Originally Posted by
flags
If you're only shooting 15 feet like you claim then you should be accurate. But that still doesn't mean a headshot is a good option. So you've killed 13 deer. I've killed 89 of 3 species. All in all I've taken 68 species of game on 3 continents and I know no serious hunters that advocate a head shot under normal shooting conditions. None.
Like I said, find a starving elk with its jaw shot off and then come talk to me. Bottom line the chest is a bigger and better target. Always has been and always will be. Somehow I doubt you would be honest on this site and admit it if you did blow a head shot. Funny that the bad shots never get talked about. I hope you get wiser as you get older because the game deserves it and doesn't deserve being left to starve after you do blow the shot and make no mistake, eventually you will.
I, as well as many others here, do not advocate the hunting ethnics behind the thought process of taking game as you have stated that you have. Myself as well as Flags and many others here have taken game in many other states and on other continents. We are all of the age and experience to know what is the better percentage of CLEANLY AND ETHICALLY harvesting any animal that we encounter in our hunting ways no matter of what our particular chosen method may be at that time. I am 53yrs old, I have hunted in 29 states and 5 foreign countries with 100's of animals harvested. I have only taken a handful of headshots during those times and I can clearly recall 5 that were to humanly finish an animal that was not shot properly in the beginning and was on its way to a horrific and painful death. I gave my tag up to finish what someone else failed to do. And 2 were with bow, and 3 were with firearm. I am a Certified Hunter Safety Instructor and I STRONGLY advocate to my students either take an ethical shot, or don't take it at all. I tell them to put themselves in that animals position. How would you want to go? What we are saying is that if you truly are purposely taking these animals like you say you are, you will eventually wound an animal that you could have waited a minute and took the MUCH higher percentage shot of the broadside and saved that animal the suffering. With age will come wisdom, just take it from those who have been there, done that and have multiple shirts to prove it.