A Time to Kill
Senseless killing does not become a man, and it does not become a hunter. A man should kill for good reason and should understand his reasons before he is faced with the necessity of killing.
As the father of three small boys I must help them become men. As part of that process I am teaching them to hunt. A man may one day have to kill. A hunter will certainly have killing to do.
This is not another lesson in hunting ethics. This is not a moral lecture. This is one hunting father’s struggle to come to terms with the necessity of raising boys into men who are able and willing to kill when the time arrives, because they have thought it through and know where they stand on the subject.
My boys may be privileged one day to look down the shaft of an arrow at a deer whose life they have chosen to take. Or they may be forced to look across the sights of a gun at a man who intends their family harm and whose life they are required to take. In either case I want the reasoning part done in advance.
I believe that a boy can ask two questions about any killing and that the answers will help direct his actions. (1) What am I protecting? (2) For what am I providing?
When wasps entered my attic and made a nest twice the size of a large pie plate I crawled up there and sprayed them with a petroleum distillate (gas), slaughtering them by the hundreds before they could attack.
As a boy I slaughtered hundreds of rabbits with a friend whose family depended on the sales of their meat to make ends meet. We shed rabbit blood to provide grocery money for my friend’s family. Other families depended on the inexpensive meat to feed their own family. We provided for both needs by killing.
In both situations I did not kill for the fun of it. I did not kill out of anger. I killed to protect and to provide. Needless killing is the work of a destroyer, not a provider or a protector. I do not permit my boys to kill songbirds just to do it. I encourage them not to kill without a reason. I encourage them to ask the questions: (1) What am I protecting? (2) For what am I providing?
We live in a day when people kill their unborn children for the sake of convenience. Yet they will not kill a diseased mouse in their own pantry. I want my boys to be men who know the worth of human and animal life. I also want them to be men who possess the courage to kill when it is time to kill.
(My thinking on this subject was influenced by Bob Schultz, author of the timeless classic: Boyhood and Beyond, (some of these words are his words, which, being timeless, I have made my words) as well as by the "Good Book" and a few years of thoughtful living, fathering, hunting and killing!)

This is not my work. I found this and thought it might apply to you. Please make sure you cite the work from the book underlined.

Ok...here is the story of my first buck and deer ever with a bow.

Today (October 15, 2003) I got my first buck with a bow ever. I first bought the Parker Hunter Mag, December 26, 2002 and instead of immediately going hunting I decided to practice all year. I didn't go hunting last season because I knew that I wasn't ready. This would have been unfair to the deer if I had only wounded them because I did not know about shot placement. So practice I did. I would practice in my back yard shooting until I was tired, I would practice off of my roof, and in my deer stand. I even got stuck in a tree practicing my climbing stand. After what seemed like an eternity the season finally arrived. I went out Oct 1, then Oct 9, 10, 11 with no luck. Wednesday, October 15, 2003 I tried some new land that belonged to the Corps of Engineers and IDNR. I didn't see anything Tuesday afternoon, plus I had left my release in the truck so I went out Wednesday again after work.
The Story:
I got to the parking lot about 3:45. By the time I had all my hunting gear, and my climber it was 4:15. I walked into the site about 3/4 of a mile where I found an oak grove. I climbed up the tree to about 25 feet. Then I started rattling and calling both with the primos bleet, estrus can, and the buck call. I aggressively rattled and called several times. About 5:00 I stood up and looked around. About 50 yards away was a field that backed up toward to a levy and beyond that the Mississippi river. At the edge of the field I saw a small flicker. Looking closer I saw two deer. I had just stopped rattling and calling with the buck and doe call 5 minutes earlier. The bigger buck, a six pointer, was chasing around a smaller one--I think a yearling spike.
Seeing the two deer I immediately I grabbed my bow and got ready to shoot. These two deer were running and stopping, running and stopping. Teasing me about 50-55 yards away from my stand, and no where near any decent shooting lanes. When I first saw the deer, my heart jumped into my throat, but luckily I was able to calm myself down. I grunted softly to them, and then something spooked them towards me. The 6 pointer ran into a shooting lane at 40 yards and stood behind a tree. I waited until he took one step out and sighted in and as the buck left the shelter of the tree. All I had was a neck and shoulder shot.
The buck was quartering away, looking at something that he didn't like. I took the shot and blew through the deer so fast that I thought I missed. It looked like it went right over his neck, but what I saw was the buck duck his neck after he was shot. I grabbed another arrow and heard the other buck blow. I thought for sure that my hunt was over and I lost an arrow, but as I looked I saw what appeared to be a buck spraying blood. The buck was standing with his head down towards me and it looked as though someone had turned on a red fire hydrant. Literally handfuls of blood were pouring out. The buck did his death wobble and that was that. From the time of the shot till where he fell was less than 25 FEET.
I am a rookie and have heard about unethical hunters stealing someone else’s kill, and as I was watching the buck I saw a man moving towards my buck. I made that climber slide down that tree. I jumped out the last 6 feet and ran to where my buck was. This is where the rookie part of being a bow hunter comes in. I get to were the buck is and his head is down, I think good I can tag him and dress him, but he raises his head, but ten minutes later he expires. This is when I find out that what the deer were being spooked by was another hunter on the ground. They saw him and didn't know what it was, but were suspicious.
So now I am about a mile from my truck in heavy timber and it's now 6:15 pm and getting dark. The other hunter walks over to me and asks if he could help drag him out. This was really nice of him and it turns out that he is from Australia and it too was his first time hunting deer. Anyway it was to dark to see to field dress him so we dragged the deer out. It takes us up to an hour to drag him out, and that's with another friends help the last 500 yards.
This buck is approximately 1 1/2 years old (one of my bow hunter friends told me) as a 6 pointer, and field dressed weight at 160 lbs. Not bad for my first deer.
I hit him in the jugular with a muzzy 145 grain b.h. that left a hole that I could easily have put 2-3 fingers in at the same time. The arrow entered his neck on the left side about a 1/4 of the way down from his spine and 4 inches from his shoulder. The arrow exited 3 inches below his mouth, and upon inspection it did indeed take out his jugular.
All in all--this was my first deer, my one shot first with a bow. I was using the carbon express terminator hunters, Muzzy 145 grain b.h., and the Parker Hunter Mag. I'm hooked for life.
Tonight my wife and I skinned the buck, and I quartered it where it sits in my fridge for the next three days to be processed. I'm doing this so that I can get the full experience of the hunt.
Paul Merioles

If the blood was spurting out, you probably hit either the common or external carotid artery.
The jugular vein is a low pressure vessel and won't spurt blood out but would rather leak blood resulting in it running down the neck and dripping to the ground. Also, venous blood is darker in color where as arterial blood is brighter red like you described.


Great story, not trying to pick on you, it's just that I've heard a lot of people make the same mistake of confusing the carotid artery with the jugular vein and it's a pet peeve of mine.

either way the deer is dead, and yes...the blood was coming out in buckets. Dead Deer Right There (DDRT)