The unpopular shot that works ...

[ncboman]

the old ham shot. :eek:

On some of the shot threads, there's some discussion about taking a very difficult shot when the pie shot is right in our face.

Quick, lets get this thing skinned and took down before somebody sees where I hit it. :o

It's never advised and hardly talked about at all but as I posted in another thread, I've never lost a deer hit in the ham ... and this includes a number of deer I've tracked for others as well as myself.

(Some guys I doan understand. They'd hit a deer 'wrong' and become so filled with selfdoubt, they use to drive all the way to town and call me to track a trail a blind man could follow. :confused: ) Ham hit deer bleed like stuck hogs.

Anyway, why is it no one ever touts the ham shot as a very effective killing shot? :rolleyes:

and can someone please explain why all the ragazine writers and video 'hunting experts' never ever talk about it. These guys are experienced right? If so, surely they have encountered the deed from time to time. To believe otherwise is just foolish. Are they afraid of being labeled a bad shot or inept for a ham hit even though the result nearly always produces venison?

Are seasoned bowhunters misleading newbys by not discussing it? :rolleyes:

[Twanger]

I've hit only one deer in the ham, and that was very early in my career when I didn't think that a buck running by my stand at a range of 5 yards could possibly need 3 feet of lead. (Since then I rarely shoot at deer that are moving.)

I waited several hours before following up, and there was a good blood trail and it was way up on saplings and tree-trunks. Then I found a spot where the deer laid down, and that's where the trail ended. I never found that deer, and found no more sign past that spot. I suspect that somebody else to him before I did, and a fine buck he was. I hope there's as special place in hell for people who take the deer of other hunters. :D

So where exactly is this ham shot taken?

Do you go for the center of the ham, or somewhere else?

[dave-t.]

So where is the ideal ham shot on this pic, left or right?

[dave-t.]

If I had to guess, I'd go with left, running the blade the length of the ham, hopefull inside the femur.

[DaveHawk]

Alan, I've only ever taken 2 40 yard shots, one of which the deer did a 180 and and the arrow cough him in the ham. Bleed out less the 150 yards. It's a very iffy shot , it's hit of miss where as the boiler room give some lee-way for a marginal miss.

[My buddy]

The reason why the ham shot is frowned upon is because it is not a hit in the ham that produces massive blood trails and quick recoveries, it is a hit in the femoral artery.

Now as a bowhunter do you take a shot at an 8" target where you can easily determine its location or do you shoot for something thinner than 1" that can be very difficult to determine its location. It should go without saying that you take the 8" lung shot.

Granted I have seen the results of a missed shot where the deer was hit in the femoral artery, it looked like someone took a 5 gallon bucket full of blood and ran as fast as they could for 40 yards.

[ncboman]

So where is the ideal ham shot on this pic, left or right?

I doan know for sure. :confused:

I think either yellow spot would kill the deer though. Just me but if I were going for it I'd shoot about an inch over the right dot.

I've threatened to shoot a deer in the ham on purpose but haven't been able to make myself do it in the field. Maybe one day.

I've also played the deerstand whatif daydream game and thought about a shooter (Booner) running thru and stopping facing away or behind a tree with that big ham exposed. I might really do it in that situation. :rolleyes:

[ncboman]

The reason why the ham shot is frowned upon is because it is not a hit in the ham that produces massive blood trails and quick recoveries, it is a hit in the femoral artery.

Now as a bowhunter do you take a shot at an 8" target where you can easily determine its location or do you shoot for something thinner than 1" that can be very difficult to determine its location. It should go without saying that you take the 8" lung shot.

Granted I have seen the results of a missed shot where the deer was hit in the femoral artery, it looked like someone took a 5 gallon bucket full of blood and ran as fast as they could for 40 yards.

Based on my experiences, I feel more likely to disagree than agree on the above. :rolleyes:

First, I'm not sure the artery has to be cut to kill the deer. The ham muscles are the power when a deer runs and lots of blood goes thru those muscles. Does it HAVE to be an artery to be fatal?

Another consideration is there is an artery in each ham and also the fact they seldom align with each other, so actually it may be difficult to shoot thru both hams without cuttin one artery at least.

The deer I've killed with ham shots were before the internet and I never studied the exact arrow path at the time. I do specificly remember the last one and we didn't discard any of the cut meat when we took the deer down because it was all very clean. It just looked like a knife cut. That deer ran about 40yds and the trail was so bloody I walked off to the side to keep it off my clothes.

[My buddy]

Based on my experiences, I feel more likely to disagree than agree on the above. :rolleyes:

First, I'm not sure the artery has to be cut to kill the deer. The ham muscles are the power when a deer runs and lots of blood goes thru those muscles. Does it HAVE to be an artery to be fatal?

I guess alot of things will kill a deer. Take for example the gut shot, chances are that a gut shot deer WILL die. Just because a gut shot is a fatal shot doesn't mean that it should be attempted or considered.

I guess my thought remains that it is difficult to determine the femoral artery location, much less actually hit it with a shot attempt.

[Smokey]

I personnelly do not know about this shot. This may sound stupid but I have great respect for the big game animals we hunt. I feel it is just disrespectful to intentionally shoot through the hind quarters of deer or elk.

I agree with ncbowman, it is a killing shot with bow or rifle. We hunt for killing shots. But, I feel it isn't right. I have tracked several deer hit there by other people and always found the hit deer as dead as can be.

[ncboman]

I feel it is just disrespectful to intentionally shoot through the hind quarters of deer or elk.


I think that's how we all feel.

I gotta wonder though about that respect if/when we pass an effective target trying to make a more difficult shot at the traditional kill zone. :rolleyes:

[dave-t.]

That is the thing bowman, if a guy is going to push his luck anyway, why end up with a gut shot or force a shot at a wrong angle, if the ham shot can be so successfull.

Nobody wants to shoot a deer in the butt, the question is, would it be the more ethical shot to do so in some circumstances?

The problem is that nobody has the experience or has made a career out of ham shots the way they have the shoulder shot with rifles. There are a lot of guys that can tell you exactly what will happen with a shoulder shot down to reaction, time of death, and distance travelled. With the ham shot all you get is a few guys that say 'somehow it killed that deer quick'.


I will say that if I did have a ham shot deer on my hands for whatever reason, I'd be doing my hound impression, and trying to stay up as close to that deer as possible while tracking. I wouldn't wait a full minute before trying to track. It would be clear real quick whether you got a 'good ham shot' or not.

[Twanger]

Interesting stuff.
A buddy of mine has a fine tracking dog and he is called many times per season to find lost deer.
I'll have to ask him about his experience, if any, with ham shots.
He sees a lot of gut shots, and won't follow those up any sooner than 12 hours. The deer will die and usually close by if you don't push. Six hours is not generally enough time, though hunters are keen to start following up a deer shot in the morning after 6 hours in hopes to find it before dark. My personal experience mirrors this.

[Bowhunter57]

I don't advocate taking "bad" shots or marginal ones, but a guy that I know shot a very nice buck in the back leg. This was a femoral artery shot, broadside, on the leg bone (back leg). He said that the blood trail looked like an axe murder scene and the buck went about 45 yards, laid down and bled out.

He knew the shot, he knew his equipment, he knew the deer's anatomy and he got the buck. Would I take that shot? Nope.

Good hunting, Bowhunter57

[GF.]

Coupla thoughts come to mind....

1) A femoral artery isn't that big at all. Maybe a half an inch - some of the IBEP info says it's pencil-sized on an Elk - and it runs to the inside of the femur. That makes it small and hard to hit without tagging bone. So the margin for error is roughly 1/2 the width of your broadhead, and that's on a target that is extremely difficult to visualize.

2) The higher you go, the bigger it is, but also the more bone is involved and the greater the chances of either getting inadequate penetration or tagging the lower portions of the gut.

So really, the high-percentage shot on a ham is going to be from nearly straight behind, and at a relatively steep angle. That lets you pierce the ham rear-to-front (the long way, as it were, since the cross section is a fairly flat oval shape) as well as top-to-bottom. That way, you maximize the number of vessels you can potentially hit. Ideally, you'd be exiting very close to the inside of the knee.

I just can't see relying on it as a first shot. A follow-up, sure, if that's what's offered....

[GF.]

The problem is that nobody has the experience or has made a career out of ham shots the way they have the shoulder shot with rifles. There are a lot of guys that can tell you exactly what will happen with a shoulder shot down to reaction, time of death, and distance travelled.


That's 'cuz a shoulder shot is very high percentage. You don't kill the animal by hitting the meat of the shoulder, you kill it by hitting what's in between one meaty side and t'other. Worst case scenario, you hit a bit high and take out the spine. Boom-flop.

On a ham shot (and this partially answers NC's question), you don't kill the animal by poking a hole in the meat; you have to hit arteries. Maybe not the one big'un right close to bone, but you have to hit the high-pressure lines, and they're not as forgiving a target as two lungs, a handful of garden-hose arteries, a heart, and a liver all wrapped up with a spine-shaped bow on top. You get a decent-sized piece of any of that, and you're good to go.

Remember, too, that blood pressure in an artery goes up as the square of the diameter, so any time you're looking at a 45 yard Stevie Wonder autograph model blood trail, somebody pretty certainly hit the mother lode. Hell, I've had a deer go 40 yards with her heart blown out by a 300gr HP outta the .45/70..... So I'm wondering if we only hear about the femoral artery hits and nobody's talking about the rest, or if there are more 'big-enough' arteries in those hams than I recall seeing. Next time I butcher a deer, I'll try and provide some documentation of what I find (but nobody hold your breath! ;) ).

[Bushman]

I was talking to my step-son last night and he was telling me that he got a fork horn over the weekend which was his first ever deer with a bow. The deer was with a doe, but coming fast. He regrets taking a running shot, but chalk it up to inexperience. He didn't lead the buck enough and hit it through the ham. Complete penetration through both hams with no bones hit. He knew that he had made a bad shot, but then the deer stopped 20 yards away, looked back, wobbled and fell over dead. Lots of blood everywhere he said. Amazing.

[Twanger]

Yes, Bowman's thread here is timely.
I did the same with a muzzleloader (see that forum).
The deer spooked and ran off to about 100 - 120 yards.
After it stopped I dialed the scope to 10X, pulled the gun up and I shot what I thought was the front, and apparently it was the back. :eek:
I think she flipped around on me in the short time I wasn't looking.
Shot it right through the ham, just below middle.
It broke the back left leg, thankfully missing the other leg.
Deer ran about 100 yards and keeled over dead. Heavy blood trail.

While I wouldn't take this shot on purpose, it was effective.

[GF.]

Maybe we should re-title this thread "The unpopular shot that works amazingly well when it works..... and we're honestly not so sure about the rest of the time"


:D:D:D

For me, it's nice to know that sometimes things work out well for all concerned even when things have gone terribly, terribly wrong. It's as if the Little Red Gods just floated you a 'get out of jail free' card.

So, Bush - did he happen to mention how close to the bone he got with that arrow? And do you know what type of broadhead he was using?


I'm just looking at my own forearm, which is probably about the mass of the front shank on an average doe, and I can't find a single spot where I'd feel too good about getting shot through with so much as a barely legal 2-blade. There are just too many veins that I can see right under my skin, so how many more would get in the way of a blade driving through all 3" of me? I don't know that I could hike 1/2 mile out of the woods with an injury like that unless I could get real pressure (or a tourniquet) on there real fast; and compared to that, a deer's ham seems like an awfully big & forgiving target.

If you could get full penetration of both hams with a pretty wide head, the chances of nailing a pencil-sized artery or larger are probably pretty good. Trouble is, your odds are exponentially better the closer you get to bone, but if you actually do so much as touch a bone in that size range, your penetration is going to suffer, and probably quite a lot. You smack an arrow square into a thigh bone on the way in, and I'd be not at all surprised to see the animal survive quite some time - all the while running around with an arrow sticking out of it, and slowing down only long enough to make it into the papers and onto the 11:00 local news.

Of course, we don't deliberately take that shot with high-powered rifles (or even with a ML, right, Twang? ;) ) either - not only because of the (IMO) inexcusable amount of good meat that you'd destroy, but because we know that there are much quicker & more reliable ways to get the animal down & out. If I ever run across a case where that's my best option on a wounded animal, I'll take it and get back to you, but I look at it in terms of the FUBAR factor.

Yes, you could probably do it. Might not even be at all difficult, and it might work out fine more often than not. But if you blow it - and especially when you had a tried & true option anyway... It's like being on a mountain bike and trying to bunny-hop a 2' log at 20 mph instead of going around. If you succeed, you've gained precious little. But if you fail.....:rolleyes:

[Bushman]

No, I didn't get too many postmortem details, but he did say that he'd probably hit the femoral artery, if that is what they still call it in a deer as there was lots of blood.

Sometimes things just go the right way for a guy. I've mentioned that 6' diameter ash tree that I shot through (.300 WM) first before the bullet got to the deer, but the worst FUBAR shot that I ever pulled off with a bow was almost as bad. A little buck was standing quartering away at about 35 yards and I got deflection off a twig sticking up. The arrow took a right turn and hit the deer in the left upper leg. He lunged out of there through deep snow, but in tracking him I thought that there was quite a bit of blood for a leg hit. Turned out that he had stuck himself in the liver with the arrow on one of those lunges. I found him less than a hundred yards away. Strange but true.

[Waidmann]

I've only hit the ham on one deer, and that was with a .243 Rem. The deer went nowhere but down. I didn't realize where I had hit it until I walked up to it, and it was the same picture described over and over. Deer was laying in a huge pool of blood. Small entrance hole, exit hole you would have needed a saucer to cover. Had to be 4 inches in diameter. Lost a lot of meat.

I can picture what an arrow would do, and it doesn't seem bad. I usually double-stick the ham with my knife anyhow, to cut the femoral artery. Otherwise, I usually get blood clots in the meat. An arrow would probably do the same function.

Waidmann

[GF.]

exit hole you would have needed a saucer to cover. Had to be 4 inches in diameter. Lost a lot of meat.


Can you imagine what a 4" wide broadhead would do on a ham shot? :eek: Suddenly, it's looking pretty high percentage.

Unless you hit a bone.:rolleyes:

But FWIW - sticking the hams or cutting the throat won't make any difference unless the pump is still working, so (personally) I wouldn't risk adding a way for dirt or bacteria to get into the meat.

[Waidmann]

GF,


But FWIW - sticking the hams or cutting the throat won't make any difference unless the pump is still working, so (personally) I wouldn't risk adding a way for dirt or bacteria to get into the meat.

True about cutting throat, but not so true with sticking the hams. You're not bleeding the deer, but you are draining the ham muscle itself. A reasonably small amount of blood drains out, but it's all blood that would have formed a blood clot in the meat.

Waidmann

[ncboman]

Talking bowhunting, the only problem I see with the ham shot is the likelyhood of getting guts along with a ham. Certainly meat loss isn't an issue.

By accident I've done it and see it done enough by others to almost say, you can't shoot one in the ham and not kill it.

Heck, I saw a B&C buck in Illinois killed by a ham shot. The hunter was shook up. :D

[GF.]

I'm going to get unusually Categorical on this one ;)

Actually, I'm just going to summarize what I think all of us are thinking, but when you put it real black and white, sometimes people will back off, and sometimes they'll say - 'Hey, you know, it really is that clear!'

So.

The most ethical shot is the surest shot. Period.

So taking a ham shot when a heart/lung is offered - and I would extend that to say when a H/L shot is can reasonably be expected if the hunter is just a little bit patient - well, that'd be the wrong choice. Plain as pee.

Where the grey comes in would be in cases where you're highly motivated to get that specific deer on the ground and it's essentially a 'now or never' scenario. Maybe it's the last day of the season and your freezer's still low, or maybe - and this argument really ticks me off - because it's some kind of "Real Trophy". (It is the very definition of Unethical to take a shot at a perceived 'trophy' if you would pass up the same shot were you simply looking for meat)

Either way, this is a great thread (IMO), because it's educating me, at least, as to the fact that a ham shot may not always be the worst/lowest percentage option. Obviously - when presented with a sketchy opportunity at something at or above the diaphragm vs. a solid ham shot - the most Sporting thing to do is to hold off entirely, but did you ever notice that a lot of stories of Really Big Bucks involve shots that people wouldn't ordinarily take, or poor hits, or both?

I guess if you can't stop people from taking sub-optimal shots, at least you can help them make a better decision about how to play the percentages.

[GF.]

GF,



True about cutting throat, but not so true with sticking the hams. You're not bleeding the deer, but you are draining the ham muscle itself. A reasonably small amount of blood drains out, but it's all blood that would have formed a blood clot in the meat.

Waidmann

Except that it'll only drain if your cuts go through the vessels where that blood is, and FWIW, the way I bone out my cuts, I generally end up stripping out the vasculature in the process.

I've also noticed that away from any wound - which releases clotting factors - the blood seems to remain pretty much liquid for a surprisingly long time, so by getting the animal dressed and hung up (up-side down), quite a lot of that blood seems to drain through the bigger pipes just due to gravity.

Don't get me wrong, though - I'm still listening, because I'm pretty sure you've shot a lot more deer than I ever will, and of course you have the rigorous Deutscher training...

I'm just always trying to reconcile what I know about biology with what I observe first-hand with what I hear from people who've made more (or simply different) observations than I have.

And when it doesn't all point in the same direction, I usually won't let it go until I figure out why not :D

[dave-t.]

I should have read this thread before I went out yesterday. Big ol' doe stopped at 13yrds with a cedar tree covering her front side, for about 3 minutes. :confused: She eventually winded me.

I had a lot of time to sweat it out, and never thought of the ham shot, which was wide open the whole time, with her head blocked from view. Shucks, maybe next time.:o

[GF.]

Question is, did you really want her that bad?

A steep downward shot would cut more vessels, but you might be low on the opposite side. Just in case it went south, it might depend how much room she had to run.

[dave-t.]

She could have run for 1800acres.

With the way my bow season has been going, I shouldn't be passing up any shots. Time is a factor, as in I don't have much of it.

Honestly I'm very curious about this shot. I really do wish I would have thought of it yesterday.

The only ham shot deer I've ever seen went less than 25yrds, and left a 2'+ wide blood trail. That was from a .357 carbine, a much smaller entrance wound than a b-head. Looked like a red carpet had been unrolled, covering everything.

[GF.]

I hear ya, man! I haven't been able to get the landowner's secretary to so much as slide a sheet of paper across his desk for one stinkin' signature, so I haven't set foot in the woods since I left 9,000'.

It's so frustrating that I'm finding it a bit of chore to keep a properly gracious and thankful attitude. This place is basically a half-section patch o' deer hunting heaven, and I'm only in the running because the owner was so fond of my father-in-law. So it's a real gift to get on there... Makes it really awkward to try and press him on the subject.... :(


Anyway, my annual crop of good intentions to shoot only does unless something HUGE walks by is probably headed for the same, wide-open window as in other years, but as long as I can get out and see a few animals, maybe have a couple wander into range..... I'm good. We're not gonna starve, at any rate.

But lately I've been swapping e-mails with the guy who really runs the whole deer program for the state, so if all else fails, maybe I can get him to spill a little on where I can go on public dirt.... Probably time to start working the network with landscapers & police & the plumbers and painters and electricians, just so I don't find myself SOL....

[dave-t.]

I've got just the opposite problem. This year I drew for a special bow hunt and I've got more land then I can find time to hunt, and plenty of vacation time to use. Since the elk trip, I've been fighting the wife for every moment I can get.

I tell her when I'm going to hunt, and something always seems to happen to block me, wether I have a vacation day from work or not. This daycare reschedule today is a prime example. Like a kick in the pants. :mad:

We've had two long heated 'discussions' about it already this week.

[dave-t.]

Back to topic.

Anyone think this deer would be hard to track? (stolen pic)

[ncboman]

I've got just the opposite problem. This year I drew for a special bow hunt and I've got more land then I can find time to hunt, and plenty of vacation time to use. Since the elk trip, I've been fighting the wife for every moment I can get.

I tell her when I'm going to hunt, and something always seems to happen to block me, wether I have a vacation day from work or not. This daycare reschedule today is a prime example. Like a kick in the pants. :mad:

We've had two long heated 'discussions' about it already this week.

Glad I'm not you ... and I KNOW your wife is too. :D

My wife supports just about anything regarding hunting I want to do. That's why I married her. :p

[ncboman]

Back to topic.

Anyone think this deer would be hard to track? (stolen pic)

You could track that one in standing water. :D

bet it didn't go far.

[GF.]

Effective? Well, obviously. :eek:

Best case scenario? Definitely. :D

Typical? Kinda doubt it. :o



You could track that one in standing water.

Only if the sharks don't get to it first :D

They could probably smell that one from out in the Gulf Stream!:eek: