Elk Tactics 101 - Episode #8

[WapitiTalk1]

Date/Time: 18 September 2016/8:30 AM
Location: Somewhere in the elk woods
Hunt Pressure Status: It appears there is some today (read on)
Solo hunt today
Tag: Archery season; branched bull only

While working your way up this elky hill side from your starting point, you hear movement up to your left and see this fine fellow moving up a finger ridge from left to right in to this small opening. You are 30ish yards from the pine tree directly in front of the bull, have a clear line of sight at the beast's vitals, but, are a full contour line lower on the hill side than the bull (contour intervals are 40'). You draw when he's walking and right before you're able to give a nervous/popping grunt with your voice to stop him, the bull stops on his own and you hear why. A hunter well below you has bugled and your bull has stopped in his tracks and is essentially, looking over the top of you to the far hill side in the direction of the bugle he heard. That small chunk of brush is actually between you and the bull's face from your position. You're already at full draw so now the question is, are you shooting? If so, show us where your arrow is heading to (POI) and for this situation, tell us what pin/yardage you use.

Reminder that if you save the picture to your desktop and open in MS Paint, you'll be able to place a spot, X, or whatever on the critter before you save it back to a jpg or png and add the marked up pic with your post.

[Swede]

Uphill%20Scenario.png (971.5 KiB) Viewed 7400 times

Seems like I am always shooting at these pictures, but never get one like this when I am hunting. RJ, I need to hunt somewhere else. Anyway he doesn't see me and He looks to be just over 30 yards away. Whack!

[N&N Waterfowl]

I'm definitely shooting...pretty much same location as the previous post; however, I'm using my 35 yard pin held on the red dot. The bull is 40' vertically above you and 90' horizontally from you, which would translate to approximately a 33 yard shot. I know that if I'm a little off on my yardage estimate my arrow will hit less than an inch high and still go through the vitals.

[Swede]

I am not sure if I am messing in RJ's nest (thread) or not, but this is what I see: The key thing here is to recognize that the arrow is going to exit the animal approximately 6 inches higher than where it entered. That means, in the center of the bull the broad head will be 3 inches higher. The bull is a little over thirty yards (horizontal?) away. I am not sure of the exact distance. The teaching point is to recognize that you need to compensate for the travel of your arrow through the elk. It is going to be higher when it gets to center mass than where it entered the elk. This is especially true for all tree stand hunters.
Years ago I shot down at a steep angle on an elk. The broad head slices along a rib and cut the hide of the critter, but never entered the boiler room. This happened because I did not compensate for the direction the arrow was traveling after it hit the hide. Lesson learned. Nuff said.

[lamrith]

That near leg is def in a bad position.. 20yrd pin on the pretty red dot.

[Mike_Parson]

it looks like the elk is a few yards behind the pine tree that is at 30 so i am going to shoot the elk with the pin gap between my 30 and 40 yd pins. im going to place that gap right on the transition of dark to light hair and let it fly. i should clip the top of the heart and take out at least the lung on the far side. i probably will hit liver in there as well with this shot.

[Tigger]

Maybe I am missing something, but if the tree is 30 yards away at a pretty steep slope, that bull is 27 yards on the horizontal. Thus I would aim a wee bit low with my 30 yard pin on where I wanted the arrow to enter the bull. N&N, I believe that you are figuring it incorrectly. It doesn't matter how far the arrow flies, it only matters the horizontal distance the arrow will fly, thus this is a 27 yard shot. Gravity only acts on the horizontal distance. I may be misinterpreting what you are saying. But it seems that we are going in the opposite directions as you are using a 35 yard pin and I am using (essentially) a 27 yard pin. I want my arrow to impact at Mike Parson's yellowish/greenish dot, and the way my bow shoots, I would aim that 30 yard pin between the yellow and red dot.

[Lefty]

Im using my 30 yard pin. Then aiming 45 degrees north and 2 inches higher than Swede if feeling steady. Or 2 inches up if Im sucking air and the pin is bouncing I still have plenty of kill zone above and below the shot

but I know for a fact that goose berry bush is jumping out and deflecting my arrow safely away from the bull

[Lefty]

It doesn't matter how far the arrow flies, it only matters the horizontal distance the arrow .

This is a good physics lesson on arrow flight
http://archeryreport.com/2011/06/unders ... rows-drop/

[WapitiTalk1]

A most excellent article Lefty, thanks!

[Lefty]

I just calculated the distance using 30 ish as 90 feet. Horizontal distance 26.4 yards. I guess Im shooting high and getting ling and maybe some major blood vessels.
With a rifle I am shooting right where Swede marked the red dot

[otcWill]

I like to hit elk closer to half way up. IMO lamrith's dot is the best placement of the ones on this thread. A few of the other red dots are too low and would result in bottom of vitals at best. My bow has very little difference in POI from 20-30 so I'd split both pins around the spot lamrith posted.

[Old school]

Thanks for that link Lefty - a very succinct article describing arrow flight. I've got some GoldTip naturals that I shoot out of my longbow and also some heavy cedar arrows that I shoot. This article clearly confirms what I experience in shooting those heavy arrows.

Back to the Episode - I'm probably so enthralled with the experience that he walks off before I draw my bow

--Mitch

[Mike_Parson]

i had assumed that the 30 yard distance was done with a rangefinder at the angle so i assumed it was a true 30 yards. my rangefinder has a slope compensation so it gives me a true line of sight distance with angle calculated in. with the new information given about the distance, i to would have adjusted to use my 20,30 pin gap to shoot with and not the 30,40. if i still had used the 30,40 gap it would still have been a double lung shot.

[lamrith]

It doesn't matter how far the arrow flies, it only matters the horizontal distance the arrow .

This is a good physics lesson on arrow flight
http://archeryreport.com/2011/06/unders ... rows-drop/

At bottom of that article they also have a link to a uphill/downhill shot article.

http://archeryreport.com/2010/06/uphill ... ow-impact/

[cohunter14]

i had assumed that the 30 yard distance was done with a rangefinder at the angle so i assumed it was a true 30 yards. my rangefinder has a slope compensation so it gives me a true line of sight distance with angle calculated in. with the new information given about the distance, i to would have adjusted to use my 20,30 pin gap to shoot with and not the 30,40. if i still had used the 30,40 gap it would still have been a double lung shot.

Is that a golf rangefinder or a hunting one? Keep in mind that golf rangefinders adjust for uphill and add yardage. In a hunting situation, if a shot is severely uphill or downhill, it always subtracts yardage. Just an FYI...it took me a long time to figure that out.

[Indian Summer]

I'm smiling because the other hunter stopped him for me so he isn't staring right at me. I'm hitting him right where the yellow dot is. Even though the arrow will exit higher that's low enough and it gives me more margin for error.

Then I'm going to keep calling trying to bugle the other hunter in so I can ask him to help pack it out.

[lamrith]

Then I'm going to keep calling trying to bugle the other hunter in so I can ask him to help pack it out.

[Mike_Parson]

i had assumed that the 30 yard distance was done with a rangefinder at the angle so i assumed it was a true 30 yards. my rangefinder has a slope compensation so it gives me a true line of sight distance with angle calculated in. with the new information given about the distance, i to would have adjusted to use my 20,30 pin gap to shoot with and not the 30,40. if i still had used the 30,40 gap it would still have been a double lung shot.

Is that a golf rangefinder or a hunting one? Keep in mind that golf rangefinders adjust for uphill and add yardage. In a hunting situation, if a shot is severely uphill or downhill, it always subtracts yardage. Just an FYI...it took me a long time to figure that out.

I use a Halo XRT6 rangefinder, all Halo rangefinders come standard with ai technology, which accounts for slope to target and are powered by opti-logic technology. The XRT6 600-yard rangefinder includes 6x magnification and scan Mode that allows for Constant ranging.