This should tweak a few, just my experience, shoulder shots can be deadly. I have actually lost deer due to a leg bone / elbow hit but never on a direct shoulder hit. One exception to that, the off shoulder hit. This is as in tracking . You may have lung but in hill country deer even with a heart hit deer can travel a ridiculous distance. So off shoulder lung is a no blood track not good hit to me Direct shoulder hits can drop a deer in it's tracks. Now because I shoot instinctive and also open sights with my shot gun. I always take the shoulder shot in gun . This has caused me to inadvertently have an eye drift in bow . So the rt to left deer movement and a left drift has hit shoulder a few times. They drop in their tracks. I shoot low poundage and have had near complete pass throughs. There is a bundle of nerves and vessels there that when hit takes them down. Because of this occasional drift I tend to aim tight to shoulder in a lft to rt deer travel. So a drift puts me direct lung . Now from a trackers view they have said they prefer a center body hit all day long. The best recovery times. I have a pic on the computer of a doe that had a near complete shoulder pass through. 49 pound older Hoyt raider / intruder at 20 yrds. A real pain because I couldn't get the shaft out until I butchered her. She dropped in her tracks and died in seconds. Three others 2 doe and an 8 pt all did the same. I've lost 2 to off shoulder hits and a buck to a leg lung hit. Down hill runs into the " void". Ps..I'll look for that pic.
I don't know what triggered my memory of this, but thought I'd share a pretty interesting hit I saw several years ago. A friend and I were archery elk hunting and when we walked back out to our atv's after it got dark there was a pickup parked by them with a couple sitting in it. We get to talking and they tell us that they had spotted about 8 head of cows feeding in a cut, and their buddy had gone out to try to stalk them. Pretty soon their buddy comes walking up out of the darkness and I can tell by his face he shot one. He says that he got a 30 yard shot on one, but thinks he might've hit it "low in the shoulder". He holds up an arrow that has absolutely mangled broad head blades, bent all to hell, and the arrow shows penetration of about 1/2" beyond the BH. Not a good looking scenario. He realizes this, but said that she was bleeding really well after only 10 yards, he only followed for about 30 yards before finding the arrow and deciding to back out, but the blood was "really good". We offer to help them take up the track in the morning and they accept. The next morning we go to where he had shot her and sure enough after only 10 yards there is a great blood trail. 110 yards later we find the cow, she had bled out and didn't go far at all, great blood the whole way. He had badly misjudged the yardage and hit her right above the knee in the front leg. Must be a great artery in there that he managed to cut. Never saw that one coming. Sorry OP, I'll quit hijacking.
I personally try to graze the top of the heart with my aim point. Maybe 1” up and 1” left of the spot you are pointing out. I have personally went just under the heart before and that sucks so I try to leave myself a little room for error and deer movement all the way around. I think it the best way to go but that’s my opinion. Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
Saw a lucky shot in a video. Hunter took the shot just as the deer moved. The arrow cut the artery in the hind leg. The deer didn't go far before dropping.
