Shoot them in the shoulders, this is not prime meat you're wasting anyway. When my son was starting to shoot deer at 8 years old, I told him to put it through the shoulders, as this puts you 4-6 inches farther from a gut shot. I shoot a lot of running whitetails and it makes a difference, try to put them through the shoulders, if you don't lead quite enough it is a lung shot instead of a gut shot. The last four years' big whitetails were all running, at 185, 35, 50 yards and 270 yards, three with shoulder shots.

I've been a big fan of the high shoulder shot for several years now. Meat loss has been minimal and every animal hit this way just crumples. Certainly not necessary all of the time but when hunting elk in rough country I don't want to have to worry about where an elk is going to end up. If the shoulder shot is not a good option and range is reasonable then I like the neck.

I used to use lung shots exclusively and while I have never lost one doing so, they have traveled on occassion in to some really nasty stuff.

I now shoot every whitetail that gives me the opportunity through both shoulders, about 4" down from the back line, lining my vertical cross hair with the leg.

The effect has been amazing, dropping every animal in its tracks. This is definitely my sweet spot for any deer/elk size game.

With fewer than 20 big games (deer/moose/bear combined) under my belt, I have much fewer experience than most of you. Since the day I started hunting I always aim for a heart/lung shot (one third up from the elbow). I never had a DRT with most running 20-30 yards. The fastest drop was about 10 foot from where I shot it.

With a good heart/lung shot, I always get good blood trails with complete bullet pass through. The only exception was when I shot a bull moose quartering away. The 200 gr TSX, was recovered from the off side – my only recovered bullet.

There is not reason to try to “break the shoulder” especially on adult moose. I will stick to my proven method!