Hitting the Sweet-Spot

After shooting my bow the other day, and feeling confident in my ability to make a good shot, I began to wonder what in fact is the best shot you can make an a bull elk?

At that moment I decided to do some research, and I don't know about you but I best understand by seeing not hearing. I found some interesting images of an elks anatomy and after doing some graphical alteration I was able to give a pretty accurate example of what you are dealing with as far as where vitals are and what you have to shoot through to get to them.

As you can see by these diagrams, the heart is really not in the place where you probably have been practicing on your 3-D targets. PLUS, here is a big one no matter where you shoot for a vital shot you are most likely going to have to penetrate some bone.

The best shot to hope for is broad side, oh and if you were wondering too the best shot would be about an inch up and an inch back from the elk's elbow; this way you will hit the heart and double lungs.

Also another cool thing to look at from these images is the artery placement on an elk. If I were going to aim high for the reason of not having a perfect broadside shot, I would try to put my arrow through the lungs where most of the major arteries in that area are.

Take a look at the places where not to shoot, and if you make a miscalculation or just a mishap, you can have a pretty good idea if the elk is wounded mortally or not and/or how much time you need to give him to expire. Just as a side note they say that in this hot weather it only takes 2 - 4hours before a dead elk's meat will spoil. The reason why I mention this is that you may not want to give a poorly shot elk too much time just in case.

I hope you, my fellow archers will find this as useful as I did, and may all your arrows hit their mark this year.