Quality shootin' and quality trackin'

[GregR]

After talking to several other hunters I'm beginning to wonder if some of these guys should even be in the woods.

One of my co-workers unloaded his gun at an 8 pointer running through the brush. He hit the deer and tried to track it for 15 minutes but felt he needed to get back in his stand. His father called him four days later to let him know they found his deer...not 20 yards from where he gave up. He acted like it was no big deal!

I've talked to other hunters with this same mentality. If they can't find their deer in X number of minutes they just get back in stand and wait for the next one. A few of these guys have told me straight out that if there isn't snow on the ground they can't track a wounded deer. [PoorWordUsage]? Maybe there needs to be a required class in tracking much like the firearms safety classes.

I know sometimes things happen that mess up a clean shot or make it very difficult to find a wounded deer, but some of these people don't even try for either.

Sorry about the rant, just had to get it off my chest.

Greg

[Steve Foss]

I was hunting about 10 years ago and thought I led a doe quartering away from me 40 yards away just right.

I went to the spot she was at when I shot and tracked her across a field and into the shelter belt on the other side. Total tracking about 1/2 mile. There was no blood. She slowed to a trot, then a walk, but did not stop and weave around or anything. I gave it up, figuring I'd missed.

Another hunter in our party found her dead the next morning within 100 yards of where I gave up. At least, we figured it had to be her, since no one else was hunting that land and no one else in our party had shot at a deer anywhere else around.

She was hit high in the back about a foot behind the vitals area but below the spine. There was no exit wound, and we found the .30-30 slug against the inside of the skin on the other side. There was only a small spot of blood where she fell.

It was the first time I ever lost a deer, and it felt horrible. I was so glad we found her the next day It was cold that night, and the meat was fine. I don't shoot at running deer anymore. I also don't shoot a .30-30 anymore. It should have left an exit wound, even if it had to go through two (soft) ribs, and a blood trail.

Bowhunting, I have tracked a deer for 3 hours by flashlight before finding him. Most any other bowhunter will say the same. If you can' track a deer by following its trail through the leaf duff on the forest floor, especially when there's a blood trail, however small, it's time to get trained. Tracking is patience.

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"Worry less, fish more."
Steve Foss
[email protected]

[This message has been edited by stfcatfish (edited 11-22-2003).]

[korn_fish]

I agree with you full-heartedly on this. I know in my younger days I should have looked a little bit harder. But if I know I hit the deer, and I can not find it, I still count it against my tag and pack it up for the year.

This sort of thing is exactly why we turn so many hunters away from hunting our land. And one of the reasons that I hunt alone.

I think it is good to speak your mind on this subject. It's obvious that this person didn't learn good hunting ethics, but with the help of people like you, hopefully we can install good ethics in the new hunters coming up in the ranks. The ones that are doing this already are not going to change unless the land owner, assuming they don't own their own land, puts their foot down, or the hunting party that they are in puts their foot down. Even one person in the party can get the point across by leaving that party and telling them they don't want to hunt with them anymore.

Good hunting to ya,

[FoolNFish]

What [PoorWordUsage]es me off is when you follow a blood trail to someones land or woodlot and under no circumstances will the landowner let you in. Even had one tell me that if a wounded deer got onto his property it could die and rot there before he'd let anyone in!
Go Figure??? (my son lost out on a nice deer due to this, too!)

[mistermom]

I thought that the regs state that if you are tracking an animal that is shot you can enter private property to retrieve your animal?

mm

[hunt4food]

I believe mistermom is correct. You cannot bring your weapon with you though. If someone told me that I was not allowed to track my deer onto their property, I believe I would call the local CO and ask for his intervention.

[BDR]

From a C.O. : You may enter posted land to retrieve wounded game without a firearm. The land owner may verbally tell you to get out and you must obey, in this case call local C.O. and they will accompany you to retrieve game(if you can get thier time).

Not from the book but from Anoka's local C.O.

[korn_fish]

Absolutely correct BDR

[Mark Christianson]

I think the bigger problem on this, is there are a lot of people out there during firearms deer season that don't hold a gun 360+ days a year. Deer season comes around and all of a sudden we have a ton of people running around with little to no gun experience, and they are shooting at anything brown.
There is no doubt we have a huge population of people that have very little training shooting guns(much less at live animals), and when something runs by, they are lobbing slugs at it. Only to wound it, and try again.
I have personally witnessed it the last 2 years, and it [PoorWordUsage]es me off.

[BLACKJACK]

biglake I agree, with you, there are too many people slinging slugs around, even experienced hunters. They got lucky three years ago downing a deer at 200 yards, so now its any deer they see, fling some slugs at it. I wonder how many deer they've also wounded/shot the legs off of! Whatever happened to the 40 yard one shot kill shot?

[Steve Foss]

Hey Blackjack, now they call the 40-yard one-kill shot ARCHERY!

Actually, I took my 8-pointer this year at 35 yards with a 12-gauge Mossberg 500 smoothbore and a 1 oz 2 3/4 inch slug. Just the dual beads on the ribbed barrel for sights. Easy shot.

But I passed up four shots throughout the season on does at 100 yards with the same gun, because I wasn't confident I could make a killing shot the first time at that distance with those beads. Frustrating, but it was no different than standing there with a bow and trying to wish a deer into bow range.

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"Worry less, fish more."
Steve Foss
[email protected]

[BLACKJACK]

stcatfish, it all depends what you consider your 'accurate' shooting range, whether its a bow or a gun. I have a 40 yards pin on my bow, but I'd never consider that shot at a deer, I like them at 25 yards or less. But I like to practice that 40 yard shot, it seems when I move to 30 and 20 yards, it helps you get zeroed in to that 6 inch pie plate. All it takes is one wounded deer that you track for hours and find or not find to make you stay within your range - if you respect the animal that you're hunting. Same with shotgun or rifle hunting, if you've practiced that 150 yard shot and can put 3 slugs/bullets in a 6 inch pie plate, go for it. Slug hunting does give you more leeway because of the knockdown power of the slugs, if you hit them anywhere that has 4 inches of meat, the animal is down.

[Lunker]

Makes me sick. Talked to one guy whose camp regularly loses deer. Said they lost about 6 one year. Disgusts me, our camp has NEVER lost a deer, and had bad shots on only 2, and thats over more than 20 years. One of those 2 was my second year nephew, whose deer I ended up tracking for a about a mile this year, and I got it, and we told him if he's comin back up he's gotta hit the range before next year.

[Coach Dog]

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[This message has been edited by Coach Dog (edited 11-24-2003).]

[This message has been edited by Coach Dog (edited 11-24-2003).]

[Mark Christianson]

That is sad to read Coach Dog. Openly admitting that you have no holdbacks just throwing lead out there in hopes that you knock it down or run out of shells. Wow. I can't believe you posted that.
Congratulations on 14 straight years with a deer tagged. How many of those years were you lobbing lead out there, and nicked or wounded a deer that you either did not find or you didn't know you even hit?
We owe it to ourselves as hunters and we owe it to the game we pursue to make as quick and clean of a kill as possible.
Not just throw lead out there, and knock it down, and have them suffer several minutes waiting for you to make the final dispatch.
I personally think that is a terrible mentality to have. I bet I am not alone on this one.

Sorry to preach, but you asked for it with those comments.

PS - If anyone is wondering what my rant is about, Coach Dog has edited out his post entirely. So nobody can read what he had originally posted.

[This message has been edited by biglakeba$$ (edited 11-24-2003).]

[Giant_Jackpot]

Coachdog,

Did you ever have gun training?

[can it be luck?]

Hey Catfish, Get a gun!! The smoothbore, bead sighted shotgun will do the job. But you put limitations on what you can shoot. As Fiskynut said in a post, "It's better to have and not need, then to need and not have". On another note, while walking my fenceline yesterday I found a dead deer (doe) that looked to have been there for about a month. Decay had set in, but I noticed a large hole in the neck. I assume it was from a gun or bow. This would've been a lethal shot, involving little tracking. Why was that deer there? I have my guess's, and it makes me .....Is anyone else besides me color blind? Tracking deer SUCKS!! Reds and greens look all the same to me. Without snow or hair being present, I struggle to track deer. I shoot for the neck on deer that are close, usually dropping them where they stand to avoid tracking. Last year I shot 2 does. With no snow on the ground, I asked my brother to help track them, since he showed up soon after I shot. I showed him the spot where I thought the deer were standing. He said it looked like a scene from Texas Chainsaw massacre, blood sprayed everywhere. He beelined to both the deer. Me, I didn't see a thing untill blood was pointed out to me. I put my fingers in it to make it visible to me. Blood on the ground, forget it. Even when I see a deer drop, I go to the spot where I shot it to gain experience tracking. Even though I know where the deer is, the experience and liitle clues are helpful when you "really" need them. Hair, color of hair, blood, color of blood, where you hit the deer, distance the deer ran, etc. Track them even when you know where they are, experience is a great teacher!

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http://groups.msn.com/canitbeluck

[GregR]

Wow, didn't think this would turn into a long thread.

I'm a bow hunter. For hunting I have one pin and that's 20 yards. I like to make sure every shot is perfect, but sometimes perfect is hard get. Had a 6 pointer a few years ago come in, put the bead on his shoulder (he was walking) and pulled the trigger. Hit him right on the shoulder. Nothing worse than seeing 28" of a 29-1/2" arrow still sticking out of the deer (I only pull 50#,bad shoulder). Still trailed him until we were satisfied he would live. In fact, saw him two more times that season.

Don't get me wrong on the intent of my original post, there are bow hunters that are just as guilty. I just think people should be a little more responsible out there and know their limitations.

Greg

[Mark Christianson]

Right on GregR!!

[HunterLee]

Not to make the matters worse. But we hunt the 2 and 4 days with shotguns. we drive the deer and regularaly shoot at them 100 yards of so out on the run. Its not that we lob lead at them. it takes practice to hit them with regularity. Its just like shooting at them at 300+ yards with rifles. a slug only drops 10 to 12 inches at a hundred yards. its just how we hunt and how we shoot our deer. if you know your gun and how much to lead the deer its not that hard to hit them. right where you want.

[feverpetal]

I think shooting style does depend a lot of where you are hunting, but I also think that unleashing a flurry of laed at "something brown" is beyond stupid. Case in point, a man was shot yesterday, I believe, in Aitken County, while hunting. He was shot by another hunter, and the wounded man was dressed in full blaze orange including, apparently, "blaze orange ribbons". How THAT happens, I don't know, but I assume he was shooting at something that moved, and that alcohol was involved. Where I used to hunt, in Aitken County, a 100 yard shot can be pretty tough to even get, let alone fifty yards, though we always heard barrages of gunfire. Oppositely, in Wyoming, you NEED to know the ballistics of your rifle, since EVERY shot is easily over 50 yards, if not 100. The only time I came close to losing a deer was in Wyoming, on a shot that was about 175 yards downhill. The deer made it to the river, and got carried away. Unfortunately for us, the river was partially covered in ice. We did find the deer about a mile down the river, in a wash-up, just under the ice. Thankfully, it was thin, and just a few feet from shore. But seeing that deer head into the water, and almost roll over, was VERY disheartening. I'm glad I found it, though. On that same trip, my father DID lose a deer, technically, since the road was on BLM land, and the landowner, who happened to be driving his fenceline, pulled up just as the deer went over the ridge. Since we had packed up early and there was still light left, we figured we would take the deer, and it was a clean shot, but the deer made it up the ridge and over, and the ***** came over as we were waiting for the 15 minutes to be up.

fp

Whatever happened to waiting 15 minutes to a half hour before tracking a wounded deer, anyway?

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"Cast riiiiight....there."

[STILLNOFISH]

I will also have to disagree with some of the remarks made on the one shot one kill scenario. As I have mentioned before, I strictly hunt ND now. Prviously I hunted Wis for about 10 yrs. I understand this theory when hunting Wis and MN when you usually are sitting in astand waiting for the deer to come to you. However in ND it is a completely different style of hunting. Yes we do practice regularly at long range shooting 200-300 yds. And yes the deer are usually running. Our style just like most for the area is drives and shooting deer coming out of the ravines. We have never lost a wonded deer to date, however I know there have been times that we shot at deer and did not hit them in the perfect place. Does this make it wrong? I believe not, because again it is our style of hunting given the terain we hunt. I cannot understand the idea of giving someone a hard time for taking a couple shots at a deer that is moving. Again this is just my opinion.

[EXTREME]

Can it be Luck...I wholeheartedly agree with you...being color blind sucks ***! Every deer that needs tracking involves a friend to help. But to keep on with the subject at hand. Anybody that does not give a reasonable effort to track an animal should not be hunting. Earlier in this year I wounded a nice buck with my bow. The shot was too close and I slid the arrow along his ribs. I looked for that deer until midnight, even though I knew that the shot probably was not fatal. I felt terrible for the animal, and wanted to give a reasonable effort to find him. You owe it to the animal to find him. No exceptions!! Anybody that shoots and assumes he misses without looking is a slob hunter....period. And if anybody out there does this...quit giving us ethical hunters ammo for PETA.

[feverpetal]

canitbeluck? and EXTREME, how do you drive in places where traffic lights are horizontal instead of vertical, like some places in Wisconsin? Do you just wait until other people start moving, or you get honked at? I've always wondered about that.

fp

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"Cast riiiiight....there."

[eyecrosser2000]

I'm red/green color blind, too. And, I have no problem seeing a red stoplight against a sky background. But, put an orange golf ball on a fairway; or red blood on green or brown grass, leaves, etc--forget it. However, there are some things I've done to compensate. #1 Watch very carefully immediately after your shot at how the deer reacts and where it runs. #2 Listen for crashing if and when the deer falls. #3 Take a mark to know EXACTLY where that deer was standing when you shot to look for any hair, bone, lung or blood--this confirms a hit. #4 In the absence of snow, look for kicked up turf from the deer when it runs--if you put a lethal hit on the deer it is usually running hard and out of control. Finally, I look for darker shades on the ground and will actually feel any leaves or grass that look to have blood.

I used all of these techniques to recover a nice 8 pointer this past Thursday. There was no blood or hair at the shot scene, but I followed the tracks about 50 yards and was blessed to find a very small patch of remaining snow with finely sprayed blood on it--no problem for me to see red on white. About 50 yards later, there he was.

And, if all else fails--call in for help. It is too important to be embarrased about not being able to see blood, especially when that is something you cannot help or "fix" with training.