(click for larger image)

This shot placement guide is from the National Bowhunter Education Foundation website. I think it gives a better idea of shot placement than Craig Bonnington's book, The Pefect Shot.

For reference, here is the anatomy of a deer:

This illustration is from Whitetail.com

This is my diagram of the top view, based on the above diagrams.

Ted: That agrees with my thoughts. The good stuff narrows some between the shoulders, making for a higher density of killing organs, vessels, nerves, etc…it also makes a little smaller target. Bills notion of hitting the offside shoulder still works as there is plenty of lung behind the shoulders and keeps you farther away from just clipping the nearside shoulder, but closer to shooting through stomach before getting into quicker killing areas. Both work.

If you include spine, the center of the shot should be just behind the shoulder, just barely below center. Note the leg bones (scapula, humerus) both are nicely out of the way, as they bend forward in this location.

Here is Ted's story about his shot placement:

I was shooting at a mild downward angle…+/- 150 yds (I thought it was a little farther 175?), first shot was pretty much broadside, just behind the shoulder about halfway up (maybe just an inch or two higher than middle, he had just gotten up and I rushed the shot, tending to hit high under pressure, bullet is also about at max height). He hunched up, paused and started to turn away and uphill. My second shot was about 5 inches diagonally above and behind the first (a better shot than the first, just about where I wanted it), shocking or possibly nicking the spine and breaking the offside shoulder. His rear end collapsed and he rolled twice, stopping on a trail, afterwards making no discernible movements … was dead by the time we got to him.

7MM mag with 160 gr. Nosler Partitions, muzzle velocity around 2,950 fps.

Bill is a man of few words:

140 yds, .308FAT, 165gr Partition.
     Broadside.  Shot, he turned 90 degrees and shook his injured leg, turned back broadside, shot, plop.

Bill led me to this site, to estimate trajectory of the bullet: BigGameInfo.