Guns, Bows, Shooting Sports, and Hunting One helluva headache

[jgillott]

I totally believe that- and it really is a shame. Especially in your neck of the woods, J, where there are great public places to shoot- and get good! My BIL brought me to a public range in his area (York) and I was just a LITTLE jealous. No reason for a hunter not to be a good shooter with resources like that.

We thankfully have quite a bit of land and have the room to shoot on our own property and do so quite often. There are also a number of rod and gun clubs locally that are more than happy to have members/shooters. Unfortunatley, not too many people take advantage of those opportunities.

 

[BIGNASTY]

I talked with a friend about this and he has always looked at things a little differently than I do, maybe a little more logically than I can be.

For some hunting around their house is only an option if they bow hunt, I on the other hand cant hunt large game any place around my house. The nearest place to hunt starts 8 miles on a trail that is only used by foot or animal, I could however use a bow and get away with this within steps of my back door and none would be the wiser, with as much shooting as we do out the back door I could also get away with using a gun to take game and again none would even know.

But it comes back to Ethics and the sight of seeing an Elk or Deer within steps of our door, Its part of the reason to live like this. Taking game has never been much of any REAL BIG CHALLENGE in our area, so for ME at least its been the trip in, the camping, packing that makes the hunt and the subsequent taking of game is what makes this all that much better.

 

[Sticks]

I'm borderline guilty of this.

I've only gone hunting once - when I was 14 IIRC (first year I could get a license). Went bow hunting with a group of 15 + guys. The rule was if you see someone take a shot, and the deer runs by you, you add another if it does not look like a good hit. My first hit was, according the the 4 guys it ran by, a perfect profile shot, so they watched it go, figuring on we would find the blood trail. Spent 45 minuets with everyone looking for the blood. Found the trial of hoof prints where they saw it run but soon lost it. Never found it.

4 hours later I got another one, 1 person saw it, again perfect placement, no blood, but since only one person saw the hit, the group was not convinced and with no blood and it ran down the game trail, there was little hope of tracking it.

Day 2, I got my third, no witnesses but still spent 30 minutes looking then they called BS on me and we moved on. When we hiked the next 2 miles down the creek, one of the guys came up to me and handed me my arrow covered in blood. Said he literally tripped over the doe not 30 yards from where I was sitting. We went back and got her. Arrow went in just behind the left front shoulder, and exited in front of the right rear leg. Passed through both lungs, the heart, and a couple other organs. Only had a trickle of blood outside both wounds and a palm sized spot of blood where it laid down. It boiled down to the broadheads that I was using. Made too clean a hole and sealed back up ergo no blood trail.

Unlike the rest of the group, I practiced 5 days a week for 3-4 hours a day all spring and summer, and spent 2 weeks or so prior to the season with one of the old timers learning about where to aim on the deer, and how to lead on a moving target. That was my only time hunting big game.

During that season I saw two other deer with only 3 legs, no doubt hunting injuries (coyotes & foxes being the only predators in the region). Humans are weak and fragile, no way we would survive that type of injury untreated.

Hunting big game is a chancy deal, regardless of how much you do or don't practice. A simple twig or stiff weed can deflect the arrows trajectory, gust of wind or flinch on the shooters part with bow or rifle can really tweak the POI.

 

[JR]

I refuse to hunt with a group. Too many people clouting up the woods making noise. I could just never get into the whole pusher mentality of hunting. Not to mention I don't even know enough people that I trust to be out in the woods with a gun. I will hunt with my uncle (in the picture), my cousin whose parents own a 1000+ acre dairy farm (the only place I hunt), and my brother in Wyoming. And we rarely have the chance to get together so its generally me myself and I. Nothing better then getting out there and being one with the woods. Watching, looking, listening for any sign of activity. I have a stand set up in the woods but I rarely use it. I'd rather be on the ground any day.

 

[BIGNASTY]

I refuse to hunt with a group. Too many people clouting up the woods making noise. I could just never get into the whole pusher mentality of hunting. Not to mention I don't even know enough people that I trust to be out in the woods with a gun. I will hunt with my uncle (in the picture), my cousin whose parents own a 1000+ acre dairy farm (the only place I hunt), and my brother in Wyoming. And we rarely have the chance to get together so its generally me myself and I. Nothing better then getting out there and being one with the woods. Watching, looking, listening for any sign of activity. I have a stand set up in the woods but I rarely use it. I'd rather be on the ground any day.

We kind of hunt in a group, when we take people in for a hunt MOST come with friends or family, When they hire us to guide them they get a choice of 1 hunter per guide or 2 hunters per, naturally if you want a singular hunt its going to cost more. Most times its a 2 hunter per, a father and Son or Daughter, Wife, friend. We don't push game I don't know if its illegal or not BUT IT SHOULD BE!! (again JMO) Most times several of the Outfitter guides have been out in summer looking for game and looking for patterns in their behavior, escape routes they use, were they feed, water, bed you get the idea. When hunting season comes its pretty much known where the game COULD be at any given time. Had one guy that pulled out a bottle of smoke and shot it in the air. I seen him do this several times as we were heading to his vantage point to do some spotting with bino's and scope, I asked what are you doing? Looking at the wind direction. I was kind of new to the guiding way of hunting I had never had to take a guy in and tell him how to step by step take game. We got to the high ground and sat up to do some glassing, he was standing on top of the ridge and talking like we were in the city. I said get off the ridge and shut up with being so loud. He kept on with the smoke in a bottle thing which was more of an annoyance to me than anything, he proclaimed proudly the wind has changed!! Gee do you think so?? we are on a ridge and its getting warmer ever hear of a thing called thermals? We spotted an Elk I pointed it out to him because he couldn't see it, didn't have range finders back then, told him where to aim he finally pulled the trigger, Thank the Lord my time is Hell was over. I didn't REALLY guide again for many years just let me pack and im happy, I took some friends out but they knew just as much as I about this, People are scary with guns and no idea of what they are doing in the field.

Didn't get an Elk this year, FIL gave the wife and I half of his arrow-ed Elk, how much can two 80+ year old people eat anyway. Year before was a great hunt with a black powder 54 cal punkin slinger, a better than 100 yd belly crawl to within 20 yards of it and put the ball behind the ear, that was one great hunt!! (again JMO)

 

[JR]

BIG our situations are quite different, you have ALOT more access to open country then is available here, and your lifestyle affords you to spend your days out there. My time is very limited, between working 1100-1300 hours of OT every year and the 2 little men waiting for me at home, I don't get to spend as much time outdoors as I would like. Maybe, someday that will change, but for now the time that I do get out there I have to spend wisely and quite frankly I would rather be out there alone. Aside from trying to fill the freezer, it's just plain therapeutic. Maybe I'm just anti social :-laf

 

[BIGNASTY]

JR
Therapeutic and anti social are the reasons to go to the hills, we live like we do (kind of away from people) because People for the MOST PART SUCK!!! and I can say that most of the 2k population of the town feel the same way. This year we have been going to the BIG TOWN more because of the building that's been going on, now that its done if we go to a Major city more than one time a month I would be surprised. I got everything I really need right hear. I have been in that time constraint boat that your in now, good times are coming hang in there!!!

 

[VolsFan]

JR that is insane! Just found this post. I have never heard of anything quite like that one. I killed a doe the in mid January in mds archery at 15 yds and let her hang for a couple weeks and found what looked to be a .30-.30 round in the hindquarter. But have never heard of an arrow in the mouth! I imagined she had to have been shot really far away to not penetrate the hide. Anyways , that's a nice buck!

 

[HHhuntitall]

VF, that looks like collateral.... I hunt a lot, even do it professionally, and that looks like what was left of the bullet after it went through another deer or tree.... Or one of those guys who gets off a few good brush shoots every year... Most likely, I'd wager that was from shooting the doe or buck in front of them, with the bullet passing all the way through. For it to be mushroomed like that, it had a lot of energy when it hit something, and if it was .30 cal, it didn't do that in her leg. It would have blown it almost off, even a 30-30. If it had been a long distance, it wouldn't have been so distorted, and the bullet, to not pass through such a thin spot of the deer, had to be moving slow. As a guide, I've seen this happen three times. Two times I had to call the Parks and Wildlife, as there were two animals on the ground, and the hunter shot despite my objections... You just can't shoot something and expect the bullet not to pass through. Penetration is it's job. One incident was a cow elk. She was a small cow, and the magnum the guy was shooting went completely through her and killed a young bull on the other side of her that wasn't even legal... I spoke up to the guy, asking him if he was sure he wanted to take the shot, as there were elk behind her, and she was a small cow.... his reponse was pretty hateful. He'd been a "Screwy Richard" the whole time he had been in camp, so I let him take the shot.... As soon as the cow went down, the bull jumped and kicked, trotted about 20', then turned and sat down, falling over. The guy's 300WM took two in one shot, no problem....

I, on the other hand, didn't take any displeasure in calling Parks. I didn't even field dress 'em at that time. I walked up the hill, turned on my cell, I gave my guide license number to the dispatcher, and my Lat/long, and sat down up the hill from the guy. If I'd had a cigarette, I might have smoked it. I was ticked. The guy kept walking up to me and then back down to the elk, then threatened to walk back to camp. What a dipstick. The warden showed up right at an hour later, and he issued the guy tickets, impounded the bull, and asked me to help him load 'em. I didn't get a tip that go around..... but the game warden was nice enough to share the cow meat with me. That was good....... Stupid hunter was banned from the state permanently. Job well done. He was a jerk.....

 

[crobertson1]

Man, this thread is hard to take. The thought of that buck walking around with an arrow stuck in his skull is disturbing. I understand that weird things happen.

We hunt. Well, my sons hunt. I went once and had a perfect opportunity to take a pronghorn. I didn't pull the trigger because I wasn't confident about making the shot.

My youngest son and I were watching a hunting show called Meat Eater the other night. The host was rifle hunting bear. He took a really long shot (I can't remember the distance). The bear was shot and it dropped and rolled down the hill a long way. They found it-it must've taken a while to find- and it was still breathing. The shot had severed the bear's spine but didn't kill him. It made me sick. It really bothered the hunter too.

 

[BIGNASTY]

All that can be done is attempt to make a good shot and have some ethics, things are going to happen that are out of your or who ever's control. Until last year when my FIL took an Elk with a Arrow, I was against bow's I have seen them run for miles with an arrow sticking out of its side with a blood trail the Ray Charles could have followed. FIL's Elk walked not far from where it was arrowed laid down and looked as if it was wondering about something when it died. But that is the only time that ive seen that with an arrow.

Bottom line is if it's legal go for it. Its just an opinion.

 

[kvtcomdo]

Never heard of so much speculation about a very strange circumstance.

Wow.

Perhaps one should take a step back, take a breath and accept fact that we know nothing of what happened.

This will allow the lack of generalizations and recommedations of something we know NOTHING of.

We owe that to the sport and ethics of hunting.

 

[JR]

We owe that to the sport and ethics of hunting.

If you read the entire thread, ethics were the exact nature of our conversations.

 

[kvtcomdo]

If you read the entire thread, ethics were the exact nature of our conversations.

Wow, how quick one is to judge my intention. I guess it's the anonamous nature of the internet.

1st of all I did read the ENTIRE thread.

My concern was, the comments on the unethical individual who created the anomaly in the 1st place.

Much speculation, wailing and nashing of teeth anbout something we know nothing about.

I get the general premise of ethical harvesting of game, and frankly resent your implication that I was not aware of the "entire" thread.

But you know what, I'll get over it.