Knowing When to Shoot

EDITOR'S NOTE: Will Primos, the founder and president of Primos Hunting Calls, lives in Jackson, Mississippi. His company, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2001, has produced "The Truth Video Series" since 1986.

Question: How long have you hunted with a bow?
Answer: Since I was 12 years old, and I'm 48, so it's been 36 years.

Question: Why do you prefer to hunt with a bow?
Answer: I guess because I get my biggest thrills from getting in close. Many times I'll have nice bucks within 20 yards and can't make the shot because I have the angle or the timing wrong, or the buck isn't where it should have been. I get a huge amount of pleasure out of knowing I've gotten a buck that close. I just like that. It makes my clock tick. There's nothing wrong with hunting with a gun. I grew up doing that. I love it, and I have a lot of friends who gun hunt. I've seen some extremely large deer that I've wished I could jerk a gun out and shoot because I can't get them close. But I just prefer to hunt deer with a bow.

Question: Do you ever hunt with a black-powder gun?
Answer: Yeah, every once in a while.

Question: Why do you like to do that sometimes?
Answer: I like that because you hunt from 100 yards or closer, and you've got to do some of the same things you do when you bowhunt. You've got to get in close. Of course bowhunting season is a great time to hunt because most bowhunting happens during the pre-rut and the rut, when the bucks get more callable. You can rattle, grunt and estrous bleat.

Question: How do you know when to shoot when you bowhunt?
Answer: People experience a lot of pressures. They dream about getting close to a buck. Then when they finally get close, they have to try to figure out when to shoot. I don't ever like to shoot at a walking animal. Since too many things can happen, I like to stop the animal. I'll generally make a noise with my voice, "meaa," which sounds something like a deer bleat. I try to stop the deer for the shot where I know no limbs or anything else lie between the deer and me. A lot of people don't know the anatomy of the organs of a whitetail well enough. But you don't want to shoot unless you've got what I call a broadside or a slightly quartering-away shot. Because the deer's lungs rise up as they come back from the shoulder, if you shoot a quartering-toward shot, you can go under the lungs or get one lung and go under the other lung. If you don't do a broadside shot and get both lungs or make some type of vital hit, your nightmare has just begun. For choosing when to shoot, as my No. 1 piece of advice I suggest you take great care to know the posture and the angle of the deer.

Tomorrow: What to Do When You Spook a Deer