Pick a spot (Frontal)
Elk
This bull walks in to 15 yards. Your on level ground and have same angle as camera man. Pick your spot… or do you pass?
Pick your spot! Or pass.
Pick your spot! Or pass.
Yeah, Nope. I once passed up an almost identical angle at more like 7. Close enough that he could hear my bowstring humming every time my pulse crashed into my bow hand, and I could hear his snot-bubbles pop.
Anatomically, I’d go purple, but I’d more likely take the quartering-away shot that he would surely offer as soon as he saw me start to draw my bow….
Id be aiming an inch or two higher than the blue dot.
I’m going purple on this scenario. I’ll also say that for me to take a frontal, I want them close. There isn’t a big window to get into. I’ve seen a couple hot slightly off center and the arrow slid down the ribs under the shoulder.
Purple or peach will get it done fast.
Purple, he looks really skinny.
I am with Brotsky on this one. Purple or Peach and it’s over quickly.
Here is an awesome video of a frontal done right. The pumping blood as he wheels around. Purple all day long. I've taken two frontal shots on elk with extremely short blood trails.
Lungshot I thought that pic looked familiar:):)
Hahaha! Dammit Scrappy you stole my thunder. The photo I posted is a still from that video. I was going to post the vid after folks responded. Good job! Lol
Ideally between purple and blue where the "white" is.
id wait until he turned or let him go.
No reason to let him turn or to let him Go on a short shot. The shot is highly lethal. And yes I know, we all know the guy that lost one doing this. But, we also know many more that lost on broadside and we don’t bat an eye.
FFS you animals...
It's not purple, it's magenta!
Will one of you guys that has taken several elk with frontal shots draw the kill zone on this bull for me please?
That shot is from ELK101 - Cory Jacobson. He kills the bull pretty easily. Go watch it. I’d take that shot all day long.
I have never killed an elk with a bow. But it's no different than a whitetail anatomy. Purple for me.
Killed 3 bulls frontal, none made it far. One was same angle as this one, purple!
If I didn’t have to pick a dot, I’d be between purple and peach, that’s the soft spot above brisket bone and between shoulders.
Ky EyeBow, this isn’t exact obviously but it’s close. The thoracic opening on an elk is about the size of a 7/8in pie plate. The bigger the animal the bigger the opening. If your shooting below the color transition on the neck your in trouble. Too far left or right shoulder bone or ribs. It’s almost like shooting them in the throat but you just have to look at one broadside and see where the vitals lay then imagine penetrating them from the front.
The spine doesn’t dip down as far as one would expect. This doesn’t show the frontal opening but gives you a good idea.
Between blue and purple...if he wasn't a raghorn...LOL!
Here’s a photo I took of one minus leg and rib meat so you can see vitals and spine etc.
Heart, lungs and spine outlined.
Only taking that shot straight on… any quartering on a frontal can be a problem…
I killed one with a frontal but facing the opposite direction from the picture when I was 16. He was 3 yards. Haven’t had an opportunity on a frontal since except last year. I screwed that one up by hitting him way too high in the neck muscle. I had issues going back and forth between my longbow and compound. I picked a spot and drilled a hole through it. Problem was that I didn’t bother to use my sight. The pin was up high in the neck and I just stared at the spot I wanted to hit. I would aim for blue, white, or purple. The one I killed when I was 16 was actually between white and blue. With most modern compounds you should be able to break a front rib. If your set up can’t then it probably won’t break any ribs. I’d be more worried about hitting the leg bone than a rib or hitting too high.
been there done that. purple. love that shot at close range. after i release the arrow, i am filling out my tag so when i make the short walk i can immediately tie it on.
I've killed 4 bulls with frontal shots. Two have been directly straight on and two have been slightly quartering similar to this one. The shot distances were 8 yards, 19 yards, 22 yards & 15 yards. At that angle I'd aim between HDE's white dot and the magenta (purple) dot. And by the way, you don't have to shoot through the thoracic opening on the slightly quartering shots. You can shoot through the ribs in front of the shoulder blade just like you can shoot through the ribs behind the shoulder blade on a broadside shot.
For the guys who would pass the shot and wait for them to turn for a quartering away shot. To each their own but I'm relatively certain that 3 of the 4 bulls that I killed with frontal shots would have walked just about right into me if I wouldn't have shot and they would have busted out so fast once they almost stepped on me that I seriously doubt that I would have gotten a shot. One of them was a 360" bull and I'll never regret taking that shot but I'm guessing that I'd be kicking myself to this day if I'd waited for a different angle.
Hard to beat Mikes results! Pass on a close frontal and you may not get a better opportunity.
Beautiful bull Mike and hard to argue with results.
Thanks for the info on your frontal shots.
Sorry Lung$hot that I stole your thunder on this one. What are the odds:):):)
Dead center between purple and yellow I have done it , it works ! Hes on the wall with some of thise long neck hairs still missing cut em right off. Also did same thing on moose just this past fall. Not my preferred shot by far , but take what the opportunity presents . To thick to wait for him to turn 5 yds on moose 42 on elk if he turned either way hes behind pines. They never come out where you think they will.
My shot is still in my quiver. I dont feel comfortable with frontal shots, so I'd not shoot, and be ok with the tag soup and a story. Others have better skill and feel ok with it. It's just not a shot I feel good about for me.
Big Dan killed a lot of elk with frontal shots. I think if you have a caller behind you and the elk takes a broadside path great but if he comes head on he will go down quickly with a well placed shot!
I agree with HDE and his white spot
Agree with you Grey Ghost! 40+ yard shots are just a different deal in hunting situations. Of the 15 bulls I've killed, almost none have been over 35 yards. I shoot pretty often through the summer and feel real good out to 70 yards with broad heads on targets. But, reality in the woods has proven otherwise for me. I'm sure somebody out there has killed most of their elk at 50+ yards. I just haven't met that person yet.
Frontal all day. I actually like them angled like this photo as it's simply the reverse of a quartering shot. If you solo hunt, it's almost a must. I let a lot of elk pass back in the day, but thankfully I got off that saddle early.
I agree, frontals are close range deals. Heck, elk are meant to be shot close. I've killed quite a few, and I've only shot at one not using my top pin and he was at 33. I like no guess work elk. See him coming, top pin, watch them fall. I might not know much, but the one consistent factor I've seen over and over again on elk is Short Shots = Short Recoveries.
I despise tracking elk, you should too ha!
Just curious…. How many of you guys who would take this shot are using a stickbow?
At 15 yards, the accuracy is not really the issue for me. I’m shooting about 540 grains out of a snappy, #62 R/D longbow with a strong, 2-blade COC, so that’s not really the issue; my KE figure is not much to look at, compared to most compounds — probably somewhere close to 45 foot-pounds — but it’s nothing to sneeze at, and probably pretty similar to or a bit more than what Eichler was getting out of his longer DL at closer to #50 draw weight, IIRC…. #TallGuyPrivilege….
The main thing, apart from the obvious challenge of drawing your bow with the animal facing right towards you, is that the way that ribs are built, the difference between a frontal and a broadside is like the difference between a 2X8 standing on edge like a floor joist vs laying flat like a plank…
It would probably take a pretty rare combination of bad luck to cause an arrow to redirect enough to rattle across several ribs and penetrate outside of the thoracic cavity, but Murphy’s Law has yet to be repealed, last I checked…
Also, if the animal is walking, you probably want to time it for when the near shoulder joint is back out of the way a bit, which means that I would probably be watching that joint…. and if experience is any guide, I would almost certainly center-punch the heaviest concentration of bone in the whole front end of the animal. Better odds if he’s not moving when I take the shot, but at maybe 185-190 fps, best case, if he’s paying any attention whatsoever, there’s just enough hang-time on the arrow to give me pause.
YMMV.
In my stand-off with my little bull, he veered a bit to his right and gave me the full broadside, allowing me to pick my spot, focus, swing on him and glance an arrow off the side of a 2” lodgepole and harmlessly into the distance. But at least I stayed focused on what I DID want to hit, and he didn’t react to me drawing my bow or anything else until that one blade clanged the arrow off of the tree. I’m still wondering how I got so lucky as to miss clean.
But ever since, I have been acutely aware of the possibility for an arrow to be very significantly redirected on a glancing blow. And not-for-nothin’ but I once had a (highly frangible, 7-08) deer bullet splatter off of a rib and exit IMMEDIATELY on a hard quartering-away shot on a medium-sized doe whitetail, so I guess you could attribute some shyness here to having been bitten once or twice…
Corax with your set up I would up to 15 yards. My bow this year is lighter 54 # 620 gr arrow COC head. I would only take it at under 10. Lots of damage while they run away tho.
I'm shooting a 53# Super Kodiak recurve. 2 blade cut on contact broadheads mounted on aluminum arrows with a total arrow weight of 500g.
I'm confident in my set up and my shooting ability to take this shot as presented aiming for the purple dot as I stated earlier.
I'm shooting and that's all I worry about. YMMV.
“ Lots of damage while they run away tho…”
That’s a thought, Saphead, but I’d expect you’d want to go gutless method after that… Probably applies regardless, though. I don’t know about you, but as a rule, gut contents = The Foul Stench of Failure….
"Just curious…. How many of you guys who would take this shot are using a stickbow?"
Me. 52-55 lb. draw weight (depending on bow) at 28 inches, 9-10 gpp arrow weight, 2 blade Zwickey Eskimo. You hit purple, and even some of the other dots, the elk will die fast. At close range, I would take that shot in the OP as much as any broadside shot opportunity.
I thought someone wrote an article about the effectiveness of this shot? Memory is fading but I recall reading one 25 years ago, or thereabouts.
“The lethal frontal opening on a bull elk is roughly 9" x 11".”
Now, when you say “opening”… Are you referring to the width between the shoulder joints, or suggesting that there’s a big, boneless window to shoot through?
I’m envisioning the ribs in kind of a venetian blind arrangement; broadside, as in Lungshot’s bones-picked-clean photo, they’re thin planks, surprisingly far apart, but the front-end view could be more like a series of those 2X8s up on edge.
Lungshot mentioned an opening 7”-8” between ribs and between spine & sternum…. Much better estimate than I can offer, so I can go by that, I guess. Pretty good-sized target if you can get away with drawing…
Anyone gotten just one lung and had a real runner?
