One well-placed shot is the entire job. A clean, fast kill is the only acceptable outcome, and your meat and your night both depend on it.
- Hold high in the chest
- Behind the front leg, but up around the middle of the body, not a third of the way up. The old "third up from the brisket" line puts you on the heart, and it also puts you a hand's width off the liver and the front of the paunch. Miss low or back and you've made a mess of the animal and a long night for yourself. Held higher you're into the middle of both lungs, with the spine above and the heart below, and the margin for error runs in every direction.
- Broadside, and wait for it
- Quartering away is workable if you angle the bullet into the far shoulder. Head-on or quartering toward you gives a much smaller window. If you're not certain, don't. There is always another animal.
- The rut trap
- A rutting buck's neck swells with muscle and makes the whole front end look like it sits higher than it does. People read the outline instead of the body and shoot clean over the top. Pick the line off the front leg, not off the topline.
- Shoot off a rest
- Always, if there is any way to do it. A pack, a fence post, the bonnet, a bipod. Off-hand at a live animal is a last resort, never a default.
- After the shot
- A well-hit fallow will often still run 30 to 80 metres. Mark exactly where it stood and exactly where it went, then wait and watch before you move. Rushing in pushes a wounded animal further into cover.
- Follow up
- Approach from behind and above with the rifle ready. Touch an eye with a stick before you put hands on it. If there is any doubt at all, put in a second shot. Nobody has ever regretted that.