Author Topic: Shot Placement (Read 620 times)

Sourdough · « **on:** February 21, 2006, 09:39:50 PM »

When hunting Moose or Caribou, where do you aim? As for me it's simple, center of the near shoulder. People complain that you loose too much meat, that a shoulder shot is bad. Well in my openion the shoulder shot anchores them to the spot. The animal is usually dead before you can walk to it, because you will take out both lungs. 12 inches in any direction has no bearing on the outcome, you'll still drop the Moose. What's a couple of pounds of meat lost, out of the 500 to 800 lbs that you take home? I can easily afford to loose that small amount.

Dand · « **Reply #1 on:** February 21, 2006, 10:21:18 PM »

Sourdough, I agree with you 100%. I feel I have more room for error that will still be a killing shot. My problem is I don't hold low enough on the chest and tend to hit high in the lungs or take out the back bone. Still pretty effective but the high lung shot on a moose takes a minute or 2 to work. ON caribou the high shot often drops them like a rock, but also takes out a few steaks.

I gotta practice on some animal outline paper targets to reprogram my head to hold a little lower on the animal.

I've also wobbled a little far back and nicked the paunch or too far forward and whacked quite a bit of shoulder meat - but I got the animal. It didn't wander off with hole in its windpipe or esophagus, a shot jaw, or some other serious but slow to kill (days?) injury.

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #2 on:** February 22, 2006, 12:07:49 AM »

When I got my Caribou, I did the shoulder shot also. The Caribou never took another step and both lungs were taken out.

Daveinthebush · « **Reply #3 on:** February 22, 2006, 06:12:06 PM »

I tend to agree. For a bow shot I aim at the middle of the chest. For a rifle, if I ever use one, I would opt for the same shot. I find that a double lung hit animal will seldom if ever go 40 yards. On the other hand, a heart shot animal does not know the pump in not pumping and may cover 100 yards on the norm.

http://www.nbef.org/elk_java.html

http://www.nbef.org/deer_java.html

http://www.nbef.org/pdfs/bearshotplacement.pdf#search='black%20bear%20anatomy

(I can't get the bear to highlight as a URL)

corbanzo · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2006, 02:47:03 PM »

I also agree with the center shoulder shot. I was on an elk hunt with a friend of mine last spring, and he hit it in high in the shoulder, bounced off and hit it in the spine, dropped like a rock, didnt take a step, best shot I've ever seen. Dead even before we could start towards it.