How many have you shot?

How many head of big game have you harvested?

  • 0..I'm still trying for my first one.

    Votes: 37 13.3%

  • 1 - 20

    Votes: 123 44.2%

  • 21 - 40

    Votes: 51 18.3%

  • 41 - 60

    Votes: 29 10.4%

  • 61 -80

    Votes: 9 3.2%

  • 81 - 100

    Votes: 6 2.2%

  • Over 100 ...

    Votes: 23 8.3%
  • Total voters
    278
joe-nwt said:
Flipping coins? Are you on crack?
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No, I'm not sure that I'd know crack if I saw it. :p My point is this: if a shot is not quickly fatal it is either a miss or a wound. There are no other options. The only ways to guarantee no wounds is to either never miss again, or never shoot again. Achieve perfection or quit. Otherwise the odds will get you sooner or later. That is where the odds/luck and coin flipping reference come in. Luck will run out.
A high percentage of the poll respondants haven't shot enough game to know if they can make 19 shots out of twenty. Wounding is the ugly side of hunting, but it is real. Most game departments use 25% minimum when they assign tag numbers. Who wants to admit to being average?
 
Up here in the big land, I've been hunting since I was old enough to hold a rifle. Since I was 18 I've gottin' about 40 caribou, (between Labrador City and Nain) and 4 moose out on the "Island" with my uncle. Alot of good stories and nice meals along the way too. Nothing better than a good rost in the oven..................:runaway:
 
Heck, I'm not proud and I'll tell it like it is. I've missed two whitetails that I think were hits. Couldn't find any blood with either one of them, so I couldn't track them. I also shot a cow moose that I lost and miraculously found 1 week later and finished the job that I had so badly started. This isn't bragging, I consider myself a very good hunter, good shot etc, etc, but #### happens to the best of us.
 
12 whitetail bucks:D
2 whitetail does(LEH)
6 black bears
1 Grizzly Bear:D
4 cougars:cool: (the four legged type!):p
1 cow Elk
1 mulie buck

Been at it since 1981 :rockOn:
 
JohnS said:
12 whitetail bucks:D
2 whitetail does(LEH)
6 black bears
1 Grizzly Bear:D
4 cougars:cool: (the four legged type!):p
1 cow Elk
1 mulie buck

Been at it since 1981 :rockOn:
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So far, everything I have shot at has been recovered, nothing has gone more that 50 yards. But I guess if I hunt long enough, I might get the wrong toss of the coin.......
 
Dogleg said:
No misses? You are to be congratulated!
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Hard as it may be to believe, no misses. But I don't shoot at moving game and mostly only take standing broadside shots. I am pretty certain most of the time I'm looking at a dead animal in the scope when I pull the trigger. I pass on many shots I'm not happy with also.

That's it.
 
I think handgun shooting, in a sport like bullseye target can be a help to the hunter. The level of concentration needed to get perfect sight alignment is a good practice point.
I shoot running game, I've missed before, and likely will again. To date, I have not knowingly wounded anything. But, I have participated in a number of recovery missions, some that lasted days. Practice makes perfect? Not really, but it helps. Sometimes the perfect shot, just doesn't work out as planned. I also believe in more than one shot, if the game does not fall imediately, or if the supposedly dead game will be out of sight during your aproach, because of terrain. I have had game get up after a shot, in one case, the deer was ten feet from me, laying supposedly dead. The dogs were still running, so I elected to stay in my stand for a bit. After about five minutes, I heard a noise, and turned to see my deer attempting to make his escape on his two front legs. Back broken behind the front shoulder. Head shot ended that quickly.
 
I have missed a pile of deer when I first started hunting.Eleven in one day.Seven of those came out to me at once on a chase.I nearly vibrated out of my boots with the FEVER.The FEVER is quite the thing.If only you could bottle it.
I have missed on other occassions on running deer,and like JYC said probably will again.


I did wound one I never got.That was the same year after missing so many I had my rifle taken away and was given a shotgun(buckshot).A doe and a fawn came out.I got the fawn and wounded the doe.It only bled for a bit and quit.My father tracked it to a pond where it went in.We walked around the whole pond and came up empty.That leaves you with an awful knot in you belly.Still bothers me to this day.
 
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Johnny Y Canuck,
Have you found the dogs to be a big help in recovering deer? The closest I'll been to that was blood trailing dogs that never got used. Their use is common in some countries though.
 
Dogleg, first as you can tell I'm not John:rolleyes:
but I hunt the same type of terrian & method he does.
For us, NO we don't track wounded game with a dog.
If it is wounded & gets out of sight you don't know how bad.
If you put a dog on it & it's hit hard, adrealine will kick in & it'll get up & go, quite often to water to hide it's scent where you do lose it.
We put 3-4 guys on it, 1-2 right on the blood trail, usually I track hoof-prints if possible & some-one who's not colorblind:rolleyes: tracks blood. The other 1-2 guys spread out 50-100' on either side & do nothing but watch ahead to get a shot if the game jumps ups. That seems to work for our camp if we have to chase a wounded animal.

Sorry for the thread highjack :runaway: :p
 
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:wave:

Started in '87...

48 animals in total

13 Moose
13 Mule Deer
11 Whitetail
5 Black bears
2 Walrus
1 Mountain Goat
1 Elk
1 Caribou
1 Polar bear

Six bow kills and the rest with a rifle...

As for misses, my aim was way off :redface: with the rifle thrice and once with the bow and unfortunately I have wounded :( one moose and two black bears (bow, range miscalculations)...

Cheers,

longrifle
 
I've been hunting big game for 11 years, have taken 6 whitetails and one black bear. I missed two deer cleanly and almost had a nervous breakdown when the "dead" bear got up and ran away while I was busy congratulating myself on a perfect shot ( both lungs, he only went thirty yards)
 
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