Friday night i had a big bear weve been pursuing all year come in. Eleven yards from stand. Drew back took my time and shot. Hit right where i was aiming. Watched him walk off for 100 yds. Left until morning to trail. 12 hrs later started trail with my Teckel. Trailed over 600 yards to steep nasty stuff and found bed. Last sign. Was too many blowdowns and too steep to let dog work. Circled and searched that day and the next with my other dog a Drahthaar and never found bear. Sick to stomach.nTrail appeared to be liver hit from every thing i saw. Have always heard not to hug shoulder so kept back a few inches. Total penetration. I videod with two cameras. One over shoulder and one waist level. Could post pics to see what went wrong. Just dont want to cause controversy, want to educate. Im still hunting and will be super nervous next shot. Ive shot a lot of bears with same shot and most go 20 yards.

In my experience that bear was not liver hit.  Never seen a bear that was liver hit go more than 150 yds before laying up - they get sick real fast.  It may take all night to bleed out but they don't move.  Also from my own experience, a bear that goes that far is not fatally hit.  I had a pass thru tight to the shoulder on the biggest bear I have ever seen - same thing happened as you have related - tracked him for 4-5 hours and never found him.

After that happened I was more cautious about shot placement and now go by the rule I saw back then - half way back, half way down and 4" forward.

If someone is good on photobucket i can send 2 photos of hit. One from each camera.

Send them to me.

Having not seen the photos I will say this:

Internal anatomy isn't consistent. Blade rotation and path is always somewhat random. There is always a chance for a 'well hit' animal to escape and live, even when the hit appears letter-perfect. It's our nature to find an explanation or some type of logic, but it defies logic. I have personally seen deer survive chest hits with total penetration from a sharp broadhead. One guy killed the previously-hit buck later and proved it. This kind of thing is why we read about people who take 3 gunshot wounds in the chest and live, while someone gets one in the gut and dies in 20 minutes. I've shot deer squarely through the abdomen/intestines and found them dead quickly in a couple cases.

You might make the same hit on 20 more bears and kill every one of them cleanly. Don't let one fluke occurrence mess with your mind. This is is bowhunting and it's not 100% even when it looks that way.

http://s53.photobucket.com/user/Chris_Blaskowski/media/Mobile%20Uploads/Picture0516161726_1_zpszvgug5q3.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
http://s53.photobucket.com/user/Chris_Blaskowski/media/Mobile%20Uploads/13221742_483336091857701_1796365563004636410_n_zps4zsbwtni.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1

First picture from a camera waist level. 2nd picrure over shoulder. If you zoom way in you can see fletchings.

I think it's too high and too far back.

I'm going to watch this one, because that's as close to where I would have shot him as I can imagine.  I don't know much about bears.

Yeah that arrow looks good to me. He is turning into the shot slightly. Should be a dead bear but what Kevin said applies...been there done that. I took care of a guy in the ER that took 2 to the lungs with a .45. Should have been dead as a hammer...walked out in a week.

A little high but that's not the problem.  It's about 4" back at least.  The lungs of a bear are small and the heart sits between the elbows.  

The hair on them can cause confusion as it hangs down about 3" below the belly and comes off the back of the shoulder crease a bit.

I used to run a bear outfit in Washington state years ago and told the guys to imagine a football between the elbows.  Let the air out of it and your golden.

I'm afraid that's a gut shot on that one.

Mike

Looks perfect to me, that's where I would have shot him too.  Mid-body and a little back from the shoulder, great shot, its unfortunate something went wrong.

Somebody may need to change this picture in our animal shot placement thread!  

 

It's not a perfect shot, but seems lethal to me

I would have thought that was a dead bear too. Good luck on the next one.

Have shot several bears myself and have to agree with Wingnut on this one .

Do keep in mind: The higher and farther back you hit lungs, the farther you are from the heart. What this means is that the vasculature is smaller and bleeds less on average. A lung hit back and high is not the same as a lung hit near the heart where many large vessels are present. To this day I still prefer a dead-center (top-to-bottom) shot 4-8" behind the leg. I personally don't sweat the hair length. I pick my elevation and spot it behind the leg into mid-chest.

That bear could have a hole in both lungs and keep right on going to eventually survive. Yes...it does happen.

Agree with Wingnut. Too high and back. A black bear's ribcage is much narrower toward the front, almost cone shaped. Bear ribcage is also more compact for the animal's size which puts relatively smaller heart and lungs further foward.

Never shot one with an arrow but butchered two VT bears my son shot past few years. Hung the ribcage in a tree for the birds to pick at all winter so looked at them a lot and showed them to visitors to point out the difference to deer anatomy.

That picture shows the vital area much too large. Have Boddington's Perfect Shots book which appears to be by the same artist and many of the vitals are not accurately placed. Prose is excellent, though.

What broadhead?

Nothing i saw in person or video put the shot any higher than halfway up. Angling from the stand i feel higher would have helped. I just feel the "middle of the middle" for bears is incorrect. Will shoot the next one like a deer. Right in the crease. Not gonna name broadhead cause a friend makes them and i cant blame the head. It was a 1 3/4 inch cut single bevel concave 2 blade. Just sharpened and still sharp after.