Bow Hunter Failure - Mauled by Bear

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Double Naught Spy

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This happens to gun hunters as well, the difference being gun hunters often have better opportunity for emergency follow-up shots than bow hunters.

It is always good to keep your composure and to be sure of your kill before making the rookie mistake of running up to it to see how well you did. This "experienced" hunter got his answer and it was not what he was expecting. His haste in checking out his "kill" resulted in apparently significant injuries to his face, arms, and torso.

In my experience, you virtually never read of a bear attack (defensive of offensive) on a human where the human didn't need time at the hospital or in the morgue. This is NOT the kind of mistake you want to make.

I know people hate to do it, but it is far better to deliver a 2nd, well aimed follow-up on a downed animal to assure that it is fully dead than to be in a position of needing to make an emergency defensive shot to save your own life.



Other links...
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/calif-hunter-mauled-black-bear-bow-arrow-archery-13188577.php
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bear-attack-20180828-story.html#
 
Stupid is what stupid does. Almost every year during the gun deer season around here, you hear stories about anxious hunters going up to downed deer and getting a sharp hoof to the face or horned in the chest/stomach. Have a good friend of mine many years back that was run up a tree by a buck he arrowed and blood trailed too soon. Since he left his bow back at the stand when he went to trail it, the deer kept him up the tree for several hours while he hollered in vain for help. Finally, the buck walk away and my friend was able to go back to his stand, get his bow, get back on the bloodtrail(there was snow on the ground) and get another arrow in it and put it down for good. He still has a scar on his back from the bucks antler that got him as he tried to get up the tree. I never hesitate to put another arrow or bullet in any large animal still moving.
 
This is why I usually wait 20-30 min before chasing down a critter if I'm confident in my shot placement. It gives me enough time to let the nerves settle,regain composter, and let the animal die. If I'm not confident in my shot I may wait a little longer to avoid jumping them or pushing then further out if they are not dead yet. If the animal does take off like a bat outta hell out , qnd is out of my sight line I do get out of it stand after 5min or so and go to where they where hit to check out the blood and signs of where I actually hit the animal. At that point I wait a little longer and am usually calling my father or brother to let then know what is up .

I hope the man who was mauled recovers well. But takes away a lesson learned.
 
if i shot a bear id be very careful when approaching it with the bow drawn or rifle. then cut the throat. there is a man around here that shot a buck with his new weatherby mark v. think it was a 300 to. hr put the rifle on the antlers for some photos and the deer woke u and ran off with the gun. don't think they ever found it. wish i new the spot id go looking lol. never had a mark v haha.
 
I have had "dead" hogs get up on me and disappear. However, my favorite hog story happened to a buddy of mine. They had killed 7 or 8 hogs and loaded them up in the back of the truck after getting pictures. They drove to another piece of property where the landowner wanted the carcasses dumped. They had unloaded a few when my buddy turned to grab the next hog and realized one of the hogs was very much alive and standing up in the the back of the truck. It hopped out of the truck and took off in a stagger. They were able to chase it down and kill it a second time with their pistols.

I now visually check for breathing or other signs of life and if none are present, check blink reflex. If all criteria are met, am convinced the hog is dead. When in doubt at any point, it gets shot again.
 
A friend of mine tells a story where he and his father were following a friend (we’ll call him Joe) in a pickup truck. Presently a small deer runs out in front of Joes truck and gets hit. Times being hard and all, a deer down meant meat, so the deer goes into the back of joes truck, and for some inexplicable reason, Joe ties a small piece of rope around the neck, securing the dead deer to the truck.

Several miles down the road, my friend pipes up “Daddy, when did Mr. Joe get a dog?”. “Joe ain’t got no dog, you know that!”
Right about that time, Joe sees the deer awake in the back of his truck trying desperately to jump out, but to no avail. Remember, the deer was tied to the bed of the truck. So Joe decides the only sensible action at this time was to kill the deer, however there was nothing handy to accomplish the task at hand. The first thing found would just have to do. Of course, the first thing found was a beer bottle lying in the ditch. Old Joe proceeds to do his worst on the poor little deer wailing on it’s head with that beer bottle. My friends dad watched for a short time, just couldn’t stand it anymore, and said “Joe, you are never going to kill that deer with that bottle, it’s a lite beer!”
 
When dealing with critters capable of causing great bodily harm shoot the animal again.

i've seen too many "dead" hogs get up and disappear: Won't hesitate to shoot it again. Had a bad experience with a 250 pound boar in the dark in 2003. Most of my hogs are shot in the late evening: Ain't searching for shot hogs in the dark.
 
Ive never had a deer run out of sight before it dropped mainly because I hunt fields. If it was running out of sight I would take my sweet time, regardless of animal. Bust out the cigar.
 
Ive never had a deer run out of sight before it dropped mainly because I hunt fields. If it was running out of sight I would take my sweet time, regardless of animal. Bust out the cigar.

Running out of sight is pretty much the norm for a arrow hit animal, even when hunting fields. Only deer I've ever had drop in their tracks when bow hunting were due to a errant spine hit. Many times, I heard the deer go down after I lost sight of it, but very seldom did I see a deer go down from a boiler room shot with a bow. Those errant spine hits meant a immediate follow up shot as most spine hits with a bow(unless you hit far back) are slow to kill. Even those shots I knew were spot on, I'd give the universal half to hour wait before I went after it. That generally would give me time to take my portable stand and other equipment back to the truck, and grab the sled for dragging the deer out. Gun hunting not so much.....cause that's a whole different potato. Shot my first buck with a bow when I was 14 back in 1968. Made the big mistake of following it right away. Back then the recurve bows, wooden arrows and old bear broadheads were not as efficient as today's equipment. I pushed that buck for 4 hours and 2 miles. It was just luck and an early snow that made retrieving the buck possible. Still had to put another arrow in him when I caught up to him. Learned my lesson early and well.
 
What is this trend to shoot animals with the absolute minimum of weapons? Cave man may have hunted bears with bows, but they understood death by infection, and hunting a bear was an exceptional risk. This hunter is lucky he still lives in a world with antibiotics.

I am surprised the bear did not have hominid for lunch.

oWArxYz.jpg
 
What is this trend to shoot animals with the absolute minimum of weapons? Cave man may have hunted bears with bows, but they understood death by infection, and hunting a bear was an exceptional risk. This hunter is lucky he still lives in a world with antibiotics.

Hunting with a bow is not a "new" trend. In modern times is an acceptable way to hunt/manage game. Probably the reason so many states have separate archery seasons. They realize it is a highly effective way to mange game populations while greatly increasing the opportunity for hunters to hunt......and that's kinda what bow hunting is about, the hunt. Folks criticize me the same way because I only hunt deer with handguns(well, I also still use a bow).They say why use a handgun and delegate yourself to 150 yards or less when you could use your ol' ought-six and be much more successful? These are folks that hunt for the kill, not the hunt. Very few of us need to kill game to survive. Most of us could buy top shelf beef for less than what we spend to get our venison every year. If it weren't for the thrill of the hunt....it would be called work. The reason the hunter was attacked was not because he was using the "absolute" minimum of weapons. It was because he was foolish enough to walk up to an undead and angry bear. Coulda happened with a foolish hunter and a .300 mag.
 
Just wanted to add a coupla more, "getting to 'em before they are dead" stories that happened to folks close to me.

Before I was old enough to hunt, my dad came home from deer hunting one day early. This is something he never did unless he filled his tag.(this was when he hunted by himself and long before group hunting(using someone else's tag) was legal here). When I ran out to see how big his deer was, the bed of the truck was empty and my dad was in a foul mood. When he was like that, you learned not to ask questions. Wasn't till a few days later he told the story of shooting a nice buck and then proceeded to tag it.(Wisconsin still requires a tag to be attached to the deer before gutting/moving the animal) He no sooner snapped the metal tag closed on the gambrel of the buck, when he jumped up and ran off with his tag. Never saw the deer or the tag again. No venison for us that year.

Other one involves my mom. My mom loved to hunt and fish. While she was an accomplished squirrel hunter, she was a very poor deer hunter. Probably had to do with using that ol model 97 shotgun most of the time. She did get one nice buck in her lifetime tho, a dandy heavy and wide 8 pointer that hung on our living room wall forever. It now hangs on my baby brother's wall. The one noticeable thing about it's rack, was that one of the brow tine's is missing. My mom shot that buck while hunting with my grandpa when she was just 18 years old. My grandpa said he heard ma shoot, and ran over to where her stand to find her standing over this huge buck. He quickly slit it's throat(as they always did back then) and then field dressed it and hung it in the barn. Wasn't until later when he was skinning and butchering it, that he realized there wasn't any gun shot wounds on the body.....anywhere. The taxidermist that mounted the head said the same thing about the hide he took for the mount. No bullet holes anywhere.....only a freshly broken brow tine. Grandpa realized that odds are, he slit the throat on a deer that was only knocked unconscious and had he taken a tad more time getting there or hadn't slit the throat, it coulda been ugly when the buck came to.
 
Grandpa realized that odds are, he slit the throat on a deer that was only knocked unconscious and had he taken a tad more time getting there or hadn't slit the throat, it coulda been ugly when the buck came to.
I joke about my buddy killing a Mouflon with a tree (28+" also). We were on the Kahuku ranch hunt, which is one of the better hunts out here.
A herd of sheep were running by and he shot, we were both tracking the herd as this is an eradication shoot. After the shooting stopped i went to check the areas we fired in. He thought he missed, but i found a ram crumpled right at the base of an Ohia tree.
The guide and i were dragging it back to the side buy and my buddy asked where he hit it, so i checked it for a bullet hole and couldnt find one. I cut its throat at that point, and we left it where it was for a bit....I dont remeber it twitching....
I went back to look at the tree, and about 3' up there was a fresh impact mark. His shot missed but was close enough to cause the ram to jump headlong into tree.
 
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Bowhunting would mean a minimum half-hour wait so the critter can bleed out, if you know you hit it well. Even gun hunters get fooled like I did 20-something years ago approaching a whitetail buck I'd just shot. Walked up to it and could see no signs whatsoever of breathing or any other signs of life. Studied it for a minute and took one step closer to it and that thing leaped up like it was spring loaded. Scared the heck out of me.... still had my 12 ga. 870 in one hand by my side and quickly fired from the hip, just like in the movies..... and in my startled rush promptly fired right over the top of that deer at a range of about 3 feet but was able to finish things with the next shot. But that day taught me a lesson and I don't plan on having a repeat of that scenario again.
 
If the deer isn't dead yet, walking up to it will get it's adrenaline up and consequently the meat won't taste as good.
 
And what do you do when the eye-ball-touching test shows you the bear is still alife and angry at people poking him in the eye? :what:

(I thought the whole essence of this topic was about NOT walking into the danger zone....?)

Greetings
Carsten
 
And what do you do when the eye-ball-touching test shows you the bear is still alife and angry at people poking him in the eye? :what:

(I thought the whole essence of thiss topic was about NOT walking into the danger zone....?)

Greetings
Carsten

Eyeball touching is a final assessment method, after other assessments such as observing that the animal has not moved for a period and not being able to detect any respiration. It is the last thing you do before committing yourself to kneeling down next to the animal for photographs, butchering, or to try to attach a rope/drag, or grabbing a leg for hauling out the animal.

If the deer isn't dead yet, walking up to it will get it's adrenaline up and consequently the meat won't taste as good.

If the deer isn't dead yet, its adrenaline already dumped.
 
I used to anchor pheasant with a second shot after they hit the ground. About 50% of the time they would run. A broken wing doesn't slow them down much on the ground.

One of the reasons I finally got a dog. No more second shots needed.

Lots of people around here hunt bears with dogs or used to. Don't know what the pavement dwellers did to the game laws in the last 10 years. May be illegal now. I do know that the contract hunters won't hunt a problem cougar without dogs.
 
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