Hunters, where do you aim? Head or heart?

[bowfin]

Ben, that deer is almost too pretty too shoot...

...then again, I haven't had a buck permit in years. Antlerless Only permits in Nebraska allow for longer seasons and are cheaper.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

I'm with ya AKtinman.

The lung shot is deadly and quickly so as well as a huge kill zone when compaired to the head.

Am soon to be 69, and have taken one head shot on an eat'in critter over the years.

thankfully it was bang flop, but I was close & known distance - with a very solid rest. The critter was down instantly, but I was surprised how long it's head moved around. A lung shot usually has the critter dead and calm by the time I walk up to them.. As said, "bang flop" but it showed me nothing a side to side lung shot doesn't do just as well and most times quicker.

A water balloon seems to go very flat, very quickly when poked with a bullet. Same with lungs!

CDOC

[Wolfer]

I've already posted here and said about the same thing as Ridgerunner but I'll add to it.
This is especially true for heavy boolits below speed of sound. If I put 1 round from my 45 colt
behind the shoulder and sit quiet they usually will make a few jumps, stop and look around.
They can't seem to know what happened, they will sniff at the wound but don't seem to be in any
real pain. In a minute or so they will fall over. If they see me before this they can run quite aways.
At least this has been my experience.

[303Guy]

It's accounts like that of AKtinman that reinforce my shyness of the head shot. My good rabbit huntin' buddy always goes for head shots and you know what? I've seen 'em jump up and run away! I've also seen 'em simply run away. Can't be sure those that ran away didn't have a broken jaw.

I tried to dispatch a fallen deer - a big red - with a brain shot from behind with a hornet and nothing happened! So I moved to the front and put the shot between the eyes. That turned off his lights. The point is I have no idea where inside that big head the tiny brain is. So no head shooting for me.

[Texas Heart Shot]

Like they say "Aim small miss small, aim big ya got meat". When I was guiding i always told my clients to take a shot just behind the front shoulder. Alot of them would get excited & just shoot. I always said i should have carried puppie downers for my hunters so they would calm down. LOlolo

[testhop]

lungs always . head shots are messy and unsightly.
inmho

[Silvercreek Farmer]

A lot of votes for head shot squirrels out there and that was my prefered target until recently. The kids wanted squirrel stew and I didn't want to let them down with a miss, so I went for the chest with a subsonic round nose .22lr. The two I shot didn't even go 5 feet, and viturally no meat was lost. I didn't even bother cutting out the wounded ribs, there was no need...

[303Guy]

I find chest shots on rabbits are far more reliable and no meat loss - there's nothing to loose up there anyway. But, hit them too far back and they're lost anyway.

Something I've found out about squirrel brains - you guys may not want to eat them;

"Two Kentucky doctors last month reported a possible link between eating squirrel brains and the rare and deadly human variety of mad-cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease."

In the last four years, 11 cases of a human form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, have been diagnosed in rural western Kentucky, said Dr. Erick Weisman, clinical director of the Neurobehavioral Institute in Hartford, Ky., where the patients were treated.

''All of them were squirrel-brain eaters,'' Dr. Weisman said. Of the 11 patients, at least 6 have died.

Apparently, cooking them doesn't destroy the protein that causes it.

[brad925]

I agree with Crusty. Heart lung area. Its quick and also ensures a good bleed out.

[Bealzybub]

My opinion is "it all depends on the situation". What type of critter I'm shooting, backdrop, how the rifle is set up, etc".

Again I think of shooting/hunting the same way I think of golf, use the right club (weapon) and every single shot is going to be different.

[RidgerunnerAk]

303: That's very interesting; I had not heard of this issue in squirrels. You're correct about the CJ disease. Nothing seems to destroy the mis formed protein, not even incinerating. For more details on the history of this ailment read "Deadly Feasts" by Richard Rhodes. It will scare the bejeezus out of you. It's a history of the discovery of cause of this disease in New Guinea. An incredible read.

[303Guy]

Holy Cow! There are 30known forms of prions disease (pronounced pre-ons). CJ's is just one of them. (I think that's what they said). Fortunately its rare in humans.

I've noticed how some animals behave differently. I wonder if prions ever has a part in that. Lots of things make an animal different. Some might be just plain thick - doh! Maybe simply individual character.

[RidgerunnerAk]

In New Guinea they eventually got the forest people to NOT eat the brains of the people they killed, as was customary, and that eradicated the issue in humans there if I remember correctly.

[honus]

My years in Alaska taught me to switch from heart/lung to the front shoulder. Heart/ lung shots are always fatal but may allow the animal to run into cover. The shoulder shot, while not an instantaneous kill, will drop the animal where it stood.

[Red River Rick]

Smash the front shoulder, then go for the lungs!

RRR

[DLCTEX]

Know your limitations, know your weapons limitations, know your animal and it's anatomy,and be ethical.

[Beagle333]

My fave deer shot is the little spot just at the top of the lungs and just below the spine. A nice hp boolit will jelly the lungs and shatter the spine, and it won't last 10 seconds after that.

[Stephen Cohen]

Since the law requires head shots on Kangaroos in this country, I have always gone for head shots on all game. Pigeons Parrots and rabbits, when shot with .22 fare better with head shots IMO, however I did use shoulder shot on my last Pig as it was the only shot offered. But I will not knock anyone their choice of aim point, as long as the kill is humane.

[waksupi]

Stephen, what is the thinking on that law on shooting kangaroos?

[303Guy]

I'm shocked! Mind you, you don't find many head shots that have failed. I should emphasize "find"! Not the same day anyway. Don't mean to knock those who use head shots, just the law makers. If you know what you're doing and can shoot properly then that's fine but the law makers don't always know what they're doing and neither can they shoot properly - mostly. Maybe they simply weren't 'thinking'.