Your name is Hoyt (A bow company) and you've never tracked a deer?

That must be why you say the only ethical shot is a vitals shot, well I've got a newsflash for you, when you hunt with a gun, you CAN take a neck shot on a deerwhen you have a rifle, heck, you can kill deer by hitting them in the head! The force of a rifle bullet will break the spine, thus severing the spinal chord whenever a neck shot is taken.

You can kill almost any mammal with a head shot, deer are no exception. Close range, good optics, will result in a doe, with no meat spoiled by the bullet whatsoever. That's quickly despatching the animal.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't fit in the Hail Mary Shots.

Neck shots and head shots will kill a deer quicker and cleaner that a vitals shot, with MOST vitals shots, even with a rifle, the deer will run.
Deer have been known to run with nothing but the upper Vena Cavae of the heart left after a bullet hit them, for 200 yards! (Disclaimer: This example was a severe case, not what every hunter should expect, but most deer tend to run less than 100 yards, and typically more that 100 yards when hit in the vitals.)


I don't know what kind of deer you hunt that fall dead like flies, but you in no way speak for most hunters, and your example is nothing to call me an unethical hunter over.

BTW, deer might not always be in range for a neck or head shot, so I try to make a shoulder shot instead, since they not only run so far, the bone from the shoulder shatters, and it send the pieces of bone into the vitals, and when a deer can't run, he has to not move, which makes him bleed faster, ultimately resulting in a faster, cleaner kill.