Cleaning up some bad shooting

[gd357]

During the shotgun and muzzleloader seasons, I took two deer from the same treestand, and my brother took another there as well. All three had been wounded previously, all looked to be shot with shotguns. The first had been gut shot, the second was hit in the back leg, the third had been shot in the foot.:( How in the world do you hit a deer in the foot? The worst part was, that deer was a nice young 10 point that would have been a great buck in a few years. I'm pretty peeved to say the least, and the crew that's doing the shooting is on my list of morons that need to hear what any real hunter would tell them. Learn to hunt - and shoot, or they have no business in the woods.

gd

[kt]

yes we see this every once in a while, a friend got one last year that had a broadhead just under a welt on the ham. but before you rip some body a new one are you sure it was shot in the foot or other body part? deer can get many injuries, just before you call some body on a bad shot be sure just because its always good to keep good terms with those in your woods. then again i have seen people hit every corner of a deer, i have lost deer obviously not hit well by arrows. maybe more of the same
kt

[Skyline]

Wounded game is a lot more common than we think. When I worked at a butcher shop as many as half of the moose that came through had been shot previously and the injuries had healed.

There are a lot of hunters out there that are not good shots. They rarely if ever practice and many hunters also have limited knowledge of big game anotomy and where the 'boiler room' is actually located.......not to mention differences from one species to another.

Poor bullet selection for the job at hand is also a factor. We tend to hang out with other that have similar interests, so it is easy for most of us to assume that most hunters have a working knowledge of bullet construction and ballistics. Unfortuntely that just isn't the case.

The majority of hunters take very few big game animals and so their ability to 'read' the animals reaction to the shot is questionable. That coupled with poor tracking abilities leave many wounded animals in the bush that hunters assume were 'missed'.

Lastly, good old-fashioned 'buck fever' and 'Murphy's Law also come into play.

I find wounded and lost deer on my ranch every year. Deer that were hit and eventually ended up on my property before dying of their injuries or being taken down by coyotes. Sad but true.

[Trapper00]

Sadly there are some out there who believe "where there's lead there's hope".
Responsible ethical hunters would not tollerate someone in their party who lived by that creed. We had one hunter who seemed to have to track (or have us) track game every single season. We, as a group, told him that he either had to admit to his limitations, learn to overcome them, or find a new hunting group. He's no longer with us.

[fabsroman]

A lot of people just do not take the time to practice with their guns, period. I cannot tell you how many people I have seen bird hunting that cannot hit the broad side of a barn. Those are the guys that tend to wound a heck of a lot of game. Then, there are people that take shots that are way too long. Last but not least, there are people that take shots that their bullet or shot cannot handle. Essentially, I agree with Skyline on this post and even agree with Murphy's law and buck fever, which I think are valid reasons for missing. I have had misses in my time too. I killed three deer one afternoon out of a group of nine that came by. The first two were great shots, but then I took a slightly longer shot at them as they were walking away. I hit the third one in the back leg, but I knew I had hit her and that she had laid down in a small patch of woods. So, I went to get everybody in the hunting party to help me make sure that we recovered her (i.e., she didn't run out the other side of the woods where I would be SOL). Sometimes, stuff happens. Now, if it is happening to a person consistantly, they need to sit down and ask themselves why.

[gd357]

Well, if these were the only occurences, I'd ALMOST be able to say stuff happens - but there have been several other deer besides those killed in the area that had a few extra holes in them. It's fair to say that they are wounding a pretty high percentage of the animals they're shooting at, and its a darn shame that they don't have more respect for the game they pursue than that. JMHO

gd

[wrenchman]

I have killed a few deer that have been wounded and a couple that have had wounds that were over a year old one had a broad head inbedded in his nose.
One big doe i shot had a club foot frome being shot it still ran but with a strange gate.
I killed a deer that had its front leg shot and it would fall down when it would try to run i was scared to try and eat it the leg was infected and smelled real bad

[mdmike]

I would guess that many different deer that were wounded coming past the same stand that you are in some kind of natural escape route.Im not taking up for the lousy shooters by the way.

I hunted a new place a couple of years ago.Someone a few hundred yrds away must have shot 10-15 times in 3 hrs.I wonder how many he killed?how many he wounded.When I got back to meet my friend he said that guy shoots like that every opening morning of deer season.I didnt hunt that stand again.

[gd357]

mdmike,

Yeah, it's a great natural funnel between several good bedding areas with several fields/food sources surrounding it. There's also been deer that bed in the funnel, but it's more of a travel/escape route. With any pressure or rutting activity, it's a really good place to be.

gd

[GoodOlBoy]

Not to mention alot of hunters have no idea what the ammo they are using will and wont do in the gun they are using. I have never had a wounded deer run off from buckshot. Why? because I know its limitations. And if I cant safely cleanly kill the deer I don't shoot at it. Slugs? El same same. Rifle? Yep. Bow? Of course. If you don't know exactlly what your weapon will do then DON'T shoot the danged thing at a living creature.

Also several years back we had a group of city hunters arrested in the national forest. Why you ask? because each of them admited face to face with the game warden that they had had several good "brush shots" that day. IE they hear something moving in the brush and they blast at it then go see what it was. . . . . . .

Still gives me the cold shivers.

GoodOlboy

[gd357]

Yeah, scary stuff. the worst part about this situation is that we found 4 more dead deer in the area when we were turkey hunting.:mad:

gd

[jmarriott]

Shot a nice 8 point two years ago with a broadhead/carbon shaft in the back ham. Was poorly shot in late bow season. neighbor told me about his twitch when he shot the bow. And that he was on the "about 35 yard" range. The sluggun did a lot more damage. Buck fever, new bow, max range, twitch, wind angle lots of people make bad shots.

Nice buck for bow season since he had never got a bow buck yet. In a one buck a year state not what i should have shot but it needed to be done. He thanked me for shooting the buck and paid the processor to jerky it all up for us, Still I was buck tagged out for the year. One buck bow or firearm for a few more years now.

He did arrow a nice 10 point buck last year and it was a nice shot.