v". I'm about 50/50 split with archery and firearm numbers and I can harvest six deer a year here in Kansas. That shot has provided much shorter blood trails and proves to give much greater room for human error. That's simply my opinion and observations from hunting these beautiful creatures.

6? Six? Wow that's something!
Wish we had those regulations but unfortunately we can only harvest, now get ready, 1 deer.
Yup just one , unless u apply for the controlled hunt in an area I have no land.
We used to get an archery tag, gun tag, and black powder tag, but that changed long ago. I just have to be picky now otherwise it's over much too quickly lol

 

[CaptDru]

This is a long read but definitely worth it.

Effective Game Killing

Effective game killing- How bullets kill and where to aim to ensure a fast clean kill.

www.ballisticstudies.com

 

[GrayCreed]

6? Six? Wow that's something!
Wish we had those regulations but unfortunately we can only harvest, now get ready, 1 deer.
Yup just one , unless u apply for the controlled hunt in an area I have no land.
We used to get an archery tag, gun tag, and black powder tag, but that changed long ago. I just have to be picky now otherwise it's over much too quickly lol

One deer ain't that much where you from? In Colorado (just moved here) you can get 2 b tags or 1 a tag and 1 b tag. You can also get as many c tags as you want but most of those are ****** areas. In Georgia you could shoot like 9 or more and up to 2 bucks.