"RAKING SHOTS"
Elmer Keith used to write about "raking shots" with great glee. What he meant was shooting from fairly acute angles away from the classic broadside presentation. This, of course, is reality; the true broadside presentation isn't all that common. As angles change you must be able to visualize where your target--whether heart or lungs--lies within the animal. Especially on angling shots from the rear, you must also have a tough enough bullet to ensure that you're able to get through a fair amount of tissue enroute to the chest cavity.

This is really the great dilemma in bullet selection; we want a bullet that will open up so that it does tremendous damage to the vitals, yet we also want a bullet tough enough so it can penetrate from any sensible shot angle. In this forum I certainly can't give you a menu that will work for all game with all cartridges. I can suggest this: If you're shooting a bullet that does not exit on classic broadside shots on deer-sized game, either heart shots or lung shots, but especially the latter, then you don't have a bullet that's tough enough for either significantly larger game, or that will be absolutely reliable for game of similar size if you need to take one of old Elmer's "raking shots."

"TEXAS HEART SHOT"
Okay, here we go. The "Texas heart shot" is a shot at the northern end of a south-bound animal, and it is extremely controversial. If I endorse it I'll get a flood of hate mail saying it isn't a sporting or ethical shot; if I say it can't be done I'll get the same flood from folks who have used this shot to take a great trophy they otherwise wouldn't have tagged.

Although controversial, this shot can be extremely deadly. A shot to the spine at the base of the tail will absolutely immobilize an animal; a bullet carefully placed between the hams can penetrate forward into the chest cavity; if either opportunity is slightly missed, the pelvis or thigh bone can be broken and/or the femoral artery can be cut.

The problem is that all of these situations are chancy. From a rearward angle the spine presents a very small target. The rear end in general is not a small target, but you're banking heavily on bullet performance--in my opinion, far too much.

The caribou on the right is broadside. Divide the animal's body into horizontal thirds. For a lung shot, follow the rear line of the foreleg into the bottom half of the middle third. For a heart shot, follow the centerline of the foreleg into the bottom third.

For the record, I do not believe a rear-end shot is a proper or ethical shot at an unwounded animal. If the animal is wounded, that implies that the first shot either didn't go where it was supposed to go, or the bullet didn't do what it was supposed to do. At that point all bets are off. Shot placement counts just as heavily on follow-up shots, but is no longer quite as important. If a wounded animal is escaping, the ethics of the situation dictate that you finish the job as quickly as possible. That means getting another bullet into him if you can--anywhere that you can.

Also for the record, I can recall making just two "Texas heart shots" on purpose on unwounded game. One was a nilgai in south Texas; the other a very large eland in Tanzania's Selous Reserve. Both animals are much too large to attempt this kind of shot . . . except. In the former case, the "except" was that I was shooting a .411 KDF; in the latter case I was shooting a .450 Rigby Rimless Magnum with good 500-grain Woodleigh bullets. Both shots worked perfectly, but the reason they worked is that I was dramatically overgunned. I knew that, and knowing that, I thought I could get away with it. There have been other circumstances where I have stopped wounded game with this shot, and a couple of instances where I thought I had a raking shot, but I either did it wrong or the animal moved, and a rear-end shot resulted. I have not lost an animal to this shot--but the risks are high, and under normal circumstances such a shot shouldn't be attempted.

I suppose I've passed such a shot dozens of times. Sometimes I've gotten a better opportunity and sometimes not, but two incidents stick in my mind. Also in south Texas, the only typical 12-point whitetail I've ever had a shot at burst from cover. He went straight away across a small opening, but I had time to get the rifle up. It was a .280 Remington, and I can still remember the crosshairs on his bum as I waited for him to swerve slightly and offer me a bit of flank. He never did, I never fired, and I never saw him again! Another time, on the last evening of a hunt along the South African side of the Limpopo River, we tracked a very big kudu, getting just enough glimpses to know he was a whopper--to this day somewhat larger than any kudu I have ever taken. With dark gathering we jumped him at very close range, and he headed straight away. I got the .30-06 up, but he went straight out and never gave me any flank to shoot at. So I never fired, and that was the end of the safari. Those two incidents haunt me, but under the circumstances I did the right thing; with the rifles I was carrying, I didn't really have a shot either time.

This doesn't suggest that we should carry cannons, nor am I suggesting that a rear-end shot is ever a particularly great idea. But the cartridge and bullet you're shooting influence the shots you can take. Like my buddy Bishop says, "Remember, shot placement." This simply means getting the bullet into the vitals where it can do its work. Nothing is more important--but the vital targets can be visualized from any angle. Whether you should attempt to reach them or not--to shoot or not to shoot--depends on your knowledge, skill and confidence--and the cartridge and bullet you're trying to reach them with.