Finishing shots, follow up shots.

When do you stop shooting after hitting an animal? How long do you wait to finish it?

  • When it is 100% dead or unsafe/unwise to continue shooting.

    Votes: 78 21.1%
  • When I think I have made a fatal shot.

    Votes: 40 10.8%
  • When it drops but cannot get up, I wait for it to die.

    Votes: 18 4.9%
  • If I can't see it but hear that it is in pain I will approach it carefully and finish it.

    Votes: 21 5.7%
  • If I can hear that is in pain I will listen to it and wait ten minutes.

    Votes: 14 3.8%
  • I dispatch game as quickly as possible out of respect for the animal and myself as a hunter!

    Votes: 283 76.5%

  • Total voters
    370
1 and 6 are the same to me.

X2 on who the $^^$ cares what time it is. I would love to stand in front of a judge and tell him the story. I will take watever (if any punishment).
Any Fish cop who has a problem with that deserves to have a desk job.

Jamie
 
my opinion (humorous?)

Taught quite a few youngsters to hunt and this is my advice.

If your taking a shot that you can't guarantee a kill.... don't take it. Take it from me, following a blood trail at night sucks (you only do it once), and you have to do it or you better hang up your firearm. Once and a while despite your best effort a "killshot/headshot" doesn't work. So I adopted a method an "old timer" taught me. Put one shot behind its front leg. This puts a nice hole in its lungs and they go down quick or if they are a fighter..... it takes two minutes longer... point is they go down period. No animal can survive a .30x hole in its lungs (advantage to this type of shot, is they also bleed out). If your just taking a shot, because you think you can make it... #### off, thats for golf. And if you don't KNOW you can make it, well you should have headed to the range a bit more BEFORE hunting season.

The average animal is shot @ 67 yds. Stop watching Sniper.

cheers!
 
Couple of the members mentioned shooting after dark in order to end suffering, regardless of the legality.
I agree with you but cannot counsel others to commit an illegal act.
Would I do it? you betcha I would.
 
I chose Number 2... now let me quantify that.
To me, "when I think I made a fatal shot" means I truly believe the animal will die within seconds.
I have little expereience with larger game, 2 bears that's it. One was a small bear , double lung, kicked a bit but died quickly. The second bear, took a shot in the liver and as he walked away, a ollow up shot narrowly missed the lungs and travelled through the neck and out the head.

I did make the mistake once of assuming I killed a coyote, I then watched it run 3 km along the ice and never found it.

I am right now beginning to learn about bow hunting and have been practising, not much opportunity for a follow up shot there.
 
If #2 said "When I know I have made a fatal shot." I would pick that one because there is no sense flailing away at an animal tou just punched in the vitals.

But if I wasnt sure if the animal was going to go down within eyesight I would keep shooting.



Common sense I guess.
 
I included #2 #3 and #4 because they are very common answers when you ask hunters this question. And I fully expected more people to choose some of those options.
Multiple choice thread allows for one or more answers.;)

As far as the Coyote getting up thing Bill... Until recently I used a .270WSM with a Muzzle Break to facilitate very hard hits and very fast follow up shots. Over the years I have had a lot of Coyotes vanish after I killed them.:eek:
 
I don't think anyone pulls the trigger with the intention of wounding an animal but the reality is you probably will if you hunt enough(I have). In this case nothing has changed, you are still obligated to finish the job as quickly and humanely as possible. It often ain't pretty and it's sometimes downright disturbing but if you let an animals suffer becuase you lack the nads to finish what you've started or more disturbingly becuase you don't care that the animal is suffering it's time to quit!
 
I think this poll is for nothing but the purpose of showing how holier you are. Who on this Earth would PURPOSELY wound an animal and listen to him bawl? This is the lamest poll I've ever seen on this board. I still remember Bigredd arrowed a small buck last season along powerline. My question is "Did you find you buck as soon as possbile and finish him off after you poked him while a small buck posed little threat to you? Did you?"
 
rollingrock said:
I think this poll is for nothing but the purpose of showing how holier you are. Who on this Earth would PURPOSELY wound an animal and listen to him bawl? This is the lamest poll I've ever seen on this board. I still remember Bigredd arrowed a small buck last season along powerline. My question is "Did you find you buck as soon as possbile and finish him off after you poked him while a small buck posed little threat to you? Did you?"

This poll simply establishs the ethics that most of us apply when we hunt. Obviously it was inspired by your recent thread but if you think it's about people showing how "holier" they are (than you I presume you mean) you once again miss the point. You know when you create your "sks kills" threads that they will elicit this kind of response but what you don't understand is that your entertainment ultimately comes at the expense of the animals you've shot and tht ain't why most of us hunt.
 
Every animal with sharp teeth, antlers, horns, hooves or claws gets shot again when I get close to it.
I knew a guy that was beaten-up quite badly by a "dead" buck. I don't even want to think about how angry a bear would be if it woke-up while I was field dressing it.
 
rollingrock said:
I think this poll is for nothing but the purpose of showing how holier you are. Who on this Earth would PURPOSELY wound an animal and listen to him bawl? This is the lamest poll I've ever seen on this board. I still remember Bigredd arrowed a small buck last season along powerline. My question is "Did you find you buck as soon as possbile and finish him off after you poked him while a small buck posed little threat to you? Did you?"

No this thread was created to get opinions from hunters and to see if I am the only one disturbed by recent threads... including yours!
Your post here illustrates what is wrong with a vocal minority within the Hunting community.

As far as my hunts go I am well documented on these pages... both successful and otherwise. I actually posted about a lost animal this morning in the hope that someone else could learn from my mistakes.
Your lack of understanding of Bow Hunting and how arrows kill by hemmorage instead of by shock is eveident in your rediculous question. I won't try to explain it to you as you obviously were not listening at your hunter ed course.:rolleyes:

If you are offended by this thread and poll than I suggest you put me on your "ignore list"! :wave:
 
bone-collector said:
insuficient firearm, ciggarette 10 minutes 15 yards ..............YOU!

Yes I did use SKS to take a boar, but I got the job done by getting within 15 yards to show my good faith. And by no means you can say that an SKS is a insufficient firearm to put down a smaller bear before you gain your own first hand experience. As I explained I felt it was 10 mins before I finished the bear off with my conscience, but I did it. While some people judge others with higher standards of ethics, they themselves should also be judged with same standards with no exceptions.
 
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BIGREDD said:
No this thread was created to get opinions from hunters and to see if I am the only one disturbed by recent threads... including yours!
Your post here illustrates what is wrong with a vocal minority within the Hunting community.

As far as my hunts go I am well documented on these pages... both successful and otherwise. I actually posted about a lost animal this morning in the hope that someone else could learn from my mistakes.
Your lack of understanding of Bow Hunting and how arrows kill by hemmorage instead of by shock is eveident in your rediculous question. I won't try to explain it to you as you obviously were not listening at your hunter ed course.:rolleyes:

If you are offended by this thread and poll than I suggest you put me on your "ignore list"! :wave:

While you didn't 'ignore' my post I'd treat you the same. But I'm not as disturbed by reading your post as you did by reading my post.

I've never done bow hunting and will probably never do it because I'm not confident that I'll put down my quarry with my arrow instantly. But an average person should be able to draw the conclusion that an arrow delivers more pain to an animal than a bullet fired by a firearm given that both hit the exact same spot, and it takes longer time for the animal to expire under that kind of pain. So where do the conscience and ethics go?

When I read your post, Dan, I read with good faith. Should I have picked on you your thread could've been a disaster too. Should I judge you by your unpurposely mistakes? No. Policing other's ethics is always easier. And this message applies to everyone here.
 
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bone-collector said:
and I do judge myself and so do the many clients I have guided over the years, and so do the many folks I hunt with on a regular basis and the ones from CGN I have gone out with ;)

I believe you with my good faith as you guide for a living.
 
Rollingrock, You have done nothing wrong. Try and ignore the camoflauge 7 days a week crowd.
I 'd be happy to hunt bear or deer with you next fall, bring your wife and any rug rats you have.
Keep hunting and do what you know is right not what you think a bunch of internet braggarts need to hear.

Oh but I have to be honest and tell you that sometimes when I shoot grouse (on the side of the road)I'll let the one flapping on the ground flap until I have located it's flock mates. Once I left a grouse to flap for at least a minute while I looked for more. Just thought you should know, oh yep and then there was the time I put a worm on a hook and it squirmed in the water for almost an hour. (just in case you wont hunt with an unethical guy LOL)
 
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