What do you consider a "Fatal Shot" ?

[fasteddie]

In another thread , fatal shot was brought up . A gut shot deer can travel a log way  as well as it can with other wounds and be claimed by another hunter . What so yo consider a "Fatal Shot" ?

[CapDistPatriot]

Just now, fasteddie said:

In another thread , fatal shot was brought up . A gut shot deer can travel a log way  as well as it can with other wounds and be claimed by another hunter . What so yo consider a "Fatal Shot" ?

Double lung. Heart shot you almost have to be Chris Kyle to nail it every time.

[wolc123]

One that is the direct cause of the deer's death within 24 hours.  If it takes 24.00000000001 hours, then the other hunter should be able to claim it.

[NYBowhunter]

Any deer that doesnt leave my property...lol

[NYBowhunter]

1 minute ago, wolc123 said:

One that is the direct cause of the deer's death within 24 hours.  If it takes 24.00000000001 hours, then the other hunter should be able to claim it.

Hope your joking

[Einsamer Krieger]

Favorite, headshot,  Neck shot, middle of,   just behind the elbow joint, an inch below, heart and double lung

Depends on your ability to take shots with confidence, and yards of the target.

 

[wolc123]

29 minutes ago, NYBowhunter said:

Hope your joking

Actually, I should have said "one that would probably have caused the deer's death within 24 hours, had the finisher not been around".  That rules out the leg hits and other long term infection type casualties.   

Edited November 22, 2018 by wolc123

[grampy]

A fatal shot, is one where the hunter that shot, walks up to a dead deer.

Simple as that. 

[ATbuckhunter]

A shot in the lungs, heart, liver and guts. They'll all kill a deer with in about 6 hours.

[slayer]

Dead when they hit the ground , or they never leave the spot where they were shot. A good old fashioned dirt nap.... Wounded deer run away and need to be tracked.

[Merlot]

Fellow on a neighboring property hit a doe on shotgun opener a number of years ago with the doe struggling past me. I shot the doe to put her out of her misery and waited for the hunter who hit the doe first to track and claim. He was thankful that I finished the job and helped him with the gutting. He was excited to get a deer and I never really thought about claiming the deer for myself. The deer was not going to live much longer...I just wanted to help the guy out.

More important things in life to be concerned about than a deer claim.

[Merlot]

...sorry....wrong topic. This should be in the Claiming the deer thread...need coffee....

[Jeremy K]

1 hour ago, wolc123 said:

One that is the direct cause of the deer's death within 24 hours.  If it takes 24.00000000001 hours, then the other hunter should be able to claim it.

24 hours ,how long did it take you to make that up ? I was guessing you would have large window of what is considered a fatal shot. 

[Jeremy K]

29 minutes ago, grampy said:

A fatal shot, is one where the hunter that shot, walks up to a dead deer.

Simple as that. 

You would think its as simple as that , however some people like to complicate things in their favor.

[First-light]

not to complicate a fatal shot but if there is snow on the ground?? Easy track even if its slowly bleeding. 

Fatal shot to me is when a deer dies pretty close to where it was hit. Within 100 yards or so. If another hunter were to shoot it well then shot placement is key. 

[NFA-ADK]

If it does not drop in the first 300-400 yards its not a good kill shot IMO.  (All good kills shots drop the deer in less than 120 yards.)  I know deer can die farther than that but I would not consider that a good hit.  If that deer travels more than 200 yards simply put I messed up!  Anything more than 800 yards is back out and retry the track the next day to see if they bleed out.  (Wound kill)  Kill shots are also easy to track, wounds and none vital shots are not even though they can still be lethal. 

[Hunter007]

Actually legally who ever tags it that's there deer . 

If nobody tagged it  yet  then it becomes a problem .

Was me I would give it up as long as they showed up before I tagged it .   

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by Storm914

[Core]

Anything it doesn't recover from is fatal, even if it's days.

A GOOD shot should have the deer drop inside 100 yards, or however long a deer can run without a heart or with two punctured lungs (assuming you don't neck/head shot them).

Edited November 22, 2018 by Core

[Core]

14 minutes ago, First-light said:

not to complicate a fatal shot but if there is snow on the ground?? Easy track even if its slowly bleeding. 

Fatal shot to me is when a deer dies pretty close to where it was hit. Within 100 yards or so. If another hunter were to shoot it well then shot placement is key. 

In an opposite way a very hard track is when it's snowing a lot. If you're not right on it the trail goes cold very fast. Ask me how I know

[First-light]

38 minutes ago, NFA-ADK said:

If it does not drop in the first 300-400 yards its not a good kill shot IMO.  (All good kills shots drop the deer in less than 120 yards.)  I know deer can die farther than that but I would not consider that a good hit.  If that deer travels more than 200 yards simply put I messed up!  Anything more than 800 yards is back out and retry the track the next day to see if they bleed out.  (Wound kill)  Kill shots are also easy to track, wounds and none vital shots are not even though they can still be lethal. 

I also feel that if your deer is traveling a distance there is a good chance it will be shot by another hunter. I would never claim that deer. JMO Years back the gun club below us shot a nice 140 buck. Someone took a Texas heart shot on him on a drive. Deer was shot at 9 am. My brother killed the deer at 12 noon. It was tracked for 3 hrs in the snow. They had about 5 blood beds but kept on pushing the deer. After he killed the deer we gutted it and one of the trackers walked up to us. He said I just want to look at the deer, we hit one hours ago and were tracking it. We looked it over and found that a slug went through the back ham and exited out the flank. Was this a kill shot??? No. The guy thanked us for taking a look and walked away. It turned out this was my neighbor to the north that I never met. We are good friends now but we both knew that deer was not going to die from the initial shot. 

[Jeremy K]

If i shoot a deer and i lose sight of it and then another hunter shoots it ,it's their deer. I should have done a better job when it was my time.

[steve863]

Especially when gun hunting, don't be wanting or expecting that one shot kill.  If the deer is still standing or down and getting back up after a shot, don't hesitate to shoot again and shoot quick. You might be in for a surprise if you think the deer will just keel over and die over the next hill.  The moral here should be that if you don't want any arguments with other hunters on who should claim the deer, make sure you keep gunning until the deer is down for good.  Admiring that shot that you THINK is perfect won't help you if the deer runs off far enough for someone else to take a shot at it.  My .02 cents.

[Jeremy K]

7 minutes ago, steve863 said:

Especially when gun hunting, don't be wanting or expecting that one shot kill.  If the deer is still standing or down and getting back up after a shot, don't hesitate to shoot again and shoot quick. You might be in for a surprise if you think the deer will just keel over and die over the next hill.  The moral here should be that if you don't want any arguments with other hunters on who should claim the deer, make sure you keep gunning until the deer is down for good.  Admiring that shot that you THINK is perfect won't help you if the deer runs off far enough for someone else to take a shot at it.  My .02 cents.

I agree ,A good shot is easy to tell ,either it drops instantly or does the drunk walk shortly after the shot . Anything else and you just don't really know how well the shot really was. 

[ncountry]

36 minutes ago, First-light said:

I also feel that if your deer is traveling a distance there is a good chance it will be shot by another hunter. I would never claim that deer. JMO Years back the gun club below us shot a nice 140 buck. Someone took a Texas heart shot on him on a drive. Deer was shot at 9 am. My brother killed the deer at 12 noon. It was tracked for 3 hrs in the snow. They had about 5 blood beds but kept on pushing the deer. After he killed the deer we gutted it and one of the trackers walked up to us. He said I just want to look at the deer, we hit one hours ago and were tracking it. We looked it over and found that a slug went through the back ham and exited out the flank. Was this a kill shot??? No. The guy thanked us for taking a look and walked away. It turned out this was my neighbor to the north that I never met. We are good friends now but we both knew that deer was not going to die from the initial shot. 

1 of our group poorly shot a buck around 8 in the morning.  Because of the snow 5 of us tracked/ chased that deer all day. Amazing how tough they are. He swam the tailrace twice.  We finally cut him off and finished him off at last legal light. Original shooter taged the deer . 

Now if a stranger had shot him during  the coarse of the day and claimed him. We wouldn't have disagreed. That deer wasn't going to die quickly from his wound. Unless infection set in, he probably would have survived.

[Core]

30 minutes ago, steve863 said:

Especially when gun hunting, don't be wanting or expecting that one shot kill.  If the deer is still standing or down and getting back up after a shot, don't hesitate to shoot again and shoot quick. You might be in for a surprise if you think the deer will just keel over and die over the next hill.  The moral here should be that if you don't want any arguments with other hunters on who should claim the deer, make sure you keep gunning until the deer is down for good.  Admiring that shot that you THINK is perfect won't help you if the deer runs off far enough for someone else to take a shot at it.  My .02 cents.

YES. That one I mentioned above in the snow? I took a "perfect" shot on the deer and proceeded to watch as it would keel over. Which it didn't do. After a hop and skip it started to walk. And I lost a very easy follow-up shot opportunity. By the time I got with my senses and realized it was not going down I aimed again, but by now my scope was so covered with snow (and it started a bit like this--teaching me a lesson about using scope covers in inclement weather) that the deer was just a blob. I even when to where I had hit it, could not find any blood (on snow) and concluded I had somehow missed at not very far away with a gun I knew was accurate as hell. By the time I found the trail the snow was falling heavy and I had to be on hands and knees brushing snow off a deer trail to figure out which one was his, brushing snow off to find red spots. Finally it got too weak with too heavy snow fall for me to even keep on the trail.