Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting So, when you lung shoot a deer...

I have to say that most of the deer I shoot, I get a pretty good look at the heart/lung area and put a bullet into the top of the heart. I stand and still hunt, so the deer are usually not spooked and usually at fairly close range. I have shot them with stuff ranging from .257 Roberts to .30-06 with some 12 gauge slugs thrown in. A great majority of them have just flopped over dead. If it is undisturbed, I think the shock will kill it sooner than later. If a deer is running and is lung hit, it may take 5-10 seconds for it to exsanguinate (bleed out). A deer can cover a lot of ground in 5 or 10 seconds. I do remember one I shot at the edge of a field in about 8 inches of snow. It ran into the woods at a full gallop. After following a two track blood trail from the pass-through shot that my 9-year-old could have followed, we found it about 100 yards down where it had run full tilt between two trees and got stuck. That deer just didn't know it was dead.

If I don't hit the heart, the actual cause of death is usually a pulmonary embolism caused by blood clots from the lungs getting to the heart. Next time you gut a deer, open up the heart. You may very well find a large clot that caused a massive heart attack. This will stop the flow of blood to the brain, which will kill the deer faster than if it just bleeds out.

BTW, it is illegal in Wisconsin to shoot a dog even if you find it running deer. Of course it is also illegal to shoot the wolves here, but I have heard rumors of some of them getting shot. I think some people would shoot a dog on sight if it was chasing a deer up here, but most would either not shoot it at all, or put one in front of its nose to scare it off.

Fast Ed