Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting The frontal shot.

A friend of mine, who has taken a lot of elk with a bow, told me he read an article written by a moose hunting archer in the north east who in the article advocated the ham shot. The reasons given in the article stated all the blood will hit the ground as there is no cavity to fill or hold blood. The femoral artery and vein are not very guarded by bone, and if the shot misses the vasculature component of the ham, there is very little risk of secondary infection/peritonitis. I am not advocating a ham shot as a first choice, but if tracking a wounded animal and I get the ham presented to me I will take it. It is extremely lethal.

I hope not on a first shot, as that's about the dumbest place I've ever heard of shooting an animal in 60+ years of hunting.

Chuck Adams is an advocate of the ham or butt shot.

Look it up.

Frontal shots have never let me down...

No need to look it up and just because his name is Chuck Adams doesn't mean he's right! Have you ever read an article anywhere with his name on it saying that's where he shot the animal the article was written about?

I don't understand the question.

I do own a few Chuck Adams books and he's an advocate of the shot. I've also read articles where he says the same thing. It's all out there on google foo I'm sure.

Very simple---Have you ever read an article or story where he actually said he intentionally killed the animal in the article with that ham shot? I haven't and advocating something and actually doing it are two different things.

Oh.

Yes I have. He's not shy about it and explains the positives of the shot in detail.

With an arrow, or bullet whether from a rifle or muzzleloader I always figured on disrupting TWO major organs to bring down and recover a big game animal. Lung-lung, lung-liver, heart-lung etc. I have no experience with elk but I know moose have lungs the size of a beach ball and tracking a beast in heavy timber with one collapsed lung don't make my list for a desirable hunting experience.

I have recovered whitetail deer other hunters have taken by cutting femoral arteries and sliced neck veins but one time the tracking job covered a mile in melting snow and standing corn over a 24 hour period. When things go wrong I lose sleep. I don't care to repeat that experience.

Frontal shots? Only once - through the neck patch on a large doe while carrying a very accurate, scoped Knight muzzleloader under 20 yards. DOA!

Lethal as hell...

I think he was talking about big game animals !

And IF that was a deer or elk er uh frontal shot then I probably would be even more hesitant to take the shot as it looks a mite too destructive !

Try lowering velocity and or using a bullet of stouter construction.You will have venison to eat next time.

It's a shot that takes a good understanding of the vitals. That said it has caused my freezer to become full many many times. Sure a lot of high mighty hunters on the campfire the point is to kill and an arrow in the heart or lungs kills just fine no matter if from the top (like shooting from tree stands) the bottom like (getting way to close) or the front dead is dead.

While dead is dead as you point out remember the "the High and Mighty" hunters on the campfire as you put it were ASKED for for their opinions.

Yes he is.

That arrow may have kept him from going down the hole to die, but he is certainly still alive. That is exactly why I'm against frontal and ham shots because even if they prove fatal you may not recover the animal and the last I heard ethical hunting should be only shooting an animal with as close to a 100% chance of a quick, humane kill that involves a quick, successful recovery. Missing the femoral artery on a ham shot or only taking out one lung on a frontal shot, especially on an elk, is not going to do either most of the time!

Here's an interesting discussion on the frontal.


http://www.elknutforums.com/Hunting/viewtopic.php?p=2827

A little late to the discussion but I tried this shot a couple years ago - never again. I was whitetail hunting, in a tree stand about 14' up and low enough I could see and shoot under the mid-October tree foliage. About 10:15 a nice eight point came along from my left side on a course to cross directly in front of me going to my right about twenty yards broadside. At 21 yards on the left the buck stopped and turned nearly dead on toward me. He picked around munched on some leaves from a low bush occasionally glancing around. The buck was relaxed and facing toward me, maybe turned about 15* toward the right and I had a good wind direction.

It seemed he was about to turn broadside and I drew my 62 lb. Elite Answer. I shoot Gold Tip Pro Hunters and a QAD Exodus broad head that was shaving sharp. The bow is perfectly tuned and broad heads fly like a dart and perfectly to the pin as far as I've shot it, out to 70 yards just for fun. Unexpected the buck looked directly at me. I had read about all those success stories with the frontal shot so I carefully placed the HHA pin (set at 22.5 yards) about 4" inside the near shoulder and about 5" up from the bottom of the chest. I was hoping to hit the heart and at least one lung with angle. The pin settled, held, and I made a smooth shot and watched the arrow bury to the fletching exactly where I aimed.

The buck wheeled and ran nearly directly away and went down about twenty five yards from the hit. He flailed around on the ground for just a couple seconds, got his feet under him and ran another thirty yards and hit the ground again. Again he got up and began to run curving away to the left back in the direction he came from in a button hook circle. About seventy yards out he hit the ground a third time, got up and moved off just out of sight. I heard the buck cough blood twice, sounded like he fell yet again, he grunted a long drawn out grunt and then coughed blood again. I heard him moving, back down and toward me, it sounded like he fell again and he coughed blood again. Then I heard him fall heavily in the leaves about 80 yards on my left where he came from originally. Real quiet after that.

This whole thing played out in much less than a minute, just real fast action then total silence. I had sat back down and was quietly reliving the shot and celebrating my success when after about 35 minutes I heard the buck cough again. Damn! A full minute went by and I heard him cough again, further down the side of the ridge headed off into the steep brushy holler below me. Now I knew he was on his feet and moving... oh no! I waited another thirty minutes and quietly got down, packed my stand up and hiked the 1/2 mile through the timber back to my truck. I hunt large timbered blocks of public land national forest in the deep Ozark's. Once at the truck I drove the fifteen miles to the small town cafe closest to me. I goofed around five very anxious hours and drove back to recover my deer.

At the site I found serving platter size blood splashes on the ground and blood on trees about knee high. This was medium dark blood with bubbles. I tracked the bucks semi circle route and found his last bedding spot against a huge down tree. The blood stopped there. I began to make semi circle swings below the last bedding spot looking for sign in the direction I last heard the buck go. I jumped him from an undercut creek bank about 150 yards down the hill. I watched with a sinking heart as the buck scrambled out of the creek bed and tried to climb the low ridge in front of it. It was too far for a follow up shot. I saw it fall over and wallow around trying to get its feet under it. It finally did and I sat another hour before moving over there. With dark coming on I pushed on and jumped the buck one more time. He scrambled to his feet, wobbled around, fell over, got back up and very slowly moved off. I thought about trying to rush up to him for a follow up shot but felt he was so weak he had to go down for the last time and I didn't want to risk really pushing him out of the country at dark. I don't know, in hindsight that may have been a bad decision. I waited as long as I could before pitch dark, about 45 minutes and went looking for him. Blood was in extremely small dots and very very sparse. Couldn't find him that night. I took off work and went back the next day. Nothing... I searched both days the next weekend with zero results. I hate it, still bothers me tremendously. I personally won't take the frontal shot again - never.

Too bad, MOGC. Sounds like you got one lung. I would only take a frontal shot from the ground, never a tree. Arrow from 18' up and only 63' away is a pretty steep angle. Sorry you lost him. That is a sick feeling that lasts for days and you never forget.

Agreed, my frontal shot was taken from the ground at 20 yards, about the only situation that I would have taken it under I think.

Have passed and will continue to pass on frontal shots. Not ethical for me. It's not that I can not make the shot, it's that if the animal moves ever so slightly that it is a wounded animal that will not likely be recovered. You don't have to kill every deer or elk you see, it's ok if they win sometimes.