Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Neck Shots

Being a lifelong stillhunter, my shot opportunities are quite often fleeting at best. I have to take the shot that is presented to me in the moment. Quite often, that has been a neck shot. It has been very affective over the years, although it ruins the neck roast for my aunt's saurbraten recipe. I much prefer a high shoulder shot which short circuits the brachial plexus, like being struck by lightning.

Killed 3 with neck shots. One hunt a buck was following a doe. Shot the buck, doe hung around. Took the doe, only doe I’ve shot. It was with a 12 gauge Remington 1187 premier with Sabot Slugs.
Took a neck shot last week at a spike horn with the xbow. Caught a twig and into the leaves. Clean miss.

Hope to not overstay my welcome but have some experiences to share. A fellow guide found a dead 5-point bull elk last year during muzzle loading season. Thin as a rail he noticed it had an odd bulge in the neck. Cutting it open he found a arrow all the length of the neck. The hunter shot it in the mouth facing him. The guide said he could tell it had tried to eat but the grass in its throat could not pass the arrow. Knowing it had snowed 3 days before he found the bull and the bull was laying on top of the 3-day old snow, it had died in the previous 3 days. Last day of archery season was 3 weeks before, so we know it took at least 3 weeks to starve to death. An odd case for sure.

I shoot the vast majority of does in the neck. Generally prefer to shoot bucks in the boiler room, but the last two I killed fell to neck shots as that is what they were giving me.

Neck shot was offered this morning at 45 yards.

This morning walking in-

Creature of habit I reckon. Never thought about where I was going to aim. The crosshair got still and the Partition was on its way.

Biggest buck I’ve ever taken, popped out into a narrow lane coming towards me, head down and trotting, hair standing up looking for a fight.
I’d been watching a smaller buck and several does all morning. They would pop out coming towards me, then jump sideways out view. This was all going on 200-250 yards up the lane from me.
When big boy came out, I thought “showtime! 250 yards” and let fly. I’m about 4” low with that rifle at 250, primitive season. So I held on his nose. Ended up being a little closer, hit right beside nostril, traveled all the way down his neck and was found under the hide on his ass cheek…
250 grain .366 accubond out of 9.3x74r.
He dropped, drt so I thought. Immediately reloaded and put the crosshairs back on him.
About 5 minutes go by, I feel smug and set rifle down and start answering all the txt blowing up my phone from other club members. A full 15 minutes went by, suddenly he’s half up and crawling out the lane! I grabbed rifle and shot again, missed him. Reloaded and started walking down, cussing myself for not immediately putting another one in him. Got down there and he was dead as a hammer, 5 feet off the lane. Phew!! Some months later, bit down on that white plastic accubond tip in a piece of backstrap

One of the guys in our club views himself as a super sniper and he has shot a lot of deer aiming for the neck or the head. His reasoning and I’ve heard it before is, “It’s either DRT or a clean miss.”

🐎💩!! And Toro crappo!! ! I can’t tell you how many hours we’ve spent looking for deer that he shot that weren’t DRT OR cleanly missed. Pushing through sapling pines and blackberry briars on the dark looking for specks of blood is not the way to spend a few hours with your buds.

Not as a rule. Back about 2008 or so I was in a tree stand when a big doe came in and stopped at 30 yards looking right at me with her chest covered by a tree. I was using my H&R 12 gauge Trophy Slugster with Federal Barnes copper expanders. I aimed where her neck met her head and dropped her in her tracks. Only intentional neck shot I can remember.

Ron

nope i do the middle of front shoulder shot if i can with my 257 Weatherby mag. 103 gr. Hammer bullet or a 100 gr. Nosler Partition going 3700 FPS, its DRT or as my dear old friend said its a no track`em cartridge .

Never done a deer, but an elk, several caribou, and half a dozen moose. If it is there, I take it, or a head shot, or any cns as a preference. Never had a problem with it.

Better bleed-out/meat quality with boiler room shots tho.

We have had multiple people just like this provide us with similar experiences. Usually they are very good shots at the range. I always politely ask that they avoid those shots in the future. Those same guys nearly always continue to do it anyway and they don't get invited back. Water is scarce on our place and I nearly always find those deer by the water troughs with their bottom jaws blown off or the end of their noses blown off. It normally takes them 3 to 4 days to die a lingering horrible death from dehydration.

When the shot works it works great. When you miss by a couple inches your not going to find that deer but there is a good chance it is going to die a slow death. Just my opinion.

A friend a long time ago shot a pronghorn in the head (jaw) with a 7mm RM. it took us quite some time before we put that pronghorn down. I’m not convinced shooting for the head is a great idea.

Actually started a thread about this yesterday. Still curious about the seeming contradiction...

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/19149127/what-happened#Post19149127

I started out as primarily a bow hunter. As a result, all my sensibilities are geared toward boiler room shots.

At 65, I'm done with goat rodeos. I'm sure a head or neck shot is perfectly viable, but I'm now judging my shots based on how easy it's going to be to roll the truck up to get it loaded.

A22lr would have done the same! Lot of guys tell us how accurate their rifle is but how accurate are they. They can hit 3/4" spot on a target from a bench but not on a deer at 100 yds! Anymore I think the best shot is the smallest most vital target you can actually hit! From a good field position it is much more likely you'll hit a one inch target at 100 yds than ever 300 yds! lpt of one inch rifles out their in the hands of shooters that can't hit that one inch. minute pf angle at 400 yds is not one inch!

For damn sure. That 5/8" group is .149 moa in fact.. And no on neck shots. It has been proven that it is too risky. No matter how bad azzed you think you are..

I like to shoot deer where the neck - head meat. It's a no brainier most of the time. I can recall 3 lost deer that I've head shot, I'm sure there's more. It's up to the shooter to determine if the conditions are favorable and if they can hold the + where it belongs. I sure don't need anyone telling me where the he'll to shoot a swamp goat.
I've killed deer and thrown them on a fire in the orange groves, gut shot them so hopefully they'll run out of the field so you don't have to drag them out. Times change 50 years ago we'd get nuisance tags issued, now it's night vision, suppressors and all the deer you feel like killing. There's times and places where deer are nothing but varmints and are treated as such.

Entrance was directly opposite

Exit on the ground


Exit on the pole