Seems like that’s an awful lot of heat to bring against a comment which reflects a VERY common reality in hunting fields.

Most ethical hunters, at least the ones I care to call friends, feel obligated to shoot until the animal is down to ensure quick death, both for recovery of the animal as well as minimizing the animal’s suffering.

I can’t imagine any hunter with much experience in the field hasn’t had a “running dead” deer high-tailing it away after a shot, such the stern is presented for the follow up shot.

I will say, however, the tailpipe shouldn’t be the preferred point of aim for a wounded deer running away. Running or bounding, the tail/rump of the deer moves far more than the neck of the animal, and presents far greater penetration requirement and deflection opportunity than crushing through the back of the neck. Equally, the tailpipe shot runs a greater risk of contaminating meat with gut content.

I recall a doe I shot about 25 years ago with a Winchester Ballistic Silvertip, punched quartering away at less than 50 yards with a 30-06. She rolled, then jumped back up, and ran straight away, with her far side front leg flopping limply. I sent another at the only target picture I had, the broad white face of her rump. She tumbled and expired. Upon recovery, the first shot had punched through both lungs and her heart, and separated her far shoulder just below the joint. She was running dead after the first shot, but I couldn’t know that minutes before as I was watching a wounded deer, running away, with one of her legs flopping like a flag in the wind. Should I have watched a fast running, wounded and freshly hobbled doe run off into woods cover where I might not have found her? Where she could suffer while she rotted from the inside out, or where she might get torn down slowly by coyotes that night or days later? Seeing the damage from the first shot after recovery, she would have expired quickly, but she was on her feet and running, so I shot until she was down. I didn’t let her get into the brush where I might not have found her. I anchored her. Running dead. I could have field dressed her with a garden hose, her chest cavity was blended by the first shot, and her paunch rendered by the second. The smell was horrendous, and I lost the rib meat and tenderloins, which were tainted by the intestinal contents.

That was my first “running dead” shot opportunity on a deer running straight away, but certainly hasn’t been my last. However, I did learn in the interim to take the neck shot above the tail, rather than taking the “Texas Heart Shot.”

I was presented again in the winter of 2017. As I have shared here before, the buck I shot, at 32 yards, ran around a rock pile in front of my blind and turned straight away, running. I’ve shared the picture here of the buck’s heart, cut nearly in half by the first shot - but he was on his feet and running. A second shot to the rear base of his neck as he ran anchored him instantly. I could have let him keep running - another 20 yards would see him disappear into waist deep scrub brush, and another 200 yards would see him cross into my neighbor’s pasture. The information in the moment was that he was running, and hadn’t fallen to my shot. He didn’t know he was dead, nor did I, so in that moment, his feet were moving to get himself away from me, and my reticle was chasing him to be sure he couldn’t run away to suffer, and maybe to not be recovered.

Rear-entry shots on wounded game, running away, do happen. My personal standard would say it’s less ethical to watch a wounded animal run away instead of taking follow up shots, as sub-optimal as they might be.