you call the shot - #3

[Twanger]

It's a frosty morning and you're tucked in your ground blind.
This bruiser walk into your life and you let him get all the way in to 15 yards.
As you draw your bow your seat squeaks and he comes to full alert and starts stomping and bobbing his head at the ground blind.
It seems to you like it now or never... he could swap ends and bolt any second.

Do you shoot through the grass tops? If so, where?

-OR-

Do you shoot him in the neck which is relatively in the clear? Yellow dot?

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/deer_in_field1_dots.JPG

[rimrock]

draw a line between the yellow dot and the lowest red dot, aim at the center of that line, but then I shoot an 80 lb 32" draw bow with carbon arrows and MUZZY PHANTOM broad heads, and at 15 yards hes NOT likely to jump that string, and its likely to slip in under the scapula's upper inside edge or thru the scapula, and zip thru the arteries over the heart and nick the off side lung
http://www.shopatron.com/img/product_images/182/7618ac3d2adc60ac0d2466225a2bea95.jpg

[Hink]

I had a buck similar to that one ghost in while two nice bucks were fighting about 40 yards away. It was early in my bow hunting career. One of those hard earned lessons I guess. But I know you don't have a shot with a bow and arrow at this deer given the spots you are allowed to shoot.

Why? Even though grass, trees, and scrub brush are 90% air in this case it appears you have a 100% chance of connecting with it before you do the animal. Maybe the contact doesn't knock the arrow to much off course but the oscillating (sp) arrow is going to penetrate a whole lot less. I'm not sure I have a kill shot with the choices at hand. I'm pretty sure there would be a long tracking job though if I shoot.

In my mind, for me and me alone, this animal deserves me to be a little more patient or for me to take a pass altogether unless I have an unobstructed shot. Move that yellow dot a little higher and I change my mind or the decision gets easier.

[ncboman]

I've lost some deer because of shooting thru brush/grass/leaves. I've concluded if I can't see the precise spot I want to hit, chances are, I won't hit it.

This is one of those shots I hope not to see offered. :o

[My buddy]

alert animal and frozen vegitation to shoot thru......

most likely I end up telling people how nice the deer was, rather than showing them.

At 3d shoots I have had the opportunity to shoot through many different "obstacles" including limbs, grasses, leaves, ect. I have seen arrows blow through dense cover and not deviate an inch and I have seen the most minute items send an arrow into the next county. My take is that it is a crap shoot as to what will happen, and I prefer not to gamble in the hunting woods.

I am always surprised by how many people say that they would try shot "xyz" on a big deer. IMO, it shots on big deer that should receive the most scrutiny, not the least.

[ncboman]

the reality is often the opposite. Many will sling one for luck if nothing else when the buck is big.

I've killed some decent bucks for my area. Not one of em was killed by a lark shot. Encounters are so infrequent, I want it to count when it happens and when it happens is ultimately in the shooter's hands. ;)

The number one reason for muffed shots is RUSHING to shoot the animal before it 'gets away'. Let that one go and get ready for the one coming behind. ;)

[GF.]

It's just like the guys who say they want to be able to take a flyer on a 400-yard rifle shot 'just in case the buck of a lifetime....' Blah, blah, blah.

It is the very definition of unethical to take a shot at one animal that you'd pass on any other; and no, that's not JMO, that's what the word means.

This one would probably live to a ripe old age under the circumstances Twang laid out. Even leaving the vegetation out of it....

If he's doing the head-bob, the odds are way too low for a neck shot, and after last year, I'd say the same thing even with a rifle.

If he's lit up and looking for a threat, the odds are too low for my tastes, and I don't care how fast a bow you're shooting. The trouble is that he's more than likely to move just on reflex in the time it takes the shaft to get there, and you don't know which direction he'll go. That means you don't know exactly where you're going to hit him, and that doesn't appeal to me.

Which is why the vegetation is a problem; if the only stuff you hit were in the last yard or maybe two, then the deflection would (likely) be minimal-- but there are frosty weeds and a couple of bigger weed stalks all the way out there, and that makes a big, big difference, odds-wise...

One thing, though... Another step or two ahead, on a relaxed animal, there might be a clean shot, and if so, you could hardly ask for better tracking conditions...

[Twanger]

So the buck took a couple of hops and then stopped, long enough for the frost on the grass melt. :D and there was some rack shrinkage, but this is now your shot... he's at 20 yards and heading away and walking out of your life... I don't like head-on neck shots, but side-on neck shots have a little more vitals exposed to the arrow. Do you shoot? If so, where? No go? If you pass, why?

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/deer_in_field2_dots.JPG

[My buddy]

Boy how things can change in just a few moments.

Well, the angle IMO is much better, the grass appears very limp and wispy (most likely not causing too much deflection, if any, but I still don't like to take chances of there being a thick stem in there.) It also appears to be very close to the deer, so if there is deflection is would be minimal. While it is not the perfect shot, I would think that the shot is favorable enough to warrant a shot.

If I decided to shoot I would favor the right side of the middle blue dot.

[Hink]

This is where my single most important gear item comes into play. I've been on stand a while or long enough to get out a turnip and peel it. I even had a little bit of salt to sprinkle on it. The deer is going to walk off and wheel back around to the haul road below me. He can't resist that fresh peeled turnip. Sure I've already eaten it but by the time he finds out there are only peelings left its to late. He's broadside at twenty and the sagebrush isn't in the haul road or in my way.

I still don't have a good shot in this picture. I'm not shooting through something with an arrow in hopes of killing an animal ever again. I made that mistake on a huge Kanawha County buck in the 80s and got 5 inches of penetration on a shot that should have passed through. I only got one lung and I didn't get the buck. I hit one little tiny shoot off of a sapling and it soured the shot.

Moral of this story? Carry turnips for these type situations.

[ncboman]

So the buck took a couple of hops and then stopped, long enough for the frost on the grass melt. :D and there was some rack shrinkage, but this is now your shot... he's at 20 yards and heading away and walking out of your life... I don't like head-on neck shots, but side-on neck shots have a little more vitals exposed to the arrow. Do you shoot? If so, where? No go? If you pass, why?

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/deer_in_field2_dots.JPG

looks like he's laying down to me. :rolleyes:

the hole in the grass between middle blue and middle green is where my arrow would go. :D

[GF.]

I still don't like it.


Don't much care for turnips, either :D

[dave-t.]

I wouldn't take the first shot, but the second is more do-able. Like has been said, lighter grass in the bottom pic, and less of it. Still may be an issue for some mech heads though.

The only time I would shoot a deer that was looking at me is if it is inside 15yrds, I don't think they can react fast enough that close. Any further than that and I believe it's best to wait until the deer is looking away.

[GF.]

I guess I'd have to ask Hawk about that one.... He's shot so many deer with those noisy X-bows that he's get a pretty good read on how close you need them to be to keep them from ducking enough to sour the deal.....

[ncboman]

I've seen some of Dave's setups.

Most of his kills are close, very close. ;)

[dave-t.]

I probably average about a 10-12yd shot. Easly inside 15yrds anyway. I never worried if they were looking at me or not when the pin settles in at that distance. I just hold for heart and flick the trigger. It hasn't come back to bite me yet.;)

[Twanger]

dave-t - I agree. Inside 15 yards it's near impossible for a deer to jump the string with a modern compound bow. Deer are fast, but not THAT fast.

On this second view I'd shoot between middle blue and green, favoring blue a little. This animal is quartering away pretty strongly.

[GF.]

Well, I guess I'll have to keep that in mind, just in case ;)

But you're making me wonder if I shouldn't lower my pins just a shade, so that I can have one set for 15 yards without sweating the FX of a high POI and/or a step downward angle.... Right now I hit about 2.5-3" high at that range shooting surface-to-surface. Air-to-ground might create enough of a correction that I'd fight it in order to keep the pin on something brown...

Must be time to get out the ladders :D

[dave-t.]

GF-I find it very situational, person to person, on the hitting high from a stand vrs on the ground. Some say it makes a difference for them, but I've never noticed enough of a change in impact for me to do anything but aim the same from the stand that I would from the ground.

Easy way to do it. Inside 18-20yds, aim for heart, and if you hit a couple inches high, with the arrow angling down from a stand, you're good. Exits are alway decent, unless you hit the off side shoulder, which is just fine by me. Seems like the death run is shorter when the arrow burries in that off shoulder. 45yds or less on the 2-3 bucks I've shot that way. The last buck that I shot that way, as the arrow was backing out and hitting brush the b-head made the far side lung lookind like it went through a blender. Looked more like a gun shot wound on the inside instead of a clean bow shot.

[Twanger]

Yes, my bow hits just about two inches high when I'm shooting at 12-15 yards with my 20 yard pin. Aiming 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the deer is just about perfect because the arrow hits about 2 inches higher - about mid-body. This results in a pretty low exit on the opposite side and a beautiful blood trail most of the time. Most of the cases of poor blood trails are from high hits where the lungs take a long time to fill up with blood before it spills out. There's usually a pile of blood all around the dead deer, and nothing on the trail. It's a deadly shot, but you'd better be watching where they run VERY carefully. :D

[GF.]

Yep.. high hits and 'heavy meat' hits are both buggers in their own way... Even with boollitts...

But to Dave's point, hitting that off-side shoulder isn't an entirely bad deal, because you're likely to hit the brachial artery, and any time you hit a high-pressure line of that diameter, you're going to get a good internal bleed...

For better or for worse, watching them run off is usually very easy to do here, because there is so little brush - it all having been browsed down so long ago that there's no understory and little more than just leaves on the ground. The painful exception being the mountain laurel, of course...

I think I've kinda settled on starting off with some 100-grain, 4-blade Stingers, since that's not a bad Elk load, so I'm hoping I'll get clean exits on anything other than a major bone hit. Of course, if somebody here knows that they simply can't be made to fly right at anything over 250 fps, I'd be willing to entertain other fixed-blade, COC options....