Wounding bulls

[REDTOOTER]

1 hour ago, stanley said:

On my last archery bull hunt I got buck fever so bad that I clean missed a bull at 17 yards.  (Yup, I'm actually admitting to that!! 🙄)   Wasn't for lack of experience or practice.  Simply is my nature to get EXTREME buck fever in most shooting situations, rifle or bow.  I haven't put in for an archery tag since.  

Recently I've found that I get much more enjoyment hunting with my children or friends, gladly playing the glasser/Sherpa role.  Would rather sit back and spectate as one of them kills something (or not), as opposed to me being on the trigger.  Animals are better off that way.  They're better shots than I am anyway.

S.

 

 This is me as well...  The "glasser/sherpa" has been my role the past many years, very enjoyable. I cant hit sh!t in the field, excitement gets me every time. Luckily my son is a crack shot but I always manage to locate the animals before he does. We are great as a team. I find them he wacks them, he packs it out and I do the butchering. And Grandpa always has good eats waiting for us at camp. 

 Sorry didn't mean to derail thread , ok back to the ethics police  ... 

[AZ11]

1 hour ago, cmille308 said:

There are a lot of guys , rifle and archery, that choose great ethics all the time. We can’t let the few guys with no ethics ruin it for  everyone. This topic seems to be dividing everyone when we should be standing together and teaching our ethics to the newer hunters and those who are not displaying any ethics. 

I agree

[mattys281]

1 hour ago, stanley said:

On my last archery bull hunt I got buck fever so bad that I clean missed a bull at 17 yards.  (Yup, I'm actually admitting to that!! 🙄)   Wasn't for lack of experience or practice.  Simply is my nature to get EXTREME buck fever in most shooting situations, rifle or bow.  I haven't put in for an archery tag since.  

Recently I've found that I get much more enjoyment hunting with my children or friends, gladly playing the glasser/Sherpa role.  Would rather sit back and spectate as one of them kills something (or not), as opposed to me being on the trigger.  Animals are better off that way.  They're better shots than I am anyway.

S.

 

I think Stanley nailed it.  I bet 90% of these wounded bulls are straight up buck fever.  I missed a buttload of deer before I ever learned how to calm down and shoot at an animal.  

Practice all you want, but paper and foam will never get adrenaline pumping like hide and horn does.  Unfortunately the only way I know of to get good at shooting animals is to shoot animals.  I killed more cottontail rabbits than I could count before I ever connected on my first deer

[Guest akaspecials]

37 minutes ago, mattys281 said:

Practice all you want, but paper and foam will never get adrenaline pumping like hide and horn does.  Unfortunately the only way I know of to get good at shooting animals is to shoot animals.  I killed more cottontail rabbits than I could count before I ever connected on my first deer

Small game hunting is one of the best ways to become proficient at shooting in the field. It seems like everyone is too cool to hunt small game though. I was blessed as a child that I was regularly sent out with a slingshot, pellet gun, .22, or 20 gauge and given free range with the reminder to "not shoot towards the dadgum house!" I still enjoy the challenge of using a .22 to fill up a bag with small game. 

 

Back to big game, the rule in my family is if you draw blood, that animal is yours unless you have proof that it is alive and well. It works well for us. 

[Sneaker]

0 for 8 is a very bad statistic for sure. I don't think an individual wounded animal means anything necessarily unethical happened. I consider myself a very accomplished bow hunter. When I shoot, I shoot ethical shots, but buck fever and life happens. Quick, clean kills are always the goal and design, but I don't know anyone personally that has killed over 10 animals with ALL perfect shots. Its not possible to control ALL factors in hunting situations, rifle or bow. Hunting is not a simulation and humans and the animals are not robots. If you hunt long enough, you will eventually have some "moment of truth" experiences that will show you the truth too. We try to mitigate all factors possible, but even "good shots" can lead to a lost animal unfortunately.

[KoosCrazy]

It happens more archery just because archery is more primitive and arrows don’t kill as well as high speed bullets when shots are bad.   I hate people saying unethical, everyone has slightly different ethics who’s to say which is right or wrong. 

 Unpracticed hunters are in all types of hunting the equipment has nothing to do with ones hunting/ shooting capabilities.  If a guy practices 80 yards with his bow and can hit a pie plate every time or shoots at 800 and can hit a 10 in gong ever-time how are those bad shots! Not to mention chit happens in hunting and we all make a bad shot once in awhile.  

The real issue is tracking and putting forth the effort to recover game, that is what has been lost in all types of hunting. Hunt responsibly.

 

[CatfishKev]

32 minutes ago, KoosCrazy said:

It happens more archery just because archery is more primitive and arrows don’t kill as well as high speed bullets when shots are bad.   I hate people saying unethical, everyone has slightly different ethics who’s to say which is right or wrong. 

 Unpracticed hunters are in all types of hunting the equipment has nothing to do with ones hunting/ shooting capabilities.  If a guy practices 80 yards with his bow and can hit a pie plate every time or shoots at 800 and can hit a 10 in gong ever-time how are those bad shots! Not to mention chit happens in hunting and we all make a bad shot once in awhile.  

The real issue is tracking and putting forth the effort to recover game, that is what has been lost in all types of hunting. Hunt responsibly.

 

I have no facts to back up my opinion other then there's more rifle tags then archery tags. Now include youth hunts in the rifle tags and I'm not just referring to bull or buck hunts but factor in doe and cow hunts.  Wannabe long range shooters outweigh archery shooters by a wide margin. Buck fever happens to rifle hunters too.  But I agree 100% on your last sentence. In the end that sums it all up. 

[jdown]

1 hour ago, KoosCrazy said:

It happens more archery just because archery is more primitive and arrows don’t kill as well as high speed bullets when shots are bad.   I hate people saying unethical, everyone has slightly different ethics who’s to say which is right or wrong. 

 Unpracticed hunters are in all types of hunting the equipment has nothing to do with ones hunting/ shooting capabilities.  If a guy practices 80 yards with his bow and can hit a pie plate every time or shoots at 800 and can hit a 10 in gong ever-time how are those bad shots! Not to mention chit happens in hunting and we all make a bad shot once in awhile.  

The real issue is tracking and putting forth the effort to recover game, that is what has been lost in all types of hunting. Hunt responsibly.

 

I'm my opinion, you can't practice field conditions or the effects of the situation or how a live target may adjust during the shot.  Hitting a pie plate in shorts at the range or a fixed gong lying prone on your shooting mat on a flat surface at the range is a relatively small % of what can happen in hunting conditions.  Some people pull it off, but many more try that can't pull it off or the conditions affect the outcome including a crap load of wounded animals that are either not known to be hit or hit poorly.  And the distance certainly compounds all of those effects.  I don't see how that can be disputed.   Again in my opinion 

[520HUNT]

I just got back from 6A helping a friend on his archery bull tag.  We found 2 dead bull elk with arrow wounds. My buddy got cords and gave to G&F.

[bojangles]

I know for myself, when I first started hunting, I wounded a few deer because I didn’t know about bow torque. I would hunt with a glove on in January because it was cold outside. And I would always miss high and to the left. Then I learned about bow torque and started taking the gloves off before the shot. Animals started dying and my field shooting improved unbelievably. I don’t think I’ve lost a big game animals since I learned about bow torque . But that was a few years ago, and it was just a matter of education.

I think a lot of guys are just impatient in tracking also. If you don’t hit an animal in the bread basket, particularly an elk, you’ve got to back out for several hours before you look for it. I think a lot of guys just look for it for a couple hours, bump it, can’t find it, and then keep hunting.

[excaliber]

I know this a tough subject but what can be done about it?   I know when I finally get a chance to hunt bulls in AZ I'm going to make sure the shot I take is a great one.   Being a non res I may have to go guided so I know if I screw up my hunt will be over.    If I were to hunt solo and wounded a bull I'd search as long as my hunt lasted to find it.   I wouldn't shoot another bull.   I wish there was some way to police this.     How about a F&G rule that if you injure a big game animal and can't recover it you are done?  I'd be sick if I was that guy who has already crippled or killed 5 bulls in Unit 9.  

 

[AZ8]

12 minutes ago, excaliber said:

I know this a tough subject but what can be done about it?   I know when I finally get a chance to hunt bulls in AZ I'm going to make sure the shot I take is a great one.   Being a non res I may have to go guided so I know if I screw up my hunt will be over.    If I were to hunt solo and wounded a bull I'd search as long as my hunt lasted to find it.   I wouldn't shoot another bull.   I wish there was some way to police this.     How about a F&G rule that if you injure a big game animal and can't recover it you are done?  I'd be sick if I was that guy who has already crippled or killed 5 bulls in Unit 9.  

 

There’s no way to police this. It’s up to the individual person on how they handle it.  

Good luck on drawing your AZ tag!

[goinhuntn]

36 minutes ago, excaliber said:

I know this a tough subject but what can be done about it?   I know when I finally get a chance to hunt bulls in AZ I'm going to make sure the shot I take is a great one.   Being a non res I may have to go guided so I know if I screw up my hunt will be over.    If I were to hunt solo and wounded a bull I'd search as long as my hunt lasted to find it.   I wouldn't shoot another bull.   I wish there was some way to police this.     How about a F&G rule that if you injure a big game animal and can't recover it you are done?  I'd be sick if I was that guy who has already crippled or killed 5 bulls in Unit 9.  

 

He has now wounded 6 bulls according to the 22s thread. Guy is a complete A..hole!!

[mattys281]

12 hours ago, bojangles said:

I know for myself, when I first started hunting, I wounded a few deer because I didn’t know about bow torque. I would hunt with a glove on in January because it was cold outside. And I would always miss high and to the left. Then I learned about bow torque and started taking the gloves off before the shot. Animals started dying and my field shooting improved unbelievably. I don’t think I’ve lost a big game animals since I learned about bow torque . But that was a few years ago, and it was just a matter of education.

I think a lot of guys are just impatient in tracking also. If you don’t hit an animal in the bread basket, particularly an elk, you’ve got to back out for several hours before you look for it. I think a lot of guys just look for it for a couple hours, bump it, can’t find it, and then keep hunting.

I think you raise another excellent point with the tracking.  A bad hit with a tough tracking job can be soul crushing and demoralizing.  It’s easy to want to quit.  I’ve been on a couple that took hours and hours to finally find the animal.  At times I thought his is pointless why bother?  Kept going anyway and recovered them.

 

I think one of the best things a person can do in this situation is call for help.  Your buddy will be less emotional and more rational than you when they arrive on scene, plus having another person participate helps keep the motivation up to keep trying.  It’s much harder for a person to quit in front of someone else than it is when you’re alone.  My hunting partner has been crucial in helping me recover a couple animals.  Could I have done it alone?  Probably.  But it was much easier and quicker with the help.

[Roosevelt Mark]

A few years ago I was in 3c a week after the archery hunt driving around. I smelled several dead animals, just from the road.