Where do YOU hit them?

As kids we got all sorts of good advice on where to hit our target species, particularly deer and goats. On reflection a lot of it was based on limited experience and hearsay.
One of the soundest pieces of advice proved to be “follow the front leg up a third of the body depth and shoot for that spot”. For a lot of my early years hunting, this was a very effective method. Then we got the stories shoot them in the neck or head. Again this proved very effective.

It wasn’t until I worked as a paid hunter that I had to question this advice. The sheer number of animals that we were required to kill in a wide variety of conditions meant that a different shot placement selection process had to be found. A few simple choices proved useful for most opportunities but not all. Another factor was we were required to be efficient in our shooting in order to be effective. Hunters who could not shoot efficiently were not well regarded.

Eventually I used a shot selection process that I had heard of while watching golf on television. I believe it was Sam Sneed who promoted percentage golf, selecting a stroke and club which gave you the highest chance of being successful. On the strength of that l found that selecting the largest target area available to me on the animal gave me the largest margin of error. In some cases the largest target area was ridiculously small, but if that was going to be the best opportunity available, just hit it.

Cheers
Bill