"I shot 4 or 5 deer a day. I used a 22 LR"

I believe that's called Bravo Sierra.

He was probably just showin' off by gettin' that close. I don't mess around like that. I just test the wind with a wet finger, lick my front sight post to cut the glare, shoot 'em through the eyeball from about 200 yards, and ride on.

'Course, through the eyeball's 'bout the only way t'kill a Texas moose with a .22.

Sounds like that guy needs to be shot! Taking body shots on deer with a 22LR is about as unethical as any practice I am aware of.

Not that I condone what he did. But I have no doubts about his the ability to do so. There is an area near home criss crossed by at least 100 miles of biking/walking/horseback riding trails. It is covered up in deer. I can run or ride my bike on the trails and see dozens of deer each day. They are so used to people they will move just enough to get out of your way. If I wanted to I could easily shoot that many a day with a 22 pistol carried in a pack.

I know a lot of "night hunters" who have always prefered a cheap 22 because it is quieter and does not attract a lot of attention when shot at night. If they toss into the woods to avoid being caught poaching they haven't lost much. Based on their experiences it puts down deer very well at close range.

I dont call anyone a lier except to his face. Just the way I was raised. I have no doubt it could be done but i cant see any situation where it would need to be done. I shoot alot of deer each year myself but take pride in using the proper tool to do it. I also dont believe in the ethics argument. If its legal its none of my business how someone does something but in this case i think the poster should have enough sense to keep it to himself as anti hunters read these posts. One thing else to keep in mind that theres a big differnce in hunting and culling deer. In many places hogs are shot to just get rid of them. Lots of people shoot them and let them run off to die and arent chastised for doing it. Deer in some places can be just as much of a problem to farmers crops. So i guess you have to tell me what the differnce is. Same goes for groundhogs and prarie dogs. Most people shooting them dont get wound up about one or two running off wounded so I guess you have to explain to me what the diffence is. Im sure pigs and PDogs suffer just as much as deer do. Another thing to keep in mind in this guys defense is hes a step above most rifleman and probably could outshoot most of us. Is it less ethical for him to shoot a deer in the heart with a 22 then some here to blase away at 400 yards and gut shoot deer with a 7mag?? I tend to go the other way if anything and use a gun bigger then what I need to cull deer. I figure that if i loose a couple lbs of meat each time its no big deal and doing so insures that the deer dont suffer but believe it or not i take flack for that on these fourms too. Lastly if you read this on another fourm and are posting here kind of behind his back maybe you should at least if you cant say it to his face post your disagreement on the fourm you read it on.

I'd be careful how much I boast about killing/shooting deer with a .22 - I know that it's pretty illegal in a lot of states. And what about "They just kept grazing after they were shot"? Sounds just as bad as spraying deer with birdshot. All those deer have to look forward to is infection, and a slow death. It's a waist of ammo and a waist of good meat.

No telling what you'll run across on the Internet. Generally, such stories aren't worth worrying about.

True story, though: My grandfather knew very little about guns. He had only an el cheapo .22 rifle, used for varmints around the hen house.

However, returning home from his school principal job one day, he looked into the pasture below the house and saw a small buck. He took the .22 and then worked his elderly plow horse slowly toward the deer. At fairly close range, he shot the deer. I know no more about it, other than the deer died and wound up as table meat. This would have been sometime in 1942. His one and only deer.

He's on crack

One of my in-laws said that he never wanted to go deer hunting because he got his "fill" having to stay up all night and shoot deer when he farmed watermelons in south Florida. There was a drought going on and they irrigated their 80 acres of melons so every night the deer invaded the field and ate the vines. To save the crop he said he killed over 100 deer using a .22 while shining them from the tractor. Then he had to dig a hole with the bulldozer to bury them so the law wouldn't bust him.
I think it's true.

I'd about turn him in.. send the link to the fish and game. They'll find him.
I heard that some people got in big doodoo bragging on the internet about how they killed all kinds of raptors that'd kill their pigeons. This stuff happens.

What do you think of this post I found on another forum?

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I can't post what I think on THR. That oughta tell you.

I just got "Bravo Sierra." Excellent comment, sir.

A .22lr will certainly kill a deer, if you make a head shot. I used to know a guy, now deceased, who told of poaching deer with a .22 rifle this way, said he'd pop 'em in the ear and down they'd go. Guess when you're poor and hungry, and live in a remote area, ethics sometimes take a back seat to eating.

One of my in-laws said that he never wanted to go deer hunting because he got his "fill" having to stay up all night and shoot deer when he farmed watermelons in south Florida. There was a drought going on and they irrigated their 80 acres of melons so every night the deer invaded the field and ate the vines. To save the crop he said he killed over 100 deer using a .22 while shining them from the tractor. Then he had to dig a hole with the bulldozer to bury them so the law wouldn't bust him.
I think it's true.

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You know, if you have a crop depredation permit it becomes perfectly lawful/ethical to kill very large numbers of deer that threaten your crops.

I know several landowners who have found such permits to be very helpful. Seems I've eaten a lot of those evil thieving deer over the years. Plenty more than I've shot in "sport."

Guess when you're poor and hungry, and live in a remote area, ethics sometimes take a back seat to eating.

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Agreed.
I would turn in a poacher in a heartbeat if he was doing it for sport. But if a man's hungry and trying to get food, it's none of my business.

I don't know about Bravo Sierra story, but it would make a great SyFy channel movie of the week. Rancher disgruntled by the pestilence of over-populated deer goes on a vigilante rampage, shooting 4 or 5 deer a day. Coyote scavenge the deer, increase in population, then when they cease finding free deer carcases (the deer have been depopulated) the coyotes start beseiging ranches at night. There are worse things than Bravo Sierra stories: there are SyFy channel movies of the week.

Guess when you're poor and hungry, and live in a remote area, ethics sometimes take a back seat to eating.

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In the area of the old homeplace in the 1950s, deer had practically disappeared and no-one I knew as a kid went deerhunting. Old folks told me something called the Great Depression caused it. Recent decades though, the deer population has bounced back and deer season finds hunters in the woods in greater numbers it seems every year. I guess the stock market crash of 1929 squashed a lot of deer.

My uncles put down their hogs for slaughter using a Savage .22 bolt-action rifle. With butcher's knowledge of animal anatomy and mortality, the .22 is weapon enough.

I could believe it. animals react a bit differently to horses than pickups. some animals just don't know better, especially in areas that are only accessable by horseback where the animals don't have a lot of human interaction. if the fellow was killing 3-4 deer a day then I'm guessing that they were severely overpopulated and he was thinning populations out. a starving animal isn't going to run from anything unless it knows for sure that it's being targeted, they just don't have the strength for more than a few short bursts to try and escape predators. growing up dirt poor in montana we ate almost nothing but game meat, home ground flour and garden veggies. living on the reservation it was not hard to ask some indian friends to go out and get us something, most of them hunted year round anyway and did it regardless of whether they were going to use the meat or not... the weapon of choice was almost always a 22lr and we rarely got a animal with ruined meat.

when I read stories like that it is easy to think that it's just BS but I also know that anything is possible. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind really killing deer in the number claimed and just letting them rot unless it was for population control but that's probably a topic for another thread.

Kachok said:

Sounds like that guy needs to be shot! Taking body shots on deer with a 22LR is about as unethical as any practice I am aware of.

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For making a wild claim? Even if true? The man should be executed? This is the worst human behavior you've ever been made aware of?

I recall a number of true life cases of small child kidnappings that proceeded into numerous rapes and brutal torture then eventually concluded in horrific murder. The darkest evils that I've come across makes poaching deer look like charity. Google 'young girl kidnapped raped tortured murdered'. What you find will make you wish evil men would ONLY shoot deer with rimfire rifles.

Sounds like that guy needs to be shot! Taking body shots on deer with a 22LR is about as unethical as any practice I am aware of.

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I agree that this is a little bit of a over reaction to what we don't even know is poaching. there is just not enough information to tell if he was a game warden or contractor performing lawful population control or if he's some old timer that did it before there ever was hunting licenses and tags in his state.

also hunting ethics are about the farthest thing from an exact science as you can get. there is nothing unethical about hunting with a 22lr as long as you make good hits montana has no caliber restrictions for hunting and as I have already stated I have seen dozens of animals killed with a 22lr and almost none of them were head shots. what you may find unethical is not necessarily what someone else may find unethical. I've seen guys claim that 300 win mag is the best deer rifle around and called me unethical for using a 243... nough said...

rondog said:

I believe that's called Bravo Sierra.

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I still sat we need a like button !...............

So if he shot them twice with a 30-06 and rode off it'd be all better?

That's why the .22's are not even legal.

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Not entirely true. I know of at least one state off the top of my head where .22lr rimfire is a legal method of taking big game.

The Win 63 is a hell of a rifle and not likely something a wanton killer would use, whether you like it or not there's still sustenance hunting going on and a fundamental right IMHO