Judging the pic of the arrow in the deer without knowing the story is a bit unfair. That deer may have been standing broadside and the hunter intending to shoot it in the vital made a bad shot. We don't know that it was intentional. Not really fair to group a hunter making a bad shot and with one taking a bad shot. I know a lot of guys that have made poor shots with out intent. Heck I made one last year on a doe. I was able to recover her but I was still mad at myself for the poor placement. I would hope that it is a very small number of hunters that would consider a head shot on a deer. From what I can see by other posts, it is very very small number(1). I am proud to be apart of this site because of that.

Mr. Longbeard, why arent you answering all the ?'s[:-] and also what was the point of posting this thread[:-]? And why are you always bringing up public land?

No never in a million years would I take a head shot.I don't believe it to be an ethical shot!
Mr. Longbeard was fortunate to kill the animal quickly.A lot of things could have gone wrong though! To come on to a public forum and pose this question strikes me as odd.What possible reaction would someone expect? I have acquantainces who kill a lot more game then I do,with one of the reasonsbeing that theywill put an arrow or bullet into their animal of choice any way they can.I have passed on some big deer because I wasn't willing to do that,would I have killed some of them,likely I would,but I wouldn't have respected myself and I wouldn't expect anyone else to either.

humans only use about 10% of their brain (if i recall right). I am sure the same could be said with a deer (more or less). Now since the whole head is not the brain (skull, hair, nose, mouth ect), you would need to hit a spot that takes up less than 10% of the head, not very good odds. also in one of my classes in school, we learned about a man that had a rail road spike go completely into his head and took out a large part of his brain. The man survived but suffered severe problems mostly about self restraint.
Given the odds and what can happen, i wouldn't shoot, even on a world record buck, i would just wait for another day or deer to come.

never.wouldn't want to take the risk.

I haven't even bothered looking ateveryones replies yetbut seeingshow there's 5 pages alreadyI'm thinking you're pretty battered and bruised. What are you thinking? [:'(]


Edited:Whooo my bad, that's 9 pages.

It seems that everyone is saying "yes" or "no" with little else to say. The "yes's" seem to be those that say they have done it or seen it done. The real question is, "Is it an ethical shot?" it'sa philosophical thinker, "Do the ends justify the means?" a consequentialist says that as long as the deer is dead and not just injured it is ok b/c the action resulted in the desired outcome. However, you need to apply rationalism to this with all possible outcomes. As big as the buck may be, if the shot glances off and leaves a large wound, that big buck will run off and die of infection. The problem that we have amongst ourselves are the intentions of the hunters. We have those who hunt for enjoyment, and necessity...and those who hunt for trophy. I think that whenever we forego our ethical treatment and shot selection we are dealing with trophy hunters. We need to respect the game, and respect the woods, and treat it as an experience, not as a pissing contest to see who can get the bigger rack. This is where we are pressured and criticized, (and rightly so) by animal rights activists. We don't always make the smartest decision with our shots, but we need to recognize that, learn from it, and teach others to learn from our mistakes. A head shot with a bow, regardless of the outcome is not ethical, nor smart, and just adds fuel to the anti-hunting fire. If you mess up and don't follow the ethical guidelines set forth by previous generations and re-iterated in our safety courses, then don't advertise it and in effect condemn hunting. It's only a matter of time until it is taken away from us all, act mature and responsible. I'm not saying that this incident was irresponsible, but as a whole hunters need to improve their image in the public eye, advertising head shots, and taunting downed game, and acting like a general fool after a kill is not good publicity.

If its legal, it's ethical, right???

We shouldn't tell our brother hunters how to hunt as long as its legal, right???

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Hate to say it Mr. Longbeard... but youve made a real jackass out of yourself... where you hunt has nothing to do with taking a head shot with a bow! All this thread has done is give PETA ammo to fire right back at us. Good luck hunting your public land and "working harder than everyone else" this fall. Good luck and hunt smart.
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Boy are you right on that Higgy, a real jacka$$.
Longbeard, good luck with your future decision making. Hopefully you LEARN something from this roastingyou are taking and apply it to future hunts,threads and/or topics.
I know my father had a shot go terriblywrong a few years back, (as we all do from time to time), and the arrow ended up sticking out both sides of the deers head as it ran away. He said the blood trail was huge, blood every where, easy to track. Then after about 100 yardsthe bloodstopped.
My dad and 3 other hunters were out there combing the woods for 6 hours looking for the deer, never found him. My father is by far the best tracker I've hunted with, (next to me that is ) He finds deer on a tough trail.
Point of the story is, ALOT of things can go wrong with any bow shot.My father's arrow was aimed at the vitals, somehow ended up in the head. He still feels terrible that this happened. With as big of a blood trail as there was, they still could not find the deer.
So Longbeard, wake up and be smart. Intentional head shots are just plain stupid and unethical and have no place inhunting.

What's legal and what's ethical are 2 different things. If you wrote legal rules for every little thing it would take forever to get things passed. Therefore, states rely on good judgment by the hunters without imposing their will too strongly. They rely on us to patrol our own ranks on many issues and make ethical decisions without having to patrol us too much.

Not doingso is asking for the anti's to find something that they can use to take 1 small thing away. Keep taking enough small things and soon the big ones are gone too. I've been reading a lot of articles from the 1994, 95 years of Bowhunter Magazine and it's surpising how it was over 10 yrs ago when it came to archery and how much we've actually gained since then. We do not need to start giving it back with unethical decisions like this. Look at some countries where they do not allow archery at all because of wounded game. Do you want that?

The guy asked our thoughts and none of us are telling him how to hunt. We are expressing our dissatisfaction in an unethical act. I'm guessing you've done something like this with your response.