Pat Ford:
The deer I’m thinking of was laying with it’s legs under it. I put one right in the middle of the forehead and it took two to do the job.

To which I reply:

Finally, I have a second true-life anecdote to confirm my thesis that head shots on deer are not a good idea. If you don’t mind, I’ll include it in my book. A skull is a weird place, and bullets do strange things.

I’m not here to throw rocks at anyone. Lord knows I’ve done plenty of stuff in my hunting career that seemed right at the time. However, I’ll just repeat the advice I give whenever asked:

1) Shoot for the heart/lung region. It offers the largest kill zone, and a quick and sure way to lead your deer to paradise. This is true for the first, second, third and all succeeding shots you put on a deer.
2) Don’t put a gun barrel up close to a dying deer and try to touch one off. Stand back a ways and do the work. This is for your safety.

Think of it this way: if you were back at the range and shooting from a bench, would you set up with a backstop only a few feet in front of your muzzle? If you did, do you think the RSO would let you get away with it?

For me, the lesson was a cheap one in my infancy as a shooter. All it took was one round from a rifle coming back at me, lightly passing through my hair on the way, to make me a believer for life.

The other reason to put distance between you and a deer is that a live wounded deer can put a serious hurt on you. I have never tangled with a live deer, but I have been incapacitated a long distance from my car. I was able to hobble out, but it sucked. I have it on good authority that crawling on the ground with multiple injuries sucks even more.

It is a good rule of thumb that you should never attempt anything in the field that has the potential for winding up in the “It Happened to Me” section of Outdoor Life.

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