Many times I've read that if you can stick an arrow into an 8 inch target; that is good enough for deer hunting. I don't know about that. The few deer I've seen on the inside had puny lungs. And the total vitals area wasn't as big as shown on deer decoys or visual aids. I see it more as a 5 inch target with 6 being a stretch. How do you guys feel about that?

The palm of my hand is the group size that has worked for me for over 30 years and is what dictates my max distance.

I think you are too small. It is hard in my expierence to hit a deer too low as long as you stay in the body line and 6 inches behind the shoulder or forward. The lungs are what gets me. I see alot of deer shot on hunting vid's that would be too high in my expierence. I do think that the 3d targets set there 10 rings to high because if you get in a hbit of shooting there, there is much less room for error. Deer movement and a couple inches higher and bingo, you got a problem unless you hit them in the top of the shoulder and get the spine.

A lot of blabbering to tell you the average deer here seems to have about a 8 by 10 inch kill zone.

Always better to assume it's smaller, as that will only make for a better shot. However, the pleural (lung) cavity on a live deer is fairly large. I believe most shots below the level of the spine (which may be lower than most assume), but above the sternum will result in pneumothorax. From the shoulder back to almost the last rib will do the same. That said, I would agree that we should be shooting for that 5" sweet spot, just behind the shoulder about 1/3 of the way up the height of the thorax. Happy hunting....

i still go by paper plate idea, if you group in a paper plate you can hit the kill zone of a deer. That being said I try for perfection and super tight groups at what ever range i shoot at. it just depends on on the positin of the deer and the shooters skill.

A pie plate as a standard is not good enough. 2 inches off and you have a double gut. You should be able to hit within a couple inches of your spot at your best distance. That is where you should set up..

It seems to me that if you go 4 inches high from dead center of your target or 4 inches low of dead center of the target you are not in the heart lung area. You're out of it. This picture pretty much looks like what I see when I see a deer's insides. It's not that huge target you see on some decoys. The palm of your hand is pretty much what I by with.

Juan, when you're looking at your deers lungs they're collapsed. When that deer is alive and breathing the lungs are larger and fill more of the cavity. If you study the picture in your last post you'll see that the red area is the lungs. I would think that's about 8" across and 6" top to bottom. You have to remember that part of the lungs cannot be seen because they're behind the shoulder. You are right about the 9" plate. If you placed it on a deer the plate would be larger than the heart and lungs. Frank

Well Juan, after gutting several hundred deer, I can tell you that the pic you got there is wrong, The skin lays direectly ontop of the sternum and directly beneith the sternum of the animal you are in the boiler room. If you zing a broadhead thru the deer anywhere from dody line at the bottom behind the shoulder to 4 inches from the top of the back in line with the back of the shoulder, and forward 4 inches from that line and back six inches from that line you got it.

The pic is very wrong and decieving. They got the top covered well and decent on the forwrad. My expierence shows the heart center setting about level with the elbow joint on the shoulder blade. The one below the pic of the heart.

I think the pie plate works on the deer in our area. You have to remember when you see the lungs after the kill they are not inflated.

Very good point Mint.

Bayou, I would say that looks about right. Notice how much less horizontal leyway you have on the lower third of the chest. This is why I always prefer to shoot almost midway up the chest and just behind the shoulder. Gives a little more forgiveness if you go a little high or back.

Juan -

I look at it this way.... You're not going to be shooting at "the vitals", you're going to be shooting at a much, much smaller spot that you have picked out, and you are either going to have the confidence to take the shot or you won't. As soon as you start thinking in terms of how much margin for error you might have, you're no longer shooting at a well-defined spot, and your arrows are going to wander all over.

Doesn't matter if you're a pin-shooter, gap-shooter, or point-an-shooter; if you don't pick a spot, you're going to have a wreck.

How big are the vitals? Well, how big are the deer? Are you hunting 90-pounders down south, or 200-and-90 pounders up north? Some would say that changes everything, and others would say it doesn't matter at all, because the diameter of a deer hair doesn't really change all that much with body size.

I will say this much... My palm is 4" across the knuckles, and I'm invariably unhappy with my shot when I can fit my palm between the shaft and the mark. In theory, that is still an 8" pie-plate "hit", but....

When you're willing to settle for less, that's usually what you get.

One last thought.

When I used to go stump-shooting with a buddy who had a compound, there was a definite pattern; first shot, I would either hit square or miss a bit wide. Second shots usually went wider. He would usually miss high or low on his first shot, and drill it on his second. This makes me glad that I hunt with a tradbow for animals which have a kill-zone that is wider than it is tall.

I always wait for the front leg to go foward before I shoot, this opens up a larger kill zone. I agree with the pie plate being the size of the vitals.

That's the thing. When I looked at the insides of the few deer I've seen; the lungs were'nt so big like the picture posted by BayouHorseman. Maybe it's because they were defalted like some of you guys said. The deer I've see average 125 pounds from south Florida. It would be nice to be able to X-ray a deer and make prints for hunters to shoot at.

Y'all got some tiny deer. OUr deer average around 18"+ top to bottom at the withers. All but the top 4 or 5 inches of that is vital. I think a paper plate covers it pretty well.

I think what the authors of the books I read, meant by "good enough" to the readers(which are probably new to this)was that if you can hit inside 8 inches you can finaly start attempting to kill your first deer. I don't think it was meant as an attitude. I personaly don't subscibe to the never be satisfied with you accuracy bit. I'm a deer hunter. If I can stick it in the bullseye regularly at 40 yards I won't be asking for much more than that. Wish me luck on my 40 yard bullseye goal.

I like to aim for the pocket behind the front leg half way up. Seems to give me a little room for error when shooting deer. A little low and you get the heart and a little high and your still in the lungs. Turkey are different, straight up from the leg which is in the middle of the bird. A lot of hunters shoot too forward and only get the breast. The higher the better for turkey. Hit em high and watch them die. I'd say about the size of a softball for turkeys.

Over the years I've been inside 40 deer and the lungs occupy about as much space as a gallon milk jug. The liver extends another 2"+ on the other side of the diaphragm.

Now, whether a buck that field dresses out at 100 lbs has the same size vitals as a 220 lb buck is a different story. Whitetail, at least, are regionally different in size as well as between different individuals. Some I have taken had hearts as big as my fist, others bigger than my two hands clasped together.

I like the 8" rule-of-thumb. I aim (on a broadside) for the red "X" on the attached drawing. That's a "statistically high probability" marker. One of my shortest blood-trails was a poor shot that hit way too far back but sliced the diaphragm side-to-side and spilt the liver. The deer ran 35 yards and collapsed. Not shown in the drawing is the renal artery system that feeds blood to the kidneys and the vena-cava that returns what the aortic artery supplies. That's the one you pray for if the arrow strays into "gut shot" territory.

On deer, there is about a 4-6" wide and 7-10" tall vertical "killing corridor" extending from spine/aortic artery down to low heart..assuming the critter is positioned broadside or quartering away a bit. Elk are larger. I try to pick a spot and envision the arrow's flight to a golf ball sized place high heart. Like head shooting squirrels at 30 yards.Jim

Listen fellas, too each his own. But, inside the "boiler room" there are so many arteries and vessels besides just the obvious organs that if a broadhead goes through any of them death in a tinely manner should occur. So a broadhead that enterts into the body from the sternum up to about 4 inches down from the back and say from the front of the shoulder to the last rib on a level plain is going to hit something that by definition should be consuidered vital. That encompasses a kill area of about 90" to 100" square on the average 100 pound dressed deer. 9x11 equals 99" squared. 8x8 (pie plate) equals 64" squared. The difference of the 2 is 35" squared. Basically, over half again as big as a lot of you boys are giving the whole "kill area" credit for.

Just my .02 worth. We ain't got the biggest or smallest deer in WV either so I would venture to say our animals are a good "mean" representation.

Lemme offer another way of describing the size of the vital area, in case it helps anybody…

On the one hand… The vitals are anywhere/everywhere inside the ribcage and forward of the diaphragm. There is nothing in that cavity other than heart, lungs (which are mostly air) and blood-filled plumbing. Trouble is, a lot of that plumbing is VERY, VERY skinny and low-pressure. Lungs work well for swapping O2 for CO2 because the layer of cells between blood and air is just a few cells thick; in order to not blow out these tiny little capillaries (in which the blood cells squeeze through one at a time), the blood pressure is next to zero. Veins? Very close to zero. Vena cava? Zero.

So you have to hit an outbound vessel, rather than an in-bound, or there’s no pressure to speak of (and pulmonary arterial pressure is low to begin with…). Half the time, whatever you cut is just going to ooze, rather than gush. If you want a real gusher, you’ve gotta hit the ascending or descending aorta, or the arch where they split – at best you’re looking at an inch or so wide target situated directly atop the heart; the ascending and descending lines are so close to the spine that you’re gonna drop him where he stands ost of the time anyway,….

And then – shooting into the lungs - don’t forget the math – if I’ve remembered correctly and run the numbers right, the blood flow through a 4mm arteriole is about 32X the flow rate through a 2mm arteriole. Which would you rather cut? The pipes branch out just like the stems in a tumbleweed, so the chances of hitting a bigger pipe go up faster and faster the closer you get to the heart.

So to differ with AWP just a bit, you’re really playing the lottery on a fringe hit if you expect to drop the animal through blood loss.

The other option is lung collapse; but you gotta get both (we have two for a reason) and the entry and exit wounds need to stay open - the air flow is going to follow the path of least resistance, so a mostly-plugged entry/exit will deflate the lungs gradually, at best, which will leave you with a lung tracking job (and if the wounds seal off real well, you’ll not have any blood to speak of until they start blowing bubbles with it, so again, you’d better hope you hit a big line in there).

On most deer positioned properly, there is at least 35 SQUARE INCHES where a sharp broadhead will do a certain job of killing. An that includes the smaller Coues deer Blacktail forkedhornies and smaller whitetails..:)

PICK as spot for your arrow to strike that has less than FOUR square inches of hair and hide and make the shot well and then all you have to do is wait a bit..and get on to the butchering and packing and the fun stuff..:) Jim

The actual kill zone on a deer is fairly large. However, by reducing that 8-10 inch pie plate by 50% you will close the deal and wound less aniamls. When I'm placing all of my arrows into the palm of my hand size groups I instantly know my max distance and know I'm going to close the deal on any animal within that range.

Anything over that is simply not good enough for me regardless of how big the vitals are IMHO. It's about being consistant that facilitates confidence resulting in a very short tracking job!

yep as I said earlier..GOTTA FOCUS ..

Like head shooting squirrels at 30 yards.Jim

Aim small - Miss small.

We all want to obtain the best accuracy as we can but in the real world and when it comes time to drop the string on a live animal there are way more variables then when shooting targets. I'll man up and admit I always try for just behind shoulder, center of animal. For various reasons I have hit high, hit low and hit back and forth but each one has hit vitals. I've had one real long tracking job and many short ones. The long one was on a fawn no more then 10 yards away and was hit through both lungs, darn thing went over 400 yards shortest was 20 yards on a 20 yard shot, deer was quartering away, arrow hit branch I didn't see in failing light and arrow went through liver, deer acted like it wasn't even hit, just walk a bit and fell over. Luckally I've never lost an animal so I'll stick with my paper plate in center of animal...lol

This pic shows a 220# FIELD dressed, 155" deer (READ that again- no average deer!). The carcass is hanging so the shoulder fell forward. The arrow hit centering the heart wear the "elbow" would be if the deer were standing. I marked out the actual vitals from the inside of the cavity. Note the dark line on top- that is the spine (yes it drops that low.) Line on bottom is the thick sternum bone. The area of lungs and heart are marked appropriately: Basically- 6" x 7". "YES" I think most 3-Ds as well as anatomy pics are not as accurate as we think. You basically have a 6 x 6" area BELOW the 1/3-1/2 way horizontal point and you are good (of course, that does not take into account downward or quartering angles).

I've butchered hundreds of deer and have only seen a few where the spine comes down that far that fast. They all have some drop near the neck, is that the bottom of the spine? Not questioning you as I realize the spine is not right along the top and I do not condone the using the spine shot as first choice or any choice, well maybe if I was starving!

Been my expierence that the 1st line of tape on the back coming from the shoulder pretty much sums up that end, but unless that deer is unlike any I have killed, you have cut out at least four inches on the forward part. There is a reason that a shoulder shot is taken with a rifle and it all has to do with hitting the vitals as well as anchoring the animal. Mid shoulder on your animal, how it is placed is about the cut off forward. 6 inches plus 4 to 5 inches long. I look at it this way, the average lung in the animals I kill is about 8-10 inches long deflated, depending on it's size.

You boys are right about not settling for just shooting at the kill zone but you are wrong about the size of it. Science and antamoy proves that, not just my opinion. And for what it is worth I have never seen the spine go that low on any deer. If that is the case you got one heck of a set of back straps there. The spine should be following along beneath the layer of fat that runs along the shoulder blade. Not disagreeing with you because I can't look in it and butcher it, just telling you what I have and do see.

Stick with what makes you accurate and shoot straight. I too kill area in mind but I have gutted more than my fair share and realize that variables are always present that sometimes influence me hitting out side that perfect Bread basket size. And it is alot bigger than 6"x6". I will agree with Dire on the length is greater than the height, but 7 inches on these WV whitetails is fawn size. Hope I don't offend anyone, I just know my expierences and I have had enough of them to know what I am talking about, as I am sure you all have too. Just letting you know what to expect on a WV whitetail. Good day and God Bless

Gf I just read your post, and I mean no disrepect, but whether the blood is returning or leaving the Blood pressure will be the same. And if the heart is pumping at all, oozing ain't what is going to happen.

We all have a vasculary system just like whitetails and if the little arties and veins in our chest cavity become tore, we die. I think the proper term is anorism. Probably didn't spell it right but the term means the same for us as a whitetail. I have know people to die within seconds of one of those Arteries to burst. So to assume that an animal that has just been shot, expierencing the shock and blood loss associated with a cut artery or vessel in that area is going to just ooze blood is in my opinion wrong.

Just like in humans, that's the core of the blood pumping station and it all evolves around it. Cut one of the arteries or veins in that area and prepare to eat. It really is that simple. All logic and expierence says so. Like I said, no disrespect to any of you or your opinions. You all have knowledge that would far out surpass my trad expierence, but I have killed alot of deer with wheels and guns both. Do what works for you. We will just agree to disagree. And what matters anyway is the outcome of your shot. Good day and God Bless.

Guys- Pics just do not lie. I taught IBEP and used this with many other photos. I autopsy most deer and it is what it is. The only exceptional understanding on this photo is to realize the shoulder fell forward as it was hanging (as I already stated). So the actual "live" look is to pull the elbow to the bloody arrow hole which centered the heart. when you do that the shoulder moves back on the carcass about 4". As far as the that dark line. I will always hold to that. IT IS THE ACTUAL SPINE as I actually put nails through the bottom of the spine into to the tape as markers. The spine down that far is the front of the vital area. Then it begins to sway back upward. Even then at the center or rear of the vitals you can see it is still 5" down off the back NOT counting hide and hair- which adds an inch or so. The sternum is equally deceiving. It is 3" off the belly line NOT counting long belly hair. You hit that line and below- unless you breakthrough the sternum- you have a non vital hit.

Here is another. This deer is shot off the ground. It dropped the deer as it centered the spine. I will show another in my next post.

This is the inside of the deer above. I also have an actual skeleten pic (not available here) that I have laid out on graph paper to show the horizontal position. The spine is down 42% moving upward to 35%. Notice the inside cavity where the lungs/heart laid in the inside of this carcass.

Again- the only thing possible deceptive about the previous two pics is that in both, the shoulder (as can be seen by the elbow) has naturally fallen a bit forward. So pull the elbow back up and you will have the more natural view.

I have seen all of these pics shock many guys until they start taking the time to truly analyze their own animals. I guess I need to take some other pics, step by step, where the shoulder is not laying forward. Lightbulb! I will do a youtube next year. Ahhh!

Dan, I also do the same and have expierenced nothing like you say and that picture shows. The sternum is not three inches inside from the bottom on my deer or any other animal I have killed. Every deer i have ever gutted the sternum was just under the skin and a fine layer of muscle. If you are correct on ALL deer, are we to believe that a deer has three inches of muscle between the sternum and the hair. I most certainly will say no not even remotely close. Take your finger and press on your breast bone. Unless you are Arnold there is about 1/2 inch of muscle and skin over the center of the breast bone at best.

And as far as the spine the spine does dip low but never as low as that in my expierence. Like i said I am not discounting your picture or your expierences only telling you mine and they do not match any of what you have claimed or your picture shows here. I grind what will not make steaks and roasts. Rib meat and all. No pro but expierenced enough and done it enough to know what i am saying. I think deer are obviously just like us in the variances of our individual bodies.

I have never seen the spine go that low before. Just Like everybody else, when removing the back starps I follow the top of the ribs, so I have the larger backstrap at the front end behind the shoulder but never as much as this one. Unless this pic is decieving me. And the sternum, I know I have never seen or expierenced anything remotely close to the three inches claim. But then again I have never killed a 220# pound deer either. Like I said not discounting your word or expierence, just know I have never killed anything that would come close to that claim, including Bear or Elk.

AP- Not sure what to tell you. It is not my opinion.

I was consulting with biologist/vets who were siliconizing deer organs and anatomy for Hunter ed. They confirmed my instruction.

The only thing I would tell you again is to realize that these pics show the shoulder structure sagging forward. Also- we are dealing with 3 dimensional realities, not 2-D pics. But the fact of all the skeletal structure and vital size (which is what this post was questioning) is accurate.

Where the ribs attach to the sternum is a thick bone/cartilage area. It is somewhat concave, not flat (cup your hand and you get the picture). That line again was established with nails put through the carcass from the inside. I am just connecting the dots.

The spine likewise is actual. Those %s are the same on all NA deer and related species. Where the neck attaches to the body allows the spine to come in at the shoulder 42ish % (just an 1.5" from half) down the deer. The spine is laying just on the bottom edge and inside of the scapula, while gently swaying back up. If you were to center the scapula in a horizontal plane (7" down off top edge of the deer) you would center the spine. ( I have a 173"er I did THAT with! An "Oops" turned into celebration!)

The pic I enclosed here was a 225# dressed deer shot at 6-7 yards. His shoulders were broadside with an ever slight quarter towards me with his body. I shot 6" down off the top line of his back, 2" behind the scapula. I missed the spine by 1". He went down in 75 yards with the top of the onside lung and the bottom of the offside lung taken out.

Too- The vital line for the back of the lungs was the ACTUAL connection line of the actual diaphragm (again located on the outside by nails put through from the inside on the diaphragm.)

I showed you a mature deer from KS and a 1.5 yr from MI. They both lay out the same way.

Depending on the angle of a deer of course- my goal is to think of a spot in the center of the 6 x 6" vitals (shooting into a volleyball-which is what I use for Hunter Ed.). I think of the top edge of the volleyball at half way down the deer from top to bottom. The front edge of the volleyball is right at the bend of the shoulder as leg bone connects to the shoulder blade (in the V made by the triceps). The bottom edge of the volleyball is on line just above the elbow. Hardly ever had to track a deer more than a 100 yards when hit there.

Do not know what to tell you. ?? I am sure about these factual photos/evidences of deer anatomy. As already mentioned- there are lots of other possibilities for a lethal hit. But- if I want lungs and heart, it is a volleyball, just below half-way while just off the elbow as the leg comes back.

Use the info or chuck it. . . :) Hope it helps someone. I am just a small speck of dust in a Divine Universe. Good hunting.

Dan

I've killed and butchered hundreds of deer and the thoracic vertebrae seem to have longer spinous processes. Remember the top of the back is the spinous processes followed by the lamina and transverse processes. These three portions of the vertebrae is the area your knife is running along while deboning the backstraps. Then you have the pedicles and the vertebral foramen which the spinal cord runs through. Below this you have a very large vertbral body.

The spinal cord is not just above the lungs. The vertebral body which is a large piece of bone is. The pictures above clearly demonstrate this. Most people do not understand the anatomy of the spine and how it runs inferior in the lung area.

Dan, let me clear something up here. Everything I have talked about is looking at a level deer. I am also counting the liver as part of the vitals since it usually produces a quick death. And my lack of explaining well my thoughts about the difference of spine and spinal cord. I probably should have mentioned The liver consideration and I think I stated a deer level with you, but I may not have. I should have stated that earlier but somebody else did and I thought everyone to be on the same page. And I just never put two and two together about you saying spine and me interupting spinal cord until Dream Ctaher's last post. I assumed you meant spinal cord instead of just the spine. My mistake and I apologize.

The spinal CORD does and in all cases as known by me and anybody else that guts and butchers deer takes a dip coming underneath the shoulder blades running from back to front to be able to line up with the neck. Dream catcher said it best, Part of the spine comes down that low, but the spinal cord does not. Possibly, that explains why the high shoulder shot shocks the deer into falling but, if you shoot it behind the shoulder at the same height you just put yourself into a long and probably fruitless tracking job. Been there and done it more than once. It will also explain why a high shot over two thirds up the body behind the shoulder doesn't penetrate very well because you go between the spinal cord and lungs and through the lower part of the spine. I hope this clears up my thoughts on that. And once again I apologize for insinuating you meant spinal cord.

Dan, I do not mean this as a wise guy comment but that pic shows the shot, which claimed by you as dead center of the heart, which I am in total agreement with by the pic, no more than 4 inches from the bottom of body line. Kinda hard to do that if the sternum was three inches minimium inside that same body line unless the heart was the size of a golf ball and laying right against the sternum. We all know that not to be true. It proves what I said earlier. Inside the body line from the bottom on a deer that is level with you will put you in the rib cage and produce steaks everytime, because there is no way a broadhead is going to get thru there without cutting something vital and fatal. Ben there and done that more than once. Body line and hair line are two different things which I believe us to be in agreement on.

The shoulder shot. I have literally shot a hundred deer dead center of the shoulder on purpose with a bow and gun both and it equals dead: Both lungs punched everytime unless you hit them in front of the shoulder, which literally means just that in front of the shoulder.

I mean this and everything I said respectful. Perhaps we should agree to disagree. You keep on doing things your way and I will keep on doing what has and will always work for me. Next time I will make sure we are on the same terminology page and I think we will see that we are both saying about the same thing except agreement on the actual size of the kill zone in a average deer. I read the question as how big is the vital area on a deer not how big is the vital area you imagine.

"And the total vitals area wasn't as big as shown on deer decoys or visual aids. I see it more as a 5 inch target with 6 being a stretch. How do you guys feel about that?"

Lungs, Liver, and heart is what I assumed that to mean, not a six inch by six inch area in the middle of the vitals, or a volleyball size area. Good day and God Bless.

AWP- thanks for the civil discussion. I appreciate it. As I said I not much more than dust- so you can be free to disagree.

With that though- look at the pics again. The "sternum" to me is the area with the sternum bone and its attached ribs and cartilage. Like I said, it is concave like your cupped hand. Now realize that the heart is an oblong softball- the size of a Nerf football maybe. The heart sits "in" that cup. So- when I centered the heart- I was taking a 25 yd. shot from 15' in a tree at a Nerf football. That entrance hole that you can see on the carcass angled down out of the tree and through the heart. The arrow lodged in the "sternum" on the opposite side.

Look at pic #3 of a 125# small MI buck and you can even see the thickness of the "sternum" under the vital cavity. Just measure the pic on the screen and figure out the ratio.

Like you, I probably think liver when I am thinking "vitals" (technically so are the other internal organs and small arteries as mentioned before.) For sake of argument- I will concede the liver as the same as lungs/heart: BUT you again have to think 3 dimensions. Realizing my pic #1 is a 220# dressed deer, including the liver adds 1-2" on a vertical plane. Notice I marked the vital area as 6-7". It is OK with me if you want to say 8".

So- sure I am generalizing a volleyball. But again- these actual photos with actual anatomy is a REALLY big deer. 90% of guys on here probably shoot 125# deer. So if you want to add 1.5- 2" for a 7 year old monarch; calling the vital area 6 x 8.5", that is fine with me.

As far as debating about the "spine." This gets pretty picky. The spinal cored is only the size of your pinky- so I am sure not planning on that. When I label "spine," I mean the back bone with all its processes and the cartilage attaching the ribs- all difficult structure we hope to avoid. So "Yes" the black line on pic #1 represents the bottom edge of that entire process.

I am not going to quibble about 1". These photos are NOT my opinion. I have been doing autopsy and measurements for years. I take 4+ year old mature deer almost every year and they all come within 1.5" in any of these dimensions.

Answering this post- if you want to avoid bone and possible non-lethal hits you need to think "volleyball" on the lower half of the deer sitting on the elbow.

Here is a pic of the deer #1. You can just see where the arrow hit the heart if you look close.

Peace and out. . .

Good hunting Dan in KS

it really depends on the size of the deer also..iv'e probably shot upwards of 100 deer or more who knows i lost count a long time ago...but i'm not sure iv'e ever shot one with 5 or 6" lungs,.probably more like 9" or 10"...on a side note...you will find on archery deer shot within 20 yds or closer if you don't get in the habit of picking your spot a little low..you will hit high 75% of the time..a deers reaction is fast and at the sound of the shot a deers reaction is to jump..no.. they don't try to duck the arrow as many will claim what they are doing is setting their feet to jump in doing so they are bending at the knee which lowers their body..same as you and i if you go to jump you wouldn't do it straight legged..you'd bend your knee and jump..deer is no diffrent...keep your aim low..when close and stay within a couple inches behind the shoulder and you'll be fine..and ALWAY"S!! take note of the angle of your shot..it doesn't take much of a quartering toward you shot to miss a vital on the off side..a one lung hit can be a fairly long track job sometimes...

The spot I pick is the top of the heart! A little low and it's dead or if reacts to the shot I center the lungs. I'm still-hunting these days and 8 out of 10 times I'll center the lungs because of the animals reaction.

I patient of mine that's been hunting for 40 years states hitting a spike buck with the ML last season. He said it dropped like a ton of bricks. He waited a few minutes but didn't reload. Big mistake! The thing got up and walked away. He states hitting it in the dead space above the lungs. Hell, he hit a boney structure that caused temp. paralysis allowing the animal to live another day. I still can't get it into his head how the anatomy of a deer works! That's why my shot of choice with any firearm is a high scapula shot. Both lungs and trauma to the spine drops them.

All this anatomy reminds me of school! It was more fun working of cadaveres!!

Paper plate is a good size to practice on, just behind the shoulder to stay away from shoulder blade.

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