Heart lung area of whitetails is a good sized object. Killing large game effectively and consistantly with a selfbow is not all about the shot, in fact its prolly less than 45% of getting the job completed.
There a lot of things that must happen correctly to make it happen and be a consistant selfbow harvester. Sure you can kill a deer in a chance contact and make a harvest with a boar spear. That does not happen regularly and neither will SB harvests unless you do a handful of things correctly and make them routine habits.
First thing most guys will do is go right back to a glass or compound bow if they dont kill a deer right away or make a bad shot with SB on one. You have to hunt inside your effective killing radius of your weapon. For most that 20yds with SB. So, whats that say to the SB hunter? You got to get close and hunt animals that were built to pick up danger in close.
Keep you hunt gear clean!!! Keep it way from human oder, clean everything from lowering line to boots regularly. So, you battling human oder and where it goes! Yer never going to stop it all which means you have to hunt where yer oder will drift out the travel area you want to hunt. Morning cool air falls and follows terrain down to lowest point, etc. Gotta get close, so wind and directions of it are everything!!!
Next is know your terrain you hunt and how the deer use it. Are they bedding near by, just travelling thru to feed else where, actively breeding in the thick cover, feeding on something right where you hunt? A trailcam is not going to tell you this. You must go out and learn by watching the animals them selves and what they are actually doing. They have only one mode and thats to survive another season, eat, breed, raise young, feed, etc, etc. This is nothing more than Knowing your target animal.
Stay fit enough to hump your chit into where ever you need to go to kill your food. You cant kill whitetails where they aint which is not nuthin new but lots of folks wont go to where they are because its a real bitch to get in there. I hunt public and private land so I carry in my stand, gear, wet weather gear and pack most everytime. So i know Im making two trips if I kill out anyway. Either quartering and packing or deer cart from the truck.
Practice: from a elevated position and ground with your broadhead set up. Not to mention the time it takes to get a setup that will penetrate and kill even a big whitetail. Once you have a good setup start practicing with broadheads!! I shoot thru several of those tough new crossbow blocks starting in July every year. I shoot lots of different selfbows so I practice a bunch.
Last five full seasons i have harvested 62 whitetails. Most with selfbow. Had so many doe on my place you were lucky to see a mature buck. After lots hunting and doe killing the hunting on the place has got better. Took two nice 5x4's this year and saw a few other mature deer. The bucks never moved before. When you got 10 deer/acre they did not have to.
Keep your nose in the wind. First selfbow deer you harvest you'll be hooked.
HH~
