11 shots to drop an elk...really?

I've had really good luck. I hunt mostly in praries or rolling hills, where the only factor that I have to wory about it the distance from me to the deer. 99% of the time one shot of my 180grain .30.06 is all it takes.

There was one instance where I was hunting with my dad and he shot a whitetail doe high in her hindquarters. she started runnng/hobbling away and i took a shot that almost hit the same spot my dad's had. That slowed her down but she was still crawling dragging her back legs. I took another shot at her head and connected andthat was it. The 1st shot would have killed her, but not as humanely as i would have liked. the second sped up the death, but the 3rd ensured it. I'm not in a habbit of causing deer any more pain than nessecary. If it suffers I feel bad. It's a wild animal that had a good life and deserves a quick death. If more shots are called for to make that happen, take them, if they are not called for then don't. Like i said in my neck of the woods, 200yards or less are the only shots i take and generally they are way under 100 yards. The doe in my story was about 40 yards when the 1st shot hit and 45 when the last hit.
 
trevj said:
Idealism dies hard. Some critters die harder. Eventually everybody gets one that doesn't die right there, and they get to try to find it and spend a bit of time second guessing themselves.

If it's still got legs under it, and you can see it, it's worth shooting again.

Cheers
Trev
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Couldn't agree more. That second shot costs but a dollar or two, and the loss of another pound or two of meat pales in comparison to the loss of a wounded animal. Even when the game goes down hard on the first shot, the best thing anyone can do is reload fast and get the crosshairs back on it, just in case it decides to get back up. Trust me, it happens...
 
Depends on wether it's running towards the truck or away from it. :p


Seriously though, as to the op, there is so much hunting pressure in some of the wmu's with general elk tags if a bull makes the mistake of poking his nose out of the treeline in the wrong spot there's likely to be 11 different guys shooting? (I think we all know the wmu's I'm talking about)
 
I can see and value many of your opinions and experiences. My big game experience is very limited but I did shoot a WT this year and though my hunting partner was whispering loudly for me to shoot it, I calmly waited until it exposed the shot I wanted. Looking for a lung/heart shot at the upper end of my shooting range, I waited until it stepped a little broadside. If it didn't turn and walked into the bush, I would have been happy that I had an opportunity to put my crosshairs on fur.

I had passed on a small buck the day before as it trotted towards me because I didn't want to shoot him straight on. I know that this was due to my inexperience and confidence, but I was happy to have an opportunity. Could I have shot him? Yes. Would I have wounded him? Probably not. But, I had never shot a deer before and I wanted to make sure that when I did that it was done with my complete confidence pulling the trigger. Having now taken just one deer my confidence in the field is much better than it was the day before. Some might snicker at me for this but I chalk it all up to the experience of hunting that I grow to enjoy more and more. I enjoyed every minute of it, shot or no shot.

I have no problem with letting an animal walk away if I it isn't within my range of abilities to shoot. From there it's the challenge of stalking it to within a range I'm comfortable shooting.
 
We shot this guy last night and it took 6 bullets to take it down. 4 were in the lungs in a space the size of my palm, 1 hit the liver and the last broke a front leg (which is essentially what saved the day since he couldn't jump the fence and hung out for the 5 minutes it took to die). They are tough animals for sure.

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big game is easy to kill, try killing a big bull whistler at 40 yards passsing , or any duck for that matter.

I know there is exceptions but i find that ducks pound for pound are harder to kill
 
ryan32 said:
big game is easy to kill, try killing a big bull whistler at 40 yards passsing , or any duck for that matter.

I know there is exceptions but i find that ducks pound for pound are harder to kill
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I personally refuse to shoot a duck unless I have a 100% broadside, rested shot. You owe it to the bird for a solid first round hit.
 
Ardent said:
No, you're just placing an expanding bullet from a high-powered rifle directly into the vitals of big game versus peppering a duck with tiny pellets at random.
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at random is kinda a misnomer, shot placment is posible with a shotgun albeit not to the same degree. The key is to have an adequatly dense load and know the lead. When you think about shootin clays , the profile they offer is smaller or close to the same size as the outstretched neck and chest of a duck. Shot placment with a shotgun is about hitting the front half not the back half of the bird and then having the density to insure 3-5 pellets in that area.
 
I do plenty of wing shooting myself, in fact I like it more than big game hunting though I engage in plenty of both. We just disagree that a duck is pound for pound tougher than big game. The birds I shoot have light, fragile bones, thin skin, if you were to shoot them with a rifle keeping an eye to shot placement in the vitals, they'd die quicker than big game- even if that rifle's a .17 cal airgun.
 
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