Your most disturbing shooting/hunting trip?

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I've been lucky in that I hunt with a good bunch that don't take sloppy shots or intentionally wound animals. However, sometimes mistakes are made.

Once, during general firearms season, one of our guys shot at a deer and missed, breaking the deer's leg. This guy has made nothing but clean, ethical kills since I've known him. I don't know if his scope was off or he pulled the shot or what happened. Either way, another one in our group chased/tracked the deer over 3 or 4 ridges until he could make a killing shot. They shared the meat.

Another time, during early blackpowder season, another in our group was using a replica .58cal Springfield muzzleloader (I think that was the make, it's a type frequently used by CW reenactors) to hunt deer. He got a good, clear shot at a deer that was less than 50yds away. His shot was less than ideal (he hit the liver, but didn't penetrate the deer fully). The deer gets up, he reloads and shoots again, hitting the deer in the chest. Deer goes down, gets up again. He shoots it again. Now, he's out of reloads and can't do anything but wait. By this time, another in our group is coming up to help with the field dressing and "dragging out" duties. When hunter #2 shows up, the deer gets up and starts to wobble off. From all acounts, there was blood everywhere. Hunter #2 shoots and kills the deer. All three shots from the first rifle were killing shots, but the bullet/load didn't perform well. He has since switched to a better gun that can handle a larger charge. At the time, he was unaware that the replica gun's max charge was too low to hunt with.

Both times, the deer were not allowed to get away to suffer later. In the second case, my friend stopped hunting with that gun and bought a better one. You learn and move on.

We did meet one slob that should've been ejected from the GWNF forcefully. This was last early BP season and he came into our camp looking for people to help him track a wounded deer that he shot. He lost the blood trail at a creek and needed help finding it and following it further. We did so and tracked the wounded deer for a couple miles up the side of the mtn behind camp. It had started raining and the blood drops were getting smaller as well. After a few hours, we completely lost the track. We fanned out and went in the direction the deer appeared to be heading, but never found any new sign. Turns out, the slob made a neck shot and the deer was strong enough to keep pushing up the mtn and through the laurel. On the way back, we came across the carcass of a gutshot deer. Upon seeing it, the slob exclaims "there's the deer I shot yesterday, I knew he was around here somewhere". I never wanted to hurt someone so bad before. :fire:

BTW, we saw his truck in the area during general firearms season as well. He just can't take a hint. :banghead:

Chris
 
I quit hunting with a certain crowd, in fact I quit even associating with them period.

Cold winter misty morning I'm riding down in one of their 4x4s to duck hunt, I hear shots some distance behind me, but it didn't register, deer season was in progress too.

After I had noticed the fellas in the blind I was to share each had fifths of whiskey,seems as if this bunch had already taken a pretty good portion of the booze already.I decided to leave the blind and hunt alongside another, standing in the water. I fell a pair of greeheads making vocal my retrieval, blind closest said ok. I proceed out and I darn near had my head blown off while retrieving my ducks, because someone figured they could shoot over my head and that'd be ok.

I retreive the ducks ,waded to the other side and kept walking, 2 miles in mud and muck in waders is work. I see the deer, fresh kill from the direction I heard the shot earlier. The story I found out later is deer tended to cross this farm/field every morning about the same time.The time being about an hour before time to head to the duck blinds. Fellas would wait and give chase and shoot form moving vehicles. This buck had obviously figured this out and waited. His fatal mistake was thinking the fellas wouldn't shoot with guests an hour or so later.

Irony...these folks had money,old family money, held positions in the community, big business and public eye.
 
When I was new to deer hunting I took a shot at a really nice older whitetail buck. The buck kicked out with his hind legs and ran towards some brush, slowed to a walk and walked into the brush out of sight.

My dad did not see the shot and told me I probably missed because the deer ran off. We looked for blood or signs of a hit but could find none. I knew I hit the buck but could not find any proof. The next day we had to leave for home so I could not go back.

That spring the rancher found a 13 point buck carcass - mostly skeleton in the brush where I had seen the buck disappear into. I had wasted a beautiful deer and probably squandered my best opportunity for a trophy buck. I did not hunt deer again for many years.

It haunts me to this day.

The next deer hunt I went on, I went alone and shot a smaller 8 point buck. At the shot, it kicked up its hind legs and ran toward some brush, slowed to a walk and disappeared into the brush. I prayed that I would not lose another deer. I walked into the brush and found the deer dead from a double lung shot.

Now I mainly hunt deer for the meat, taking one maybe two doe a season. I will not take a shot that I am not sure I can make. I do not want to lose another deer, although I am fairly sure if I continue to hunt that it will happen again one of these days.
 
Let's see, ten years ago I would have been horrified reading your post. But like shalako, I have been desensitized. Just part of learning about life and death, I guess. Anyway, my bad stories include:

- My very first hunt for anything. I shot a nubbing buck through the back of the head and blew most of its nose and sinus cavity out. It quivered for a minute or two and I almost cried. I felt like I was going to be sick.

- On more than one duck hunt, I'll pick up a duck that I have shot that is still flopping around trying to fly off. Now, the standard method of dispatching a duck or goose is to grab its head and kind of spin it around the neck until your hear a pop. This is so you don't ruin the meat and also saves on ammo. A couple of times those dang ducks must have spines made of rubber. I'll think I have killed it and then in the duck blind I hear it still trying to flap its wings. Ugghh! Gives you a real sickening feel

- On a squirrel hunt I once wounded one of the furry tree rats and finished it off by decapitation with my hunting knife. Headless squirrel moving its legs is not a pretty sight.
 
I do have my oooh gross story too.

My friend and I were hunting 3 years ago and it is getting late in the day. We have seen many doe and a small spike. My friend decides if he sees a large enough doe, he will take her. Low and behold one walks right towards the blind and stops 25 yards away. Ask and ye shall receive.

My friend aims for the white spot at the top of the neck and squeezes off a shot. His .270 was zeroed in at 150 yards so it would hit about 2 - 4 inches high at 25 yards. Add in a little rise because he is shooting down from the blind at the doe. The bullet hits just under the doe's eye and it looks like the money shot from the Zapruder film. What a mess.

I look at my friend and say, "Good thing we left the camera in the car!"

Later we are hanging the doe in a tree to finish dressing her out. I am standing on a rickety ladder holding the doe up by the front legs while my friend tightens the rope. The ladder slips and I start to fall. The bloddy messy head drops straight down onto my friends head as I am falling. He gets quite the kiss from the doe. Again, what a mess.
 
Wes,
Thanks for the update. Yet, I still believe that if you can't FULLY identify your intended target, don't shoot. Of course, that philosophy cost me my one chance at an elk last year, but sometimes that's how life is. Overall, sounds like a lesson learned, and a mistake that won't be made twice.
 
Re-reading this thread reminded me of something. A few years ago, I was deer hunting with a crossbow in the morning, and a nice sized old buck walked right up on me right after sunrise. I was sitting against a tree in an old abandoned apple orchard. He got within 20 feet of me and then caught my scent. He started backing away, but then stopped and looked over his shoulder in the other direction. I pulled up the crossbow and fired. The arrow hit him higher than I expected it to, and severed his spine right behind his shoulders. He dropped like a rock, and started trying to pull himself up with his front legs, but he couldn't move anything else. He was moaning and groaning and breathing real heavy. I wanted to do something to end it, but I was afraid that I would spook him even more, and I didn't want to get gored either. After a couple of minutes he calmed down, and I could hear his lungs sucking air through the wound. I knew then that he wouldn't live much longer. He lived about five more minutes, but it seemed like five hours. I sat there with my head between my knees and listened as his breathing slowed and then ended. I did some praying that morning, and I think about it everytime I pull a trigger.
 
I have never shot to "wound an animal" has anyone? I shoot to kill and i am gratified by a well done stalk followed by an artfull shot that results in a clean quick kill. To see a wounded animal brings me distress and I go to any length to put that animal down.

Have I ever screwed up? You bet it happens to all of us if we hunt long enough. But to intentionally wound an animal or torment one that is. Well folks there is something wrong in that persons mind.

here's a few things I've learned over the years.
if you don't like to follow blood trails do the following.

1. Get as close as possible before shooting. Very few muff ups happen at close range.

2. Never use to light or to lightly constructed a bullet on anything. Bullet failure is a prime cause of wounded game.

3. If you like high velocity that's fine but see the above rule. Faster bullets must be tougher bullets.

4. Shot placement means getting the bullet to the vitals from any angle see above on bullets and velocity. Neck shots and head shots don't leave blood trails and wound more often than not. The old adage about neck/head shots of "either I killed him or I missed" is complete B.S. there is actually only a very small area on the head/face or neck that will kill the animal quickly

5. A little common sense goes a long way. I am not squeamish in any way nor do I appreciate a hunter who is. The uuuu gross it's bleeding crowd actually kinda bothers me. Of course it's bleeding you just SHOT IT!!

As far as the original post you could have saved your self a bunch of drama by just reaching down and snaping the rabbits neck or putting a foot on it.

And I don't think your going to hell ;)

I hope that you aren't going to quit hunting because of a moment of youthfull exuberance (SP?)

I also would guess that many of these replys will be used on some animal rights forum anytime now. :rolleyes:
 
I also would guess that many of these replys will be used on some animal rights forum anytime now.
Click to expand...

By this I didn't mean to belittle any post on this thread and I am including mine in this statement. It's just that this is the kind of ammo the other side loves to use.
 
Art,

True fact. And it is a healthy disscusion at that. And one which has made me think.
 
Rabbits do make a horrible noise when they're injured. I've hunted them a few times but they always went out quick and painless from my dad's model 12.

I worked as a landscaper in college and the guy I worked for hit one with a line trimmer while trimming around some bushes. Lopped his ears right off and scalped his back. That thing squealed and flopped around. Being on the job we didn't have anything to finish it off with quickly except for a shovel. That did it in with one swipe.

The last deer I ever killed went down wounded. It took me forever to crawl over boulders and through mountain laurel to get to it. It died just as I got there. The sounds it made ended my deer hunting for good.
 
Regarding rabbit noise: Don't worry about it too much. They have one volume-screaming baby loud. I used to have a pet rabbit that made that noise whenever I had to extract him from under bushes when we had let him out of his cage. He'd scream like a coyote was grabbing him despite the fact that he had gone through it several times before. He wasn't being hurt either (I was the one getting scratched).
I've heard one or two wild cottontails scream since (usually while foxes were snacking on them). I just remember those scratches and my pity melts away.
 
Golgo-13 and all.

Art suggested that people on this thread try reading Ortega y Gasset.

I agree

One of his statements was that the hunter does not hunt in order to kill,,,, but he kills in order to have hunted.

You are in error when you assume that varmint hunters enjoy death . They enjoy a different form of hunting which as more meaning to them than shooting at paper targets............... Get me or do I need to explain?

I know what it is to kill large numbers for no other reason than that they needed killing. Try putting several hundred sheep in a pen and slaughtering them all for no other reason than that they were valueless and cost too much to feed.
Primary emotions are sadness at the waste and a little ordinary nausea. Please don't give me any rubbish about "enjoying" death .

Yet I intensely enjoy hunting and varminting.

I'll maintain that much of the morbid oversensitivity that we see these days - and that threatens our hunting - follows from our society's lack of connection with the real world.
Surely it's some form of arrogance to assume that somehow everything can be made perfect, even our food-gathering activities. What's needed is a sense of realism and responsibility that accepts that our very existence involves the suffering and death of thousands of living creatures.

I wonder what you'd say to a hunter-gatherer who frequently has the options only of taking a risky shot, or using snares that are potentially sublethal,,,, or watching his family go hungry.??
I wonder what you'd say to someone engaged in rabbit control during during the plagues we had here in the 50's. Rabbits were allowed no more consideration than insects. Dug, suffocated and crushed as their warrens were ripped with machinery, dogged, poisoned, gassed, clubbed , shot with the cheapest ammunition available. The only alternatives were that the rabbits starved through overpopulation (along with livestock) or death through disease. There were no easy or painless options .

Yes death can be messy (outside of Disneyland)
Yes it can be painful.

But no, I see no reason why I should not enjoy some parts of a process that involve death just because it isn't scripted for TV with the messy bits edited out. Nor will I back off because hunting isn't a perfect process which may involve me taking moral responsibility for a muffed shot or any one of the intangibles that are involved in a less-than-perfect result.

In deep dudgeon (almost ;-] ).............. Peter
 
When I was growing up, the only "hunting" I did was shooting rabbits and gophers to keep the little buggers from eating my family's garden. Some of the shots I took were at really close range. I'm talking less than five feet. Ever seen what an oz of #8's does to a gopher at that distance? Body in two parts, a couple feet away from each other with some of the guts laying on the ground in-between.
You get used to it. I've never lost any sleep over those images, or about the fact that I couldn't eat the the filthy little vermin. I just whacked 'em, chucked the carcass over the fenceline, and enjoyed my homegrown carrots.
 
Not exactly" hunting"...

I was killing a duck (domesticated) with a .20 guage and instead of a clean shot that neatly blew it's head right off, blew just the bill off. It looked exactly like a daffy duck cartoon where he get's his bill blown off except it wasn't at all funny.
 
I think I wrote...

about this on TFL a while back but...

A few years back I was hunting over a fresh cut corn field. I was hunting with an 8mm Mauser. It's an old turkish military rifle I had the bolt turned down on and drilled and tapped for a scope. Made it into my long range hunting rifle and it's dead on at 200 yards, but you've got to have something to rest it on since it weighs something like 9 and half pounds.

I'm hunting from a ditch when a doe walks out maybe 160 yards away or so. I rest, breathe easy and take the shot. I watched her turn a couple of times and start running back into the woods with something really big hanging down under her belly.

As I start to track her I'm finding blood and stomach matter everywhere. To make it worse, she was walking through some unbelievable thorn bushes. I finally found her maybe 150 yards in the woods laying there looking at me, breathing heavily. I had hit her too low and back and it had opened up her skin to let everything out.

Because of the thick brush I couldn't take my rifle in with me (remember, it's an 8mm and almost 6 feet long) so I had to finish her off with my knife.

I've never felt so horrible in my life. It did two things: gave me a greater appreciation for how little you can be off in the scope but how far you can be off on target when you're shooting at long ranges, and it gave me a renewed interest in practicing at long ranges.
 
When my father was alive he liked to fry up an occasional squirrel or stew them with dumplings. Even though I didn't like eating them he would send me out hunting, to bring back one or two for his supper. The last one I ever shot was when I was 17 and it wasn't a clean hit. I had to chase it down and shoot it again with my 20 gauge.

I quit squirrel hunting then and haven't missed it. I suppose I would again if it was a matter of subsistance, but to tell the truth I kind of like watching them play in the trees. Same with rabbits. A good electric fence keeps them out of the garden so I have no quarrel with them.

The only things I ever hunt now are deer and predators, the former to eat and the latter (especially feral cats) to keep them in control so birds, mice and rabbits won't have such a hard time reproducing.

I think mankind has to understand his place in the universe is both a carnivore and a steward of life. We were created to foster order and not to increase disorder.:)
 
Out hunting this season a buddy of mine was using his dads 7mm-08 which he doesnt normally hunt with. Hes used to hunting with his 220 swift or 270, both of which have a much flatter trajectory than the 7mm. Anyway he takes a shot at a spike buck to fill his doe tag at about 200 yards and takes both its front legs out instead. Bullet hit right through both knees, completely severing one leg and the other was barely hanging on. Deer was in an open field so it wasnt getting away but it sure looked crazy trying to run with no front legs. He finished it off about 30 seconds later with a well placed lung shot.

One thing to remember and anyone who has ever actually been shot will confirm this, The animal is in shock for the first several minutes after being shot and not really feeling any pain, as horrible as it might look you dont have to worry about the animal suffering on some of these nasty first shots like described above. Only thing I really feel bad about is if an animal gets away injured, then it could linger for hours or even days. :(
 
An afterthought: I see a lot more evidence of animal suffering on the side of highways than I ever have seen hunting. Critters from deer down to mice get wounded and left to die by the thousands every day. I thought about that a couple of days ago when I ran over what was left of a deer on the road.
 
MeekandMild, that's a very good point. I was watching some show on TLC or the Discovery Channel yesterday called "dirty jobs." They were going around with one of the crews that cleans up dead roadkill. I thought it was kinda weird how callous the host was (making jokes about one deer that had been disemboweled and had it's front leg broken in half). It kinda made me wonder if people watching this show would turn around and say how awful hunting is.

On topic: I don't have any stories since I've only been hunting once, and I wasn't even carrying a gun, but I can tell a short one about my dad. In ~1982 my dad was deer hunting on public land on the first day of deer season. He had barely gotten to the spot he was going to hunt when he heard an ambulance coming through a field. A young teenager had been shot out of a TREESTAND by someone in his own party. After that, my dad packed up his stuff and left and he didn't hunt again until this past fall when we went with a co-worker of his who hunts on private property and knows the few other people who hunt on the land.
 
I replied to this a while back but thought I'd add something else.

Some of the stories in this thread are a little gross, but they are things that happen despite best intentions. All of you guys are alright by me, you show far more respect for and understanding of nature than many people who would be horrified by these stories yet without the faintest clue as to how the meat on their plate got there.
 
For sure, St. Johns, for sure.

If you think about all the stories in this thread, though, you see a lot of object lessons where folks learned what not to do in the future. One hopes that others can learn by reading, and not have to learn from making the same mistake themselves.

Which is part of why THR is here.

:), Art
 
We don't hunt there anymore...

It was a Sunday night in the mid-1960’s, the end of opening weekend. My best friend and I had spent the weekend in the Los Padres National Forest north of Los Angeles on our first deer hunt by ourselves, without the usual mob of parents, uncles, cousins, siblings, friends, and friends of friends. Ah, to actually make decisions, not merely abide by them! It was glorious, even if we were skunked.

We hunted right up to the sunset plus thirty minute limit before breaking camp, so it was late and we were tired when we finally hit the road. The first order of business was to boost caffeine and blood sugar, so we stopped at the first roadhouse we came to for pie and coffee.

The Gorman Café was packed when we arrived but turnover soon let us get seats at the counter. In one corner booth were six or seven hunters, very loud and working on very drunk, at least two hip flasks making frequent circuits around the table, "sweetening" the coffee.

As my friend and I had our pie and coffee, another group of hunters entered. There was a very loud exchange of greetings as the new group and the group in the corner recognized each other. Then there was THE EXCHANGE: a new arrival shouted "Did you get anything?" at the gang in the corner. The answer came back loud and clear:


"Naw, we didn’t see anything. We got some sound shots, though!"
 
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