Rather than make assumptions from what we see on YouTube, here are a few examples of results I watched with my own eyes. High shoulder, neck and spine shots, with a couple of lung shots for comparison.
The first example is the little buck I shot this past fall. Thread is here:
https://www.oodmag.com/community/sho...er-Camp-Report
What I didn't include in the original story, is that the hole in the neck in the photo was not actually the first shot. I did hit the deer in the neck, but about 6 inches to the left of the hole in the picture, closer to where the neck meets the shoulder. Believe it or not, I couldn't find the first hole until we skinned and butchered the deer.
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As expected, the original result was as dramatic as what has been posted in some of the videos here. After the deer was down, I got in touch with the gang and then started fumbling with my gear to get down from the stand. This took a few minutes. While doing this, I could hear some noise, two noises actually. One was a wood on wood scraping and knocking sound, one was an "ack... ack" type of sound. Turns out it was the deer. Although still unable to move much, he could move his head enough to rub the bark off the tree in front of him with his antlers and the other sound was just regular dying sounds when you're close enough to hear them. This deer was 20 yards away and it was a quiet morning. I loaded the rifle again and then shot him in the neck, making the hole shown in the photo up above. Here is how I found him, note the bark rubbed off the branch on the ground in front of him.
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Here's a much older example. I shot this buck in 1999 with a 12 gauge Challenger slug. My Dad and I were actually on the trail of a buck I had shot earlier that morning when this guy came running towards us. We both shot at it, Dad missed his first shot and the deer started to turn and look in my direction when I shot, hitting the deer in the spine above the shoulder and then exiting on the same side about 8" behind where it went in. When I hit him, his back looked like folding a playing card and his legs went out from under him. You'll have to excuse the quality of some of these photos as they are pictures of pictures.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...78a51ec65e.jpg
We went over to the deer (about a 40 yard shot) and he was still quite alive and moving his head and front legs around despite the fact his spine was broken behind his shoulder. Not appearing to expire any time soon, Dad put one into the back of his neck at the base of his skull.
Here's an archery example. This deer turned to look at me at 20 yards just as I was releasing the arrow. She started to "jump the string" and I heard what sounded like the broadhead hitting a rock and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. I had hit her in the spine and she proceeded to use her front legs to crawl up under a dead fall. I had to get out of the stand and go put another arrow in her at about 10 feet. I realize that it's archery but when we have people making claims that broken spine = instant death, I have to assume these people have never witnessed this.
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Here's a calf moose I shot in 2005 with a 30-06 at 290 yards and hit in the spine. I'm not a practiced long range shot and in hindsight maybe I shouldn't have taken it, but I had a solid rest and it looked good at the time. As dramatic as in the videos, he dropped on the spot. I actually didn't know whether I hit it or not, because after the scope jumped and rested back on the spot, there was nothing there. The cow walked back, looked at the spot on the ground where the calf had been, bawled a bit and walked away. I radioed the gang and told them I thought I had a calf down but wasn't sure. After a few minutes of silence down in the beaver meadow, a small shrub where the calf had been standing started thrashing around at sort of regular intervals. I began the trudge across the meadow, and 15 minutes or so after the shot I arrived at the calf. He had his head up looking at me and was still quite alive, but his back was broken. I put another one in him just under his chin.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...7ac4a6d0d7.jpg
In 2008 I shot 3 bucks with the same 30-06, all unintentional high shoulder shots. I say unintentional because I found out after the season was over that my rifle was hitting close to 1 foot high at 100 yards, despite the fact that it was sighted in just before the season began. I must have knocked it without knowing. So, although I had aimed for the ribs, I hit 4 to 8 inches higher than intended on all 3 shots. The first 2 from that season, I'm still looking to find the pictures of (actually it's really bugging me that I can't find them at the moment). One was just a 30 yard shot and although not overly dramatic, the buck kind of just froze in his tracks when hit and tipped over. I did shoot him again as I was right there to do it and he sure wasn't "stone dead" when he dropped.
The second one was running ahead of the dogs and I was quite a bit higher than the deer as he was running through the valley and I was high on a ridge. I gave it a shout to stop it and hit it fairly high in the shoulder and exited low (although I was aiming lower) and he proceeded to run right up the ridge I was on and over the hill to die behind me. It was about a 40 yard shot I guess. He thrashed for a while behind me before going quiet. I had to track him a bit but he wasn't far.
The third one was missed by someone else about 30 minutes before he came sneaking out to me. Being a bit of a longer shot than the other 2 (maybe 60 yards), I hit him a bit higher than the other 2. He went down instantly, laid there still for a minute, then kicked and thrashed for a minute or two. By the time I covered the distance to him, I decided he didn't need another shot as the thrashing had almost ceased.
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These are a just a few examples of my own of this type of shot, and one even fits the long range part of the thread. This is the conclusion I draw from these few examples of my own, some that I haven't posted, and the ones I've witnessed in over 30 years of hunting with others. Although dramatic and effective at putting an animal down on the spot, the high shoulder shot doesn't kill any faster than a chest shot. I have yet to find an animal still alive after following a short pink and frothy blood trail.
This doe here I thought I had missed. It was a 70 yard shot and she was running ahead of dogs and had a fawn with her. I didn't find blood in the first 30 or 40 yards but following the direction she went, I found a bright pink splash of blood at the top of the hill she ran up and found her another 50 yards from there stone dead.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...51af2aad0f.jpg
Maybe it's the visual aspect of seeing an animal run off after being shot that makes people assume they are suffering or the chest shot is somehow ineffective at killing quicky. They're dead without knowing and they don't go far, although they can cover a fair amount of ground in a few short seconds. Tracking, although at times inconvenient, is usually much easier than the example above.
Look at the blood trail from this fawn. It was also running ahead of dogs and I shot it running full out through both lungs. It made it as far as the bottom of the hill and collapsed without moving again. Adrenaline only carrys them so far. Note the blood trail on the hill behind.
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I suppose the high shoulder shot is a good idea for long range hunting because I'm sure it's hard enough to find the spot where the animal was standing after walking the distance from where the shot was taken. To add tracking into the mix afterwards and the chance it might run 50 yards and fall off a cliff would present a problem.
But enough with the idea that the high shoulder shot is any more effective at killing in short order than heart/lung shots. They run a short distance and then they're dead. Or sometimes they fall as quickly as the high shoulder. High shoulder shots kills too, but I can't see how anyone can believe it kills faster than taking out the vital organs. The "CNS shutdown" idea? I've never seen it unless you shoot them in the head or the base of the skull/brain.
Y'all can make up your own minds on what the situation calls for and whether or not you're concerned about front shoulder meat. Thanks for reading this long post. It was fun to write and brought back a lot of good memories.
Edit: just realized I should add a legality disclaimer. All pics without tags (when we had to tag) were right at the time of the kill and taken by the person who brought the tag to the kill site, or by me before anyone got to me. The one with the fawn I took off my blaze orange vest and coat (that's an undershirt) to start gutting.
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