pig kill zone

[bm22]

hello guys i just got back from my lease and i have a predicament. i shot a pig on friday night with what i thought would be a perfect shot. and i had awesome blood trail for the first 100 yards then it went down to drops every 5-10 yards. i was able to find blood 500 yards away from where he was shot. now what do you think went wrong. i got complete penetration and found the arrow 30 yards from my feeder, the broadhead was in excellent condition.

http://www.huntingfootage.com/showphoto.php?photo=3088&limit=recent

[Lip]

My guess is you missed too far back by a couple of inches. Pigs are the hardest animal to kill. The term, "bleed like a stuck pig" is pretty accurate. They will bleed forever and keep on going.

[BowBuddy]

I was hunting with a guy that shoots 500 gr arrows out of his fast Bowtech and he made a bad quatering away shot and ended up hitting a 200# sow in the rump it was a skinny beman arrow. The arrow went the entire length of the body hit the liver lung and I think the juggler and the BH completely passed thru the jaw but the arrow was stuck in the jaw. The pig ended up only bleeding out of his mouth, the rump completely sealed up and got a semi decent blood trail. The pig went 500 or 600 yards from where it was shot with all that internal damage. Doesn't suprise me at all!!!!

[Buff]

I really try to shoot them facing away from me. I try to have the arrow go in at the back of the ribs and out in the neck on the opposite side. they generally can't tote that.

[Javelina]

Pigs never seem to amaze me. I have trailed hundereds of hogs and I have seen hogs shot that you would think would never make 50 yrds but after 4 hours of tracking and hundereds of yrds later find the pig still on their feet.
As Buff said ideal would be quartering away and drive it up through the boiler room.
It is frustrating to make a good shot and not able to recover you trophy.
Great video and good luck on your next hunt.

[Buff]

o yea good video I never knew just how hard it is to get the shot on video until I started trying to do it myself. I don't know how many animals I have spooked trying to get the shot on video but it has been several

[Javelina]

bm22
this link may give you a better idea of the best shot placement.

https://www.texasboars.com/anatomy.html

It really shows the anatomy of a hog real well.

[duck'n]

bm22, the same thing happened to me last year...the first animal I shot with my Sarrels longbow...I was dejected! But I did learn to shoot hogs TIGHT behind the shoulder or get the angling away shot Buff describes.

[stikshooter]

Bm22,The same thing happened to my youngest son two weeks ago,I saw the arrow and was covered with bubbly blood,complete pass thru,and a heck of a blood trail for over a hundred yards,I looked for that hog for over two hours,never did find him.I knew that hogs were tough,but I figured anything that bled that much would not last long.That hog was broadside,I shot mine at a steep quartering away shot (like Buff said) and he went about 40 yds,maybe that is the trick.

ps. great video footage

[Chunky]

It is well documented how tuff pigs are. I have seen many well hit that were not recovered. I once got one, and found someone else's arrow in the chest. It was in a place that you would swear was fatal.

It was a good video and the placement looked good to me. I did see that you did not get as much penetration as you would like. Perhaps only hit the near side lung. Sorry for your loss, I know how bad that feels.

I always thought "near Buff" was the pig kill zone.

[Buff]

I do hunt them like I'm mad at them about something

[huntresss]

bm22- from the video it appears your shot was too far back. The lungs on a hog are tucked pretty far forward. The back of the lungs if pretty much in line with the elbow when the hog's leg is straight up and down. If you hit just an inch behind the elbow, you're in the stomach. Your elevation was good as the lungs come down below halfway in a hogs chest, but just a little too far back. We outfit hog hunts and have to track about 50% of the hogs shot with our bloodtracking dog which usually ends up baying them up for us to finish them off. Since a hog's anatomy is so different than a deer's, we give a little anatomy lesson to every hunter before they go out, and we still see a very high wounding rate with most of them being hit too high or too far back. A gutshot hog will bleed like the proverbial stuck pig, but hogs also tend to clot faster than other species. Also, if you did happen to hit one lung then the hog will still be running. Unlike deer where you can get away with a quartering lung/liver or one lung shot, hogs need to have both lungs deflated in order to kill them (unless you hit the aorta or other vascular organ). A deer's thorax is one large cavity so when you break the vacuum, even if the deer doesn't die from exsanguination, it will eventually suffocate since the lungs can't function without a vacuum. A hog however is like a human. Ever hear of somebody getting to the hospital with one collapsed lung? Well, just the same, a hog's lungs work independently and the good lung will compensate for the lost lung and they'll get around quite well if infection of myiasis doesn't set in. We recommend taking only perfectly broadside shots for just that reason. With a quartering shot you're reducing the kill area and limiting it to a shot that basically means you must aim for the offside shoulder to hit both lungs (broadhead in bone= no exit wound+plugged entrance wound and therefore no bloodtrail, which in thick cover around here means a lost hog). I am blessed with a "job" that lets me recover hundreds of wounded hogs each year and then analyze what went wrong for the shooter so I feel confident in posting this reply to your question. I hope it helps!
Cheryl Napper

[bm22]

thanks alot, i also believe it was too far back. it looks good but he was perfectly broadside so if i hit one lung it would have hit the other and he wouldn't have made it very far. plus like you say elevation was good. so i had to have hit too far back. i might have hit liver i don't know but from now on i am going to aim farther forward or like buff suggest slightly broadside shots.
if anything else i learned a valueble lesson from this pig, and if anything maybe someone else will learn something from my mistake.

[trailboss]

Trailboss

[Laguna]

..."I'm blessed with a job that allows me to recover hundreds of wounded hogs each year"...Huntress.
WOW! Put that one on your resumes. Great analysis of why and how hogs are different. The comparison to human anatomy and physiology is right on...and is the reason pigs are used in research for human surgery and medicenes.
Another quote (made by Chunky, I think) is "I'd rather miss low, than hit high". Very true, especially with pigs...note the diagram.
Thanks to everyone for the reminders.