I love shooting my bow and do it almost every
day. I wouldn’t
think twice about taking a 60 yard shot at a target.
I practice at 50 to 60 yards in my back yard.
Shooting a deer is not the same as shooting a target.
You not only have to hit the deer but you have to hit it in
the right place. A
bow and arrow kills a deer by causing it to hemorrhage.
This means that the animal bleeds to death.
In order to cause the most bleeding, the arrow has to pass
though a vital organ.
Shot
placement starts with knowing what you maximum rang.
A questionable hit could mean spending the next two days
tracking the deer and not finding it.
This is why I limit my kill rang to 40 yards.
At 40 yards I can hit a 4 inch target 90% of the time.
Good shot placement means putting an arrow into at least one vital
organ. To help prepare myself for deer season I make a cut out of a
deer and draw the lines where the shoulders are.
I like the cut out because it is a lot smaller than most 3-d
targets and a lot cheaper.
My targets are only 10 to 11 inches high.
This corresponds to shooting a small doe.
My thinking is, if I can shoot a doe, I will have no problems
shooting a big buck.
When thinking of shot placement, there are lists of good shots I
will take on a
deer. The best place to
shoot a deer is in the heart or lungs.
This is a broadside or
quartering away shot. If the arrow only reaches one lung the deer
will die very fast. The
lungs are the biggest vital organ.
A buck’s lungs can be 10 to 12 inches around.
Also shooting a deer in the lungs will result in a short
tracking job with a good blood trail.
If you remain still after the shot, the deer will only run a
short distances before looking back to see what happened or start
walking.
The
heart shot is also a very deadly shot.
The deer will die very fast.
I don’t like the heart shot because the blood trail can be
hard to follow. The
reason for this is the heart is not pumping the blood out the hole
you made in the deer.
The deer will also not stop running until it is dead.
Deer tend to jump after a heart shot. With that said, I will
not pass on a deer because the only shot I have is a heart shot.
The next best organ to hit is the liver.
The liver is full of blood vessels that are easy to cut and
will bleed out fast. I
have seen deer run off a short distance after a liver shot and start
feeding only to fall over dead a few minutes later.
The problem with a liver shot is that a deer can run a long
way after the hit. Stay
in your tree stand and don’t move for thirty minutes because you
don’t want to scare the deer and make it run any further away.
The liver, lungs, and heart are the three main organs to hit.
Hitting any one of these will cause the deer to die fast and
make recovery easier.
There are other organs that you can shoot that will kill a deer very
fast. The spine is one
of my favorite shots. I
like this shot when the deer is walking straight at me with its head
down. I put my pin
between the two shoulder blades and take the shot.
The deer will drop in its tracks.
I have killed many deer this way and never had any problems.
It also makes it a lot easier to track the deer.
This shot should only be taken when the deer is calm and
won’t jump the string.
I know better than anyone that there are place you don’t want shot a
deer. The guts
are one of the worst shots you can take.
The deer will die but it could take a day.
If you get a gut shot you should wait until the next day to
start tracking the deer.
In Chuck Adam’s book, Bow Hunter’s Digest, he talks about shooting a
deer in the ham. I have
seen this shot kill a deer very fast.
I have also seen deer run for miles after this shot.
This is a low percentage shot that you should never take.
Many hunters shoot deer in the shoulders and this can be very bad.
The arrow will not reach any vital organs because the bones
in the deer’s shoulder will stop it.
You can tell if you got a shoulder shoot because your arrow
will be mostly sticking out of the deer on the side you shot it.
This deer could live or die.
This is the one case in which you get onto the blood trail
right away. You many
get a second shot or the broad head could cause more damage as the
deer continues to run. I have killed deer with healed over broad
heads in their shoulder.
The best option it to aim a little behind the shoulder.
As hunters we can take actions to help us recover the deer.
I have read that as many as 10% of deer that are killed are
never found. This means
that 90% are recovered.
There are a few things that you can do to recover more deer.
Use a sharp broad head, limit you shooting distance, and only
take those shots that will kill the deer fast and clean.
Good Luck,
Sean
