Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting The high shoulder rifle shot

Yeah, high neck is super deadly. I've shot deer in a few different body parts. Center of shoulder, high shoulder, behind and low of shoulder, neck, etc. They all will kill quickly but, most of the places I hunt are surrounded by very steep hills. I want my deer to drop right there. No running. I usually shoot for center or high neck. Killed a bunch like that and it never has failed me.

Sometimes a neck shot is all you got.

I have 2 like that where both main beams almost touch.

I think that using a CNS type DRT ending leaves the carcass with blood in the carcass.

I believe my best eating is arrow harvested game………if they die within seconds of being shot.

I postulated it’s because they are bled out………kinda kosher……..

You gut them and what blood is left in the body???? Relatively little is left in the meat..And there will always be some,
if they die within seconds of being shot. No different than if they die within seconds of being arrowed.. They only bleed out if the heart is pumping for longer than a few seconds.

Addition: Just finished a roast from the above Deer....Corn and acorn fed. Tasted excellent.

Excellent and a very good Deer....

Bullet broke the spine. High, yes, but bone shards don't lie. Another "miss", dammit!

I agree, but makes little difference in the eating. But it does make some. Of 20 something moose, some were lung shot, some were head/neck shot. A good representative sample. Along with over 75 caribou to date..

The best eating moose was a "yearling" that took a 12 guage slug through the very center of large artery just under the spine, back edge of shoulder area, leaving arterial wall on both sides of the hole. A bit high... Missed bone, slug never expanded, exited. He was running, at 35 yards, at the time, and made it about another 100 before tipping over in mid-stride.

He was so bled out his meat was very pale. Aging process didn't hurt either - he was hung outside for 6 days under the spruce, with a tarp over the pole to keep sap, needles, etc off. Low 50's in daytime, dipping below freezing at night. Just enough crust to keep the flies off, with enough mist, fog, or light rain time to time to keep the crust that way.

I ate the last piece of him 2 years later and it was better than that I'd killed just a few weeks before.

That's a really nice deer, Skeen. Congrats.

Boy that is a dandy..👍

I am with you las bled out game tastes best.


But you gotta find em before they spoil.

Let's back outta here and come back in the morning to find him...... Celabratory drinks all night and high-fives when we find him......

just like on the hunting shows.....

I’m a lung buster. Always have been, always will be. I’ve done the high shoulder shot a couple of times on closer shots. I just see too much margin for error up there. Bust the basketball and go get them after the death dash. I’ve never lost a lung shot deer after being shot with a rifle. Top of heart/lung area is a sure death.

I don't care about meat loss, as I give away most of the deer that I shoot, but unless they are looking straight at me, I prefer to shoot 'em through the lungs. If they are looking straight at me, I shoot 'em in the center of the neck.

On elk and moose I prefer to shoot them in the shoulder to anchor them for a follow-up shot.

I've seen more than one elk that had been fataly shot go far enough to make the retrievel harder than it would have been if the first shot had broken one or both shoulders.

I helped retrieve a moose from an almost frozen beaver pond because the shooter was admiring his first and only shot, rather than continuing to shoot it until it was down. That moose didn't go far, but it went far enough to be a PITA to retrieve and I'm a path of least resistance sort of hunter.

If I'm understanding you correctly, that seems to me to be the most difficult shot to take, with the least room for error. Not a shot I'd take. But maybe any miss off center would be a clean miss?

I don't know, I've never missed that shot.

I have never been disappointed on high shoulder shot results. Usually down instantly and the handful of meat is not missed . I usually aim for ribs and at the shot wander back towards the shoulder , either way , the outcome is good. In open country where I hunt the results of a short sprint are still in sight so a non issue. As i hunt both deer and antelope , the same shot results in DRT , I believe the spine rides a touch lower through the shoulder area on antelope. so that is taken in to consideration also.

Doesn't take that much to find a dead deer.

Nope. You can still blow a chunk of meat off and not have a vital hit. Works well when you center though. Wife uses center of the white throat patch a few times. Thats about as low on a neck as I'd care to go.