Whether you’re taking it to the butcher or the taxidermist, the real work comes after you shoot the animal. Then you must drag it out of the forest and get it processed. After shooting the elk, you still need to track it down to ensure the kill and find the carcass. Remember, shooting the elk is just the beginning. Likewise, when shooting from slightly behind the animal as it’s quartering away from you, aim a little further back.Īdjusting your aim to hit the vital zone of the animal will improve your kill shot ratio. The shot’s trajectory should place it in the animal’s vital zone as it reaches the lower third of the body. Remember, the animal’s body has depth, and you can and should account for that when adjusting your aim for your angle.Īim higher on the animal when shooting down from a high angle, like you would in a tree blind. It gets a bit more complicated with harsher angles. Placing a shot in the vital zone is pretty straightforward when shooting at the animal broadside from ground level. Aim an inch or two behind the animal’s front shoulder to give yourself the best chance to hit the kill zone.Īdjust your aim to accommodate your angle. Or, the animal could bleed out slowly over the next few days and lead you all over the mountain.Īn elk’s heart and lungs are in the front half of the body. High shots tend to injure an animal and scare it off without killing it. Aim for the lower third of the animal, not the middle. The vital organs of an elk ride lower in their body than it might seem when looking at it from the outside. These two angles will give you the best shot at the target zone.ĭon’t shoot too high. The best shots are when the animal stands broadside or is quartering away from you. Save your shot for when you have a good angle. Now that you know where to hit your trophy elk let’s go over how you shoot it there. However, aiming a shot and placing a shot are slightly different things. Not only does a good shot make the kill easier, but because the animal dies more quickly, it makes finding the carcass easier as well. This will give you the best chance of penetrating the elk’s heart or lungs with your shot.Ī well-placed shot can bring a big game animal down more often and more quickly than a grazing shot. On an elk, you should place your shot in the bottom third of the animal’s torso, an inch or two behind the front shoulder. Understand the difference between a good shot and a challenging shot. Your shot placement often determines if you get a kill on your hunt. What is the best shot placement for an elk? If the elk is quartering away, you may not have the entire vital zone visible from your perspective. That’s the total area when the elk is standing broadside. For elk, the kill zone ranges from about 24 to 26 inches. The size of the vital zone will vary depending on the animal’s size. Essentially, when hunting big game, make the kill zone your target. Shooting a big game animal in the kill zone will improve a hunter’s chance of hitting one of the animal’s vital organs and successfully killing it. Aiming for the vital zone when hunting big game will result in more kills, more successful hunts, and more trophies.Īn animal’s vital zone, or kill zone, is the area within the animal’s body that houses a large group of the animal’s vital organs. They create a prime target area called the vital zone. In most big game, the lungs and heart are positioned closely together inside the body. A shot that pierces the lungs or heart with a bullet or arrow is the quickest way to bring down an elk. To kill big game quickly, you need to target their vital organs, namely the lungs and heart. But a kill shot can have you on the phone with your taxidermists making arrangements to stuff your trophy by the end of the day. A wounding shot can result in hours, if not days, of following the long blood trail of a slowly dying animal. When hunting big game, like elk, you want to bring them down quickly. What’s the best shot placement on a trophy elk for a quick kill? This guide will help you visualize the vital zones in the elk anatomy and where to aim with a rifle or a bow to increase the chances of a quick kill. Whether you’re on a guided elk hunt or hunting independently, with a rifle or a bow, understanding an elk’s anatomy and where to hit it will help more of your shots be kill shots. Shot placement is often the difference between a successful hunt and a disappointing one. On the flip side, the story of the one that got away can haunt you forever. Taking down a trophy elk can be the thrill of a lifetime.
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