Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting High Shoulder Gone Wrong

Had a couple of decent piney-woods 8 point bucks suddenly show up via cell-cam at last light on Tuesday night and first light on Wednesday morning on an old stand location I just reclaimed this season, so I made myself find the time to climb in the stand about 4pm yesterday.

One of the two stepped out near the camera with 6 minutes of legal light left. The stand location is down in a dark hardwood bottom and I had to turn on the NF illuminated Forceplex to place on his silhouette, slightly angled away. I popped him with the little 16.5" suppressed CVA Scout 7-08 at 85 yards (factory 139 Interlocks) and heard him crash a few seconds afterwards. A few minutes later and I wouldn't have been able to make him out in the scope. Only really picked him up in my binoculars because I saw his lighter colored rack move at the end of the lane.



Once I started taking a closer look, I saw his coat was tufted a bit, high on the shoulder. Looks like somebody flubbed a high-shoulder shot in the last couple of weeks by hitting a few inches too high. Buck had healed over completely and the exit on the other side was a black scab about the size of a quarter. He was perfectly functional and healthy, but I'm sure some other hunter was sick about it. Mathematically, it simply doesn't take much shooter error to flub that shot when buck fever sets in, or you forget about POI/POA, or you aren't very steady when the shot breaks.




The photo below was from the "neck shot" thread recently. I continue to generally hold for getting a bullet through the black circle, even if they run a bit. There's a fair margin for error there.




As an aside, I keep forgetting that I'm hunting with suppressed rifles and still expect the loud boom. One advantage that is seldom discussed is the ability to hear a deer run and crash with "fresh" ears. It's rather cool and useful.

I flubbed the shot I made Sunday on a buck; too high but far enough back that I think I got the aorta. He went maybe 80-100 yards with a skimpy blood trail, but was well bled out.

Three years ago I made a similar hit on one with a crossbow, but too far forward to catch the aorta and it turned into a real goat rope. Imagine if you will, a gimpy old fat man running down a trail behind an exhausted deer….When he (the deer) finally collapsed, I shot another arrow into his chest, but ended up putting two Mini Mags from my LCP2 into the back of his head just to make certain.

Wish I had a video of that one!

Great buck! Yeah, that first round is in "no man's land", and is a stunner, not a killer. I've seen a handful of aoudad sheep hit here with the same results.

Might be one of those shots where the hunter climbs down out of the stand to go pick up his dead deer, and finds that the deer has jumped up and run off.

Seems like most “goat rodeos” at our place generally involve a misplaced archery shot. Glad you turned into a win, even if wasn’t pretty!

Have seem the "too-high" shoulder shot happen on deer--and other big game.

In 2011 killed a Cape buffalo in Tanzania that had a set of pale scars on either side of the top of his spine--and the "spinal process," the fin-like knob above the scars was missing.

You can see the white scar just in front of me in this photo:


Here's a close-up of the area:


Have often wondered what happened after that shot...

Very impressive buck, JPro!

I don't think I would have wanted to see that rodeo.

No joke. Hopefully the buff left the scene that day, headed for the horizon. Aside from a big cat or bear, that's probably the last animal I'd want to hit like that and pursue.

I spine-shocked this sow a few seasons back with an offhand shot and she bulldozed her way into the brush, out of sight, then took off. The blood trail petered out after a couple hundred yards with the blood smears being awfully high on trees. She showed back up on the cameras a week or so later and I watched her heal up with a nice big scar. Those buggers have that stand location wrapped up lately, so she is probably still haunting me there.....lol

It may have been interesting to watch from afar.

What percentage of "this bullet is no good for deer" and "cartridge xyz doesn't have enough killing power" stories come out of situations like this?

High shoulder works great……when the bullet goes where needed! Expiration is a bit longer……but, a behind the shoulder, through the lungs offers a much larger target and is a very reliable kill-shot. It’s been pretty effective since mankind has been killing things! memtb

I don’t give up on them until it’s hopeless. If you’re gonna shoot ‘em, you need to follow up with the same serious effort you put into putting yourself in position to make the shot. I’m a pretty fair tracker. The one I shot Sunday didn’t leave much blood until he went down. About half of what I followed was disturbed leaves and a few skid marks. The xbow buck went through some go-to-Hell catbriars I couldn’t negotiate, so I circled ahead and picked up the track on the other side. He’d bedded down beside a tree right on a well-travelled trail and when I got close he got up and the chase was on…

My first ML deer was hit poorly and I tracked her about 3/4 mile, fortunately in snow, and since I couldn’t get another bullet down the barrel, I punched her ticket with a S&W snubby with a laser grip. Long drag back to the car with that one, in a driving Wintry mix, in the dark. I was alot younger then, 61😜

Nice buck👍👍

All those situations are, always, caused by "the nut behind the bolt" !

I've only had to track 2 deer, further than 50-60 yards.

1st one was shooter error, from a liver/diaphragm/gut shot, from my son's .243, 300 metres.

2nd one was shooter error, as above, from my wife's crossbow, again 200ish metres.

Probably 80%+. I bet all the hunter found on that shot was maybe some meat and hair.

i shoot the deer down diagonally (from where you shoot it) to the right, where the "armpit" is.



about the bottom of the orange dot




i did shoot them your way for years, but i got tired of throwing away meat. its half dozen if you do a shoulder shot and its 6 if you do a lung shot. a neck shot is fine, IF the deer is close enuff and your rifle is STEADY. i have done that 3 or 4 times. i only did one headshot. it was with the 22-250AI and the deer was only 15 yards away.

i shot a 4pt a couple of years ago. it was 53 yards away, using my Winchester m94 in 35/30-30 and 200gr RCBS FN GC with 2400/tuft of Dacron that goes 1726fps. somewhere i messed up the shot. it was either i smacked the trigger, moved the rifle or whatever. i did mess up the shot. anyway, i shot it high in the lungs, missing the shoulder completely. the deer ran about 15 yards and it stood behind a big tree. i could hear it drowning in own blood for what i thought was 15 minutes, but it only lasted for 1 minute or two and then the buck fell over dead.

I make a lot of pure lung shots also, mainly on whitetail does I'm just shooting for the freezer. I try to pull forward into the rear edge of the shoulder just a bit when I'm not as interested in conserving every bit of meat, mainly for the slightly larger margin for error on a deer that moves or a wobble in my rifle hold. So long as the vital-zone balloon gets popped, I'm generally happy.

That’s a dandy buck - congrats!

JPro's deer healed over first shot was what I'd call "the withers shot" and I first heard about shooting one there for an instant drop at a WI. Whitetail Classic seminar. I wish that I'd never heard of it because I took that shot on a big buck where what I could see was that upper back. 140 grain TSX and five drops of blood and two days of looking turned up nothing. I hit another buck there with an arrow with the same result. Don't shoot them there.

Nice one!

Great eight, JPro!

Love a big, clean, symmetrical, 8 pointer.

Nick buck JPro, the deer not moving much in daylight here in south Louisiana not much shooting around my area. It get's better down here late Dec. thru Jan.

Congrats on a very nice Buck. Looks like your shot placement worked out nicely. Good job.