Jumping the String - Head Up or Down?
Whitetail Deer
I had a short youtube video pop up earlier in the week and the guy was making an argument that on whitetails (probably other species too) that when their head is down their vitals drop lower when they react to the string noise because of countering their head lift. Perhaps more clearly - when a critter's head is down feeding and he hears an alarming noise he is going to raise his head and lower his shoulders to load his hips. And the vertical drop in the vitals during this process is significantly greater than when the critter has his head up and hears an alarming sound. The video was not convincing in the demonstrations, but I can see the logic of the argument.
I have had them jump the string in almost every position (walking, head up, head down...). Certainly walking seems to be less reactivity, but that isn't a solid shot for me beyond 18 yards or so.
Back to the question - do you have a sense of the comparative drop in vitals w/ head up vs down?
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Lots of machinery works on that principle.
+1 Ambush.
All I can say is that head-up does not help them duck, but head-down does. Pretty hard to put a number on that, though..
Not sure if it was the video you saw, but I remember seeing one that Grant Woods did on this topic some time ago. Unfortunately, I cannot recall which way he was making his case, but I recall the video being interesting.
Grant Woods made the case that the head should be up when you shoot.
Conventional wisdom has always said you shoot when the animal’s head is down, feeding, and relaxed. Took a shot on a 360” glass bull this year that had his head down and was feeding. It was a very quiet and still morning. I got it on video, but that bull turned inside out in the last millisecond before the arrow got there, and I hit him in the shoulder as he was angling away into his turn. I’m convinced if his head had been up I would’ve killed him stone dead because the shot was money before he dropped and turned. It was then that I discovered Grant Woods’ video, and I begin to recall how many animals I’ve shot at long range and often they literally watch the arrow come into them. I can tell you this, the chances of me shooting in an animal to turn down from here on out are pretty much zero.
I've seen videos on this topic...it was shown in the videos that the animal (deer) with its head down moved more in the vertical direction...than if the animal was head up.position.
