Don't hunt if you can't shoot!

[jdavionic]

I was surprised to watching a hunting show on Outdoor channel. I caught the end of it. These guys were hunting elk. The guide was leading a moron with a rifle, they found an elk at ~300 yds, and took the shot. The elk ran yards & yards without staggering when they finally cut the camera, and then showed them walking toward the eventual sight where it dropped which looked nothing like where they last had the camera. This happened not once, but twice!

I understand that sometimes the animal can move at the last moment and you don't get the shot you wanted. I never had it happen; but it's certainly understandable. In this case though, the elk was up on a hill, turned to the side, standing still with its head up. WTF - if you can't aim & shoot, go back to the range & practice until you can, then go out & hunt.

Years ago when I would hunt, one of the things my dad told me is never take a shot if you don't have a clean kill shot. Every kill they'd drop dead, maybe a step forward or back, then drop.

Maybe it's just me - but that's the way it should be done if you're going to hunt.

[jkswiss]

+1
I think we owe it a clean death at the very least. I can't watch those hunting programs, for some reason I feel bad.

[yobo97sc2]

i agree however what was the conditions? a good wind will throw you way off especially at 300 yards.

[JimLongley]

Sounds like a liver shot in the first case. The animal barely reacts, barely shows blood, but dies pretty quick.

I shot a whitetail a whole bunch of years ago and was convinced I had missed. One of my hunting partners just happened to find a (small!) blood spots, and we started tracking the deer. It took us hours to find where he went down, and he travelled quite a distance for that area anyway, but it was a killing shot not a wounding one.

I was hunting with a flintlock rifle and the deer reacted to the flash of the primer and may have been already moving due to the click of my cocking the action, and what I thought would have been a well placed shot turned out not to be.

[jdavionic]

Originally Posted by yobo97sc2

i agree however what was the conditions? a good wind will throw you way off especially at 300 yards.

Difficult to tell from just watching it on TV. But I did look for that type of issue and didn't see any dramatic indications of windy conditions.

[TomSwift]

How much up a hill was it? Shooting uphill or downhill is not the same trajectory as shooting on level ground. There are other factors to be accounted for when doing that.

[jdavionic]

Originally Posted by TomSwift

How much up a hill was it? Shooting uphill or downhill is not the same trajectory as shooting on level ground. There are other factors to be accounted for when doing that.

It was what a would call sloping hills, i.e., not like hunting in western PA. My point is that wind, hills, folage, etc. should be taken into account when you're taking your shot. I know from my experience that these can make hitting your target reliably difficult. BUT, my point is this - if you think you don't have a shot that you're capable of making, then you need to work to get a better shot. If the animal spooks & gets away, that's the way it goes - that's part of hunting.

The part that really pissed me off with respect to my posting is that I cited is that this was a hunting show. Folks watch these shows for tips and techniques. These guys should be demonstrating the best techniques, not the worst.

[JD McDorce]

Fatal shots do not always result in an elk (or deer or ) instantly dropping where it was standing. I've helped track whitetail deer that have been shot through the heart or lungs that have traveled over a quarter mile after being shot with a rifle (I'm not even going to go into bow hunting). It really isn't any different from the "one shot stop" self-defense threads that keep cropping up on this site. While there are certainly differences between the anatomy of game animals and humans, there are also distinct similarities. Hitting the CNS, primary bone structure, or certain organs may drop the target in it's tracks. But there are numerous cases of other fatal shots where it doesn't.

[mcb]

Originally Posted by JD McDorce

Fatal shots do not always result in an elk (or deer or ) instantly dropping where it was standing. I've helped track whitetail deer that have been shot through the heart or lungs that have traveled over a quarter mile after being shot with a rifle (I'm not even going to go into bow hunting). It really isn't any different from the "one shot stop" self-defense threads that keep cropping up on this site. While there are certainly differences between the anatomy of game animals and humans, there are also distinct similarities. Hitting the CNS, primary bone structure, or certain organs may drop the target in it's tracks. But there are numerous cases of other fatal shots where it doesn't.

+1

A friend of mine hit a doe this hunting season with his inline muzzle loader at about 125 yard shooting a 243 grain power belt doing a touch over 2000fps. It was a quarting towards shot and the bullet shattered the closer shoulder and fragments of the power belt bullet and bone went into both lungs. We waited a good 15 minutes before starting our track. She initially went over a 1/4 of mile before laying down. She got up on us twice and in the end had gone almost 1/2 a mile with one lung very shreded and the other punchured in several places.

No matter what anyone tells you killing is a strange thing.

mcb

[03RangerXLT]

I have heard of deer in this area making it very far with most of its insides laying where the bullet impacted it. I think the only real instant kill shot would be head or heart. But thats asking for a lot ain't it?