So far, I can tell you that a shot to the heart kills the animal almost as quickly as a brain shot. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish. But if my aim is a little bit off a shot to the lungs is pretty quick too.
For starters, shooting a coyote this way leaves much less blood at the set. As anyone who has tried it can attest, shooting a coyote in the head results in quite a pool of blood by the time it is done.
I’ve never been worried about blood on the fur. A little soap and water will fix that, and most of the time, the coyotes I catch are so dirty they have to be washed any way. The advantage comes in skinning the animal. With a headshot coyote, the blood just keeps flowing out of the coyote all the time you are skinning it. (You wouldn’t think it would, as much as runs out at the set, but it does.) When I get to the head of the coyote often the blood runs out so bad that it is hard to see to make the finishing cuts on the head, and by the time I’m done blood is running down the outside of the pelt all the way to the floor.
The heart/lung shot leaves most of the blood in the chest cavity. Very little leaks out at the set. Some may leak out when you hang the animal up to skin, but it will stop eventually. I still end up washing the pelts, but this heart/lung shot results in much less bloody mess than a head shot does.
-- Hal