Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game The neck shot?

I’ll do a neck shot if the shot isn’t too far and if the animal is facing me. I aim just below where the head and neck meet.

Regarding saving meat, I find you don’t waste any meat if you put it through the ribs and use a non-frangible bullet.

Ture that Jeffrey, the biggest meat wasting shots are Shoulder shots and for the life of me I do not understand why anyone takes them.

I’ve shot 3 kinds of deer, brown and black bears, caribou, elk, and loads of pigs in the neck. It is a very effective shot if you can pull it off correctly.

I generally don’t go looking for a neck shot but there are times where it’s what you get. A buck rattled up in tall grass and brush, better shoot him in the throat patch or miss your chance. Does feeding unaware and you don’t want to trail them, right behind the ear wastes no meat and they go right down. An elk in the timber and you can see his neck between two pines but not his chest. All real life scenarios that I’ve lived. Never yet had a rodeo due to a neck shot.

Neck shot for me whenever possible, every single time. But, I hunt close range, with plenty of gun, 6.5 Swede to 8mm Mauser. A hit at close range with a garden variety rapid mushrooming cup and core anywhere in the neck is a kill...it's not necessary to fracture the spine. 60 years of Blacktail hunting, most of the time took the neck shot, two tags a year, I have lost 1 and only 1 buck. That was stupid me, he was down but kicking and I was sure he was done, me farting around looking for the fired brass.

TheKid;
Good evening to you sir, I hope that the week has been a good one for you and your fine family.

Thinking back on a few hunts, I've ended up having no shot but a neck shot on a few whitetail bucks but can't recall if I've shot mulie bucks there or not.

I do recall shooting at least a couple mulie bucks either in the ear hole as you mentioned or a couple between the eyes as they stuck their heads up over a sagebrush.

On whitetail, this one was trotting straight towards me in a grown in cut block, so as you mentioned I put the crosshairs where the neck and the front legs come together and broke two vertebrae. That silly bullet then clipped the top of a lung, bounced back through a full grass bag and ended up underneath the hide on it's left butt cheek.

Standard sort of 2nd rack Okanagan whitetail.



The butt cheek bullet is the one on the right - 167.5gr .308" TSX started out at 3150 or so.



This buck came from the same cut block 3 years later. It came in through the replanted Doug Firs like it was on a string to my second series of grunt calls. Was super still that morning so perfect for calling. Anyways we can see the trickle of blood on the neck. I hit it as it cleared enough of the Doug Fir to give me a good shot.



Same rifle, same bullet but this time it left the deer and went into the great beyond.

This one died within a kilometer of the two above, but in '92 so 20 years before that - maybe '93?? I'd have to check. I was poking through the timber, this thing snorted and flagged, but stopped when I let out a loud bleat. When I looked through the binos, I saw it's brow tines and thought, "Oh nice, a little spiker" so I brought up the rifle and slid one in a couple inches below the base of the skull.



Funny when you look at the racks close from the '90's and from the 2012 one you can clearly see they're related. Sort of neat how that happens even over decades.

Anyways those were three times that I used neck shots where I took a photo of the buck afterwards. Since we process our own game we might not lose as much meat as if a commercial meat cutter had to poke through it, but I'm guessing on that.

All the best to you all and good luck on your hunts.

Dwayne

Taken two elk with neck shots, both where my horse spooked the elk up, they ran 40 yards, then stopped and turned to look back at me after I exited the saddle. Neck was the only clear area through the trees. Overgunned with a .300Win but it seemed to work.

100%

In my mind I draw and imaginary line between the ear and shoulder and endeavor to place the bullet about two inches below the ear.




























At worst, they just Drop and Paddle!



ya!

GWB

Great pics Dwayne, that second buck is a real bruiser.

A friend and I were once climbing and fighting our way up a mountainside on Kodiak trying to get to a vantage point to look for a bear to put his tag on. We popped out into a little opening and as I looked across the deep gully about 80 yards wide I saw a buck peek his head over the grass and look at us. I whispered to him that there was a buck across the way and I could only see his head and neck. He responded by telling me to “stick one in the patch”. I thumbed the hammer back on my 1886 Winchester and sent him a 350 Speer when the blade looked centered on his neck right below his head. When I recovered from the recoil he was gone but I’d heard the whop when it hit him. We made our way across the cut and I’d hit him perfectly in the center of the throat and vaporized the uppermost vertebrae.

Wasn’t a big buck but it was a memorable shot on a fun adventure with an old friend.

That second buck is a slammer! Nice one!

Kid, cool story and 1886!

I had the same experience with my last neck shot on a broadside buck. I try to avoid it now.

👍! memtb

Good morning Dwayne, hope you doing great today.

That second deer sure has lots of character, big and beautiful and GREAT SHOT!

Like you I butcher all of my own animals and only bring trimmed venison into my butcher to make Jalapeno Cheddar Cheese Smokies and Hot Italian Sausages. He does an awesome job.

Butchering my animals myself, has become part of the hunting experience, a ritual for me and I actually enjoy doing the job myself. Can't even imagine handing my animals over to someone else.

Cheers and have a super weekend

90% of my shots are head/neck shots. All these are less than three hundred yards. If I need to shoot farther out, I will punch shoulders/lungs. Lots of great advice in this thread

That second buck is a beauty!

Buddy and his dad were pissed off that I shot an elk in the neck! Whine whine whine. I knew damned well the broadhead would work! Blood everywhere, dead elk not too far! LOL

i learned from my father early in life always behind the front shoulder if you can with bow or rifle , a neck shot you could lose the animal otherwise.

Hmmm. Mine said in the crease behind the front leg, but of course head or neck is better. Deer, straight on, 1 inch above a line between the eyes.

Works pretty good on my axis meat hunts.......

Most of my neck shots have went as advertised.

Hit a nice buck like Magbob, said.
He didn't even go down, just jumped into a thick patch where I couldn't
see enough to shoot him again.

Thankfully, I was ready when he bolted.
Truly believe I only killed him because of the 760 i had that day.

Not a pump fan, but firepower came into play in the 30 yard window
he bolted into.

the first 20 years of my hunting life i never heard or saw anyone shoot a deer anywhere but the neck or head. then the magazine gurus started pimping the heart lung shot as the only way a deer/elk/wooly mammoth could be killed. just about the time the spray and pray doctrine came to be.
i would venture over the last 60 years of hunting 60% of my shots on deer/elk/bear have been neck or head. i have seen them just stunned by this though. a insurance shot is so small of an expenditure i always pay the premium. have lost 1 deer in my lifetime. .257 ABC bullet through the shoulders on a buck.
drilled a .257 hole through and through. saw him a couple months later with w twin white spots of hair. picked up those target loads off the shelf in the dark that day.