I left purple because if you remember back to my recap this year, my buddy went for the old neck shot.
If he is aware though, my bigger problem is getting drawn at 12 yards. . . .
With a rifle, that dot right under the jaw bone would drop him in his tracks with no meat loss at all.
The only bone behind the blue dot is ribs.
The black and green are over bone.
The light blue is the only shot that's going to reasonably hit both lungs and avoid large bone, although Bob's star will work too - problem is, you miss just a little left or right and you're in bone or risk missing the nearside lung or barely clipping it.
I've shot a couple animals way up front like that and they don't die quick. There's just not enough vessels up there to bleed them fast and unless you collapse bigger areas of lung, it doesn't kill them quick.
Ucsdryder's Link
Interesting star.....
ElkNut
The green and black dots are too close to the leg bone and the blue and red dots would most likely only get one lung and exit thru guts possibly making for a tough blood trail.
Your scapula looks like a 2x6 when it should look like a fan blade.
Not talking trash, just my feeling on it.
We're talking 12 yards here, there's several choices that will put that bull down without him having a chance to bolt & change angles. Stay away from any bone & you're good to go!
ElkNut
UCSD’s sketch of the bones looks mighty Off to me; not just the proportions but the location. I’m not going to pretend that I can say exactly where all the big bones are in that pic, but I’m pretty sure that’s closer to where the aren’t....
Two things here -
1 - As a rule, if I can see daylight between the forelegs, I’m probably going to hold to split that gap down the middle - unless I see heavy bone in the way.
2 - I think the gal in the video had a much more favorable shot angle than the camera man did. From where she was standing, she should probably have had an easy shot behind the shoulder... but it’s really hard to tell because of the way that camera lenses distort the perception of space & distance.
So not sure, but I think so.
I like the center of the black/green/yellow triangle myself. Unless that’s the shoulder joint.
And I know the blue dot would do the job but it would not be my first choice due to the possibility of one lung and guts.
It's easy to sit here and study these photos and shot options but in the real world the decision usually has to be made very quickly and it helps me to visualize the arrows path thru the bull.
My first bull was pretty much this exact same angle. I called him in and saw him coming, I dropped to my knees and drew on him when he was at about 30 yards. He kept coming and stopped at 8 yards, I felt like he was towering above me. This was long before I knew anything about the controversy surrounding the frontal shot. For a split second I considered shooting tight behind the shoulder but I visualized the path of my arrow thru the vitals with a shot in front of the shoulder and said to myself "I can kill him". I shot him in WapitiBob's star and he went 105 yards and did the death moan bugle...
Along with your story I had the opposite event happen to me; a bull came in running to my Sons calling, he stopped at 14 yards broadside, perfect right! He was a body length passed me so no problem to draw & fire from my longbow since I was at the ready with arrow nocked, I drew & fired in an instant, as I released I saw him turn in a flash to bolt where he came from. The arrow impacted as if a frontal shot with 7" of arrow in him, ouch not what I had planned! The bull made it 150 yards & was stone dead from a frontal with little penetration! I was luckier than good that day!
ElkNut
If I may....
I think a lot of people who practice a lot on 3-D targets end up making bad hits in the field because they are so much in the habit of shooting at the scoring rings on the outside, rather than doing what you’re talking about doing. It’s absolutely vital (pun intended) to visualize the path all the way through the animal with the objective of putting your broadhead somewhere through the 10 ring as it passes the midline of the animal. Not on the surface, but in the plane of the spine. I also like to visualize the exit point, because I had a heart-shot buck run quite some distance with a BH lodged against the off humerus; no exit, 100% internal bleed-out, and if I hadn’t been able to watch him the whole way and see him fall, I probably wouldn’t have found him any time soon. because he ran on an arc that turned him 90 degrees. I think it was the injured Off foreleg that did that.
Anyway...
“ It's easy to sit here and study these photos and shot options .”
Sure is. That’s why it’s a very good use of time to be doing it! I got into the habit when I was just starting out with my hunter safety class… This would’ve been about the time of the bicentennial LOL. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never been able to look at a picture of a deer or an Elk WITHOUT picking a spot and thinking through the shot angle. It’s sort of the default mode for daydreaming when I see a picture of something I’d like to eat.
Things do happen and awful lot faster out in the field, but just as I’m always picking a spot on a picture, I do the same thing with every animal as it comes into my space, whether I’m hunting or not. That way, I have a better chance of figuring out where all the big bones are before that last instant, and lighting conditions, the coat, the condition of the animal, etc all come into play.
Point is, Habits. Basically, I study the hell out of everything that interests me, so I’m constantly processing that kind of material when given an opportunity.
Interesting story about your first bull because the first one I ever got close to did the same thing to me. Although I didn’t have to call him; he was just kind of headed my way to begin with. But I know what you mean about them towering over you… And I was standing up!
;-)
ElkNut
