Hunting Ethics

There is debate that never ends in the hunting community about the merits of a headshot.

You know - one shot, one kill - to the head. 

With a turkey it is almost the only shot - and is typically taken with a shotgun chambered specifically with a turkey load to drop a cagey and difficult to kill bird.  Scattershot is preferred.  With a bow it is nigh impossible in which case a heart-lung shot is advised.

The debate chiefly centers about the application of a headshot when hunting deer.  For obvious reasons an arrow to the head is ill-advised.  Easy to miss and penetration iffy.

With a gun a perfectly placed headshot is always fatal.  The operative term is 'perfectly-placed'.  Anything less can range from a clean miss to a dead deer or somewhere in between such as a badly maimed deer with a jaw blown-off and left to suffer a horrible and drawn-out death.

For those reasons - here at The Platz - we've discussed the matter at length and the crew has concluded that an ethical deer kill is always a bullet or arrow to the high probability heart lung part of the deer anatomy.  Preferably broadside.

This pic showed-up on a trail camera the other day.  It is poorly-composed and over exposed by the IR flash yet it clearly shows a doe with an ear hanging by a thread.  Likely a result of someone attempting a low-probability headshot.  This is not funny.

click on image for a closer look



She'll survive as whitetails are a tough species with documented recoveries from car crashes, legs being blown-off and worse.  Moreover, this is clearly the external part of the ear.  Nevertheless, it's unnerving and I'm posting this to illustrate an example of what not to do.

Animal deserves more respect than this...