question on my deer

[firstcoueswas80]

i have been cathing a little heat on a different forum for shooting my deer so many times. like my story states, my second shot hit him low in the shoulde, catching the bottom part of the lung. i knew that he was hit there because my dad was spotting my shot thourgh his doctors and told me he saw the bullet hit. there was also blood coming out of his nose and mouth. my question is: i knew he was hit there, and i knew he would die from this shot but i kept putting rounds through him because he was not down yet. am i wrong in doing this or should i have let him die after the first time i hit him?

thanks!

[the breeze]

I have seen some deer hit in the vitals just vanish and I have seen deer that were thought to be dead jump out of a bush and make a mad dash for freedom. I lost a deer in mexico last year that was hit twice in the bread basket with a 25-06/ 115 ballistic silver tips at 300 yards. A friend of Knifeboys was with me and he is a M.D. He spotted the shot for me with binos. We gave the deer some time went over to get him and he was gone! My friend and I were in utter disbelief. We looked for 2 days for that deer and even had a dog looking with us. The Deer could not have gone more that 500 yards and we never found him. we looked for 18 man hours between 3 of us. We had bubbled up lung blood, and chunks of bone 2" in circumferance. The rancher let me shoot another deer on the ranch and he dropped with one shot at 325 yards. I had a friend shoot a buck with the same gun and ammo combo at 200 yards on the first hunt this year and he dropped on the spot. So after that and to answer your question I would keep the lead flying until he was down and dead. I would much rather have a dead recovered deer than a dead lost deer.

[stanley]

Definitely not wrong to keep shooting at a standing deer! All a matter of opinion Casey.

 

Don't worry about the heat from the other board (or this board for that matter...). Doesn't really matter what other folks say, because they aren't YOU. Hunt in the style you're comfortable with.

 

S.

 

PS: I was brought-up to keep shooting until they are down as well.

[CouesWhitetail]

Well, just goes to show that maybe you should only visit this forum

 

No, I don't think it's wrong to keep shooting at your deer. You don't want to lose it and a wounded, unrecovered deer is a tragedy. So shoot until you are sure he is dead.

 

Amanda

[hime]

I agree with the others, keep shooting until it is down. I had a friend who shot a deer a couple years ago. It went down, then got up and stumbled away. He didn't shoot because he could see it was bleeding pretty heavy. We looked for the rest of the hunt, a day and a half, never found it. The next year we found a head and bones in the area that we think was the same deer.

 

JDH

[bchoitz]

Only you can answer that question for sure.

 

If you had stopped shooting was there a possibility he would continue over a rise and out of site, maybe never to be seen again?

If you had stopped after the first or second shot, and never recovered the deer what questions would you be asking then?

You got your deer, and didn't wound an animal that would later die un-recovered, so don't beat yourself up for shooting too many shots.

 

My first elk took 7 shots, I'm not proud of the shooting, but I was sure proud to have that elk in camp.

 

Bret

[Guest Reynaldo de la Torre]

i have been cathing a little heat on a different forum for shooting my deer so many times. like my story states, my second shot hit him low in the shoulde, catching the bottom part of the lung. i knew that he was hit there because my dad was spotting my shot thourgh his doctors and told me he saw the bullet hit. there was also blood coming out of his nose and mouth. my question is: i knew he was hit there, and i knew he would die from this shot but i kept putting rounds through him because he was not down yet. am i wrong in doing this or should i have let him die after the first time i hit him?

thanks!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

The most important thing to do - and the hardest - is to not take bad shots. Take only shots that you know you can make and only shots that will be kill shots. If I knew that he was hit hard - I would have waited. But that is me. I don't think you did anything wrong though - for what it is worth. Do what you gotta do.

[az4life]

Casey, you have no need to justify the situation to anyone. We ribbed you a bit here, but I think you knew it was all in good fun.

 

You were there, and they were not. It is your story and you chose to tell it like it happened, not make up a whopper about 1 shot wonder from 750 yards.

 

Just remember to be true to yourself and you will always be on the right side.

[gnoto]

Casey

No matter how many shots you took you bagged the deer. That was your goal.

Even fi you took him onthe first shot somebody would have made up a reason to make fun of you. We are jealous!

As long as you achieved your goal ther eis nothing to explain.

I was in camp near Batamote last November. Not feeling great I was resting on the truck hood watching some guys on Batamote. They shot no less then 10 times at a spike at the bottom. Not a single hit. Now that sucks, but I bet if they had any more ammowith them they would ahve kept shooting. I think it was because they were hunting and until the game is dead you are still hunting.

You hear lots of stories about the old he was 325 yards with a cross wind and I knocked him over with one shot. They are not that exciting really. Yours sounded exciting and reminded me of the hunt.

I am in this weekend 36A thinking of heading in much farther this year.

Had some good scouts in Oct so I hope it pays off.

Your welcome to come glass for me after all the money you spent on glass you may as well use them a little.

GN

[recurveman]

I have a simple rule. If the animals head is still up I keep the crosshairs on the animal. If I think I need to shoot again I will. If the animal is still standing (which would mean his head is still up) I shot ASAP. I've seen way to many people shoot a "perfect" shot on an animal and not get it.

 

Just remember this. Sometimes people didn't exactly see what they think they saw. I've had guys tell me they hit the deer right behind the shoulder. Sure the butt is right behind the shoulder but it is a ways behind the shoulder.

 

Make sure the critter is down and down for good. The only downside to shooting the deer multiple times is hitting meat that you want to eat. If you keep shooting the animal in the lungs (or even guts) you really aren't doing anymore damage to edible meat.

 

Keep shooting. Thats my motto. Even shoot the spikes.

 

Later,

 

recurveman - 4 days until a spike's death.

[Couesi1]

Casey,

Sometimes things don't go the way we plan/hope. If you've hunted long enough, eventually you'll encounter a situation that won't be a perfect kill whether it's your tag or a friends. Anyone who thinks that things never go bad are living in a dream world. It takes real man to be able to be honest and learn from a situation. I'm sure you learned from your situation and next time will be even more decisive. You did, in fact, make the right decision and don't you let anyone try to make you think you didn't. If you want to second guess yourself, stop it!!! Now, compare your hunt to the hunt of a bragger I bumped into last year at a party. Here's the scenario, this very loud young man was bragging about shooting his Sendero at a range of 1100 yards at a group of large whitetail bucks. (Yes, the number is correct.....1100 yards) His buddy was calling in the artillery hits as his first shots were very low........imagine that! Of course, he never got the deer.

Compare that behavior with your own.......yup, you're right, there's no comparison! What you did was responsible and something to be proud of. What he did was inexcusable. You demonstrated integrity and decisiveness and that is much needed with all of our hunters. Good job and congratulations.

C-1

[azhuntsmen]

one shot one kill, BLAH yea its nice but thats not how it always works out. I have taken afew extra shots down range just to make sure. its not like u saw him fall and kept putting rounds into his lifeless corpes RIGHT and if so thats all u man its yur hunt right, let them cry about it all they want and they will until they do the same thing. If u can afford it then let the lead(nonlead based) fly brother.

[billrquimby]

Casey, keep shooting until it's down ... and then be prepared to shoot again if it gets up as you approach. Twice in my 57 years of hunting deer I've shot bucks on the run and watched them drop instantly.

 

One was jumping over a fence in Texas when I hit it. I climbed down out the tree blind and was walking toward it when it jumped up and ran straight at me (it apparently hadn't seen me). My second shot put it down for good just a few yards behind me. The bullet that dropped it in mid-leap had gone high through the gaps in the vertical bones on top of the shoulder and cold-konked that buck. If I hadn't killed it after it recovered I suspect it would have lived a long time before infection or a predator killed it.

 

The other was a whitetail in the Sierritas in the 1950s that I dropped on the spot with a long, lucky shot. I had my rifle on a sling on my shoulder as I approached within 100 yards or so when that buck got up and darted for the top of the ridge as if it had never been hit. My second or third shot killed it. Again the shot that dropped it first was a high spine shot that had not hit a bone.

 

Just remember, it's not dead until it's dead.

 

Bill