JohnThe old picture you see above of a shot-placement chart (from Creek Side Deer) has seemed to gain another surge of popularity on the internet. It shows which hits on a deer by hunters that resulted in being dead, alive, unclear, or a followup shot was needed. Although I’m sure there’s a lot of truth to this chart, I’d like to provide other considerations for this data, thus providing another perspective on the shots.
Angle of Shot
You can see on the chart that most dead shots were basically in the middle of the deer and that the ‘v-zone’ (right behind shoulder) didn’t have as many shots or most resulted in a deer that survived. What this graph fails to show is the angle of which the hunter shot the deer. Was the shot quartering-to, quartering-away, broadside, was the hunter in a tree, was the hunter in a blind, in their truck? The trajectory of the arrow isn’t shown.
This means that shots in the green area doesn’t necessarily mean that it’ll only injure a deer. With the right angle (and gear, which well talk about later), that arrow or bullet would run through the vital area of the deer, rendering it dead. On the flip-side, that also means shots in the red area doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll kill the deer.
Penetration
Another aspect of this data that isn’t shown is penetration. Did it penetrate the body, the meat, the skin, bounce off the deer? It’s obvious that if there’s not enough penetration into the body cavity, or none at all, that deer will survive. That is why it’s vitally (pun-intended) that hunters need to do their due-diligence when hunting in understanding the distance of the animal and having the right gear to make certain shots. Let alone, confidence is also key in my opinion. Which kind of leads me to my last topic.
Confidence of Hit Location
We’ve all been through it – buck-fever. Or the physical and mental emotions a hunter may go through when hunting. Imagine, the shaking, thinking about all the things you need to do, all the things that could go right or wrong, and making sure everything is setup correctly. With all that in mind, can we really be confident that the location that was marked was exactly where they actually hit? Obviously for the kill shots, but what about the deer that were found alive or unclear. Granted finding the live deer, you could potentially determine where it was hit from the wound, but even so, was there a follow-up to update the data?
Conclusion
Like I said before, I’m sure there is a lot of truth to the chart. I wanted to provide another perspective on some topics that could be overlooked from a data perspective. In tandem, I hope that it helps hunters to learn where the deadly shots may be located depending on the different scenarios\.
