Well, I must say, shot placement is paramount for me, as it is a rare thing to be able to find much blood at all where I live in the rainforest. Here, I forget about non existent blood trails and focus on penatration 1st, expansion second. A killing shot is a killing shot, but I try to take anchoring shots that will be DRT. The country is so so thick, that if I screw up on a deer or black bear, it could very well be gone for good. 3 or 4 hundred yards run from a bad shot might just as well be 3 miles. I have learned to bring insurance with me though, and almost always hunt with my dog. A well trained dog is every advantage, and she ques me in to all sorts of things I would have missed, and recovery is much more sure in case a shot is bad. Placement, penatration, and expansion leads to recovery. Anything else is a heck of a lot of work around here.