Memory of the shot

[Guy Miner]

A buddy of mine and his adult son went to Africa for plains game together. He told me that his best memory of the hunt was this:

They'd been stalking closer to a kudu in the brush. Finally it becomes aware of them and starts to leave the area, gathering speed. The animal took a mighty leap, his son's .30-06 cracked once, and the kudu bull crumpled upon landing.

Wow - when he described that, his eyes were alive with the memory of the hunt, and the pride in his son's marksmanship was obvious.

What's your memory of the shot?

Guy

 

[DrMike]

Black bear, running off an oat field. Distance was ~250 yards. Model 94, .356 Winchester slinging 250 grain Kodiak FN bullet barked once and crumpled the bear mid-stride. The other especially gratifying memory was a grizzly at 140 yards. Another .356 Winchester pushing 220 grain Speers. The rifle barked and the bear crumpled with both shoulders broken. I shot a few more times just to make certain that bruin didn't get up and run into the thick bush. Either shot was picture perfect on worthy game. The shots are still vivid in my mind.

 

[Guy Miner]

Nice...

 

[Guy Miner]

September, nearly 10,000' up in the Wind River Range. The bugling bull strode out into the park, raked a small tree with his antlers. I was watching from inside the tree line, about 180 yards away. He stepped clear of the tree. My hold was perfect, crosshairs solid in the crease of the shoulder, 1/3 the way up. The 7mm barked once, sending a 175 Nosler Partition downrange.

He took a slow step, then another, I was ready to send a second shot and my hunting partner said quietly "wait." He was right, one more step did it. The bull fell.

 

[FOTIS]

Antelope running away fr me at 160 yards. Shot her with my 6.5 swede win featherweight. Load was 140 hornadysp at 2740 fps. She cartwheeled twice and dropped
Investigation revealed the following. Bullet went in through the base of spine out through the spine at the shoulder in through the right ear and out again through the left eye. Wow

 

[Guest]

Most memorable? Wow. Maybe a couple.

First one is my first bow kill. I had been self-teaching bowhunting seriously for a couple of years. All my hunting was on public land designated as walk-in from parking areas at locked gates. I spent the first couple of years really learning the land and the habits of the deer. I saw deer several times but had no shot opportunities. I had 5 deer run under my stand after being spooked by another hunter leaving at 2p for some reason, and could have easily clubbed one of them in the head as they went under, but no shot opportunities. So season number three is coming, and my dad gets sick. He had a chronic leukemia for over a decade prior to this, but it really started to take it's toll on him this year, and manifested itself in a nasty way. So my early season is very limited, and I get a call one morning from my wife, saying I need to come home now, as we're leaving for Florida ASAP as per doctors' advice. I spend a week at the hospital with my dad, have some meaningful conversations, and as he recovers a bit, I head home to work again. It's the Friday before Thanksgiving when I arrive home. Saturday I decide I really need to get into the woods to decompress, and since it's opening day of gun season, the public area I hunt, which is bow-only, will be all but deserted. I head out, running late, and get to the woods at about 245p. Gear up, walk in, and get to the woodlot I wanted to hunt. As I step from the field edge into the woods, I spook several deer, and hear them running off through the woods. Never saw anything but a flag disappear. I'm discouraged, as I know if I'd been there earlier, I'd have had a shot, easily, from my preferred tree. But then I hear my dad's voice in my head, from my childhood, "If you spook deer, get situated and quiet, because about half the time, they're curious enough to come back and see what it was that spooked them." So I literally sprint as quietly as possibly to my tree, and get my climber on and up as fast as I can. I'm sitting there 15min later, and here come three does off to my left at about 80yds. Two of them walk off in the other direction, but one comes toward me. I pass on a 35yd shot as I believe she'll come around to a 15yd shot. She doesn't. I take what I call a 40yd shot and miss her, only because the arrow sailed perfectly centered, about 4" below her sternum. She jumps when it strikes a stump behind her, then walks off. About 10min later, she comes back by me at mach 2, and I never even get a chance to draw. I figure it's been an exciting day, and I'm done, but I stay in the tree just enjoying the woods. By now it's about 10min to sunset, and I hear a bleat off to my left. A lone doe is coming right to my tree, but there's a couple of large trees blocking her view of me. I can see her tail swishing and hear her bleating, so I stand up and get ready. She pops out around a big beech tree about 20yds from me, coming straight at me, oblivious. I wait until she's looking away and draw. She's nearly directly under me, and I have to pull up off my peep sight to verify the brown in my sight picture is deer, not leaf clutter. I let the arrow go, she bucks and then walks about 10 steps, and falls within 15yds of my tree. The shot was at 11yds. I called my dad from the treestand and related the story to him in his hospital bed. He handed the phone back to my stepmother and she said, "I don't know what you just told him, but this is the first time he's smiled since you left." I remember every detail of that day as though it were yesterday. We lost dad on December 19th that year. The next season, as if to reinforce the memory, I sat on that same tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and took a near identical doe at 22yds. She dropped in her tracks due to a spine hit. Not nearly as much detail still remains from the second event, but it cemented the first, for sure.

As far as rifle shots, I have a number of recent kills that are fresh in mind. I've had the pleasure to take 5 white-tails in 3yrs on my current lease, and each has been special for one reason or another. Likely the most special, though, is my biggest buck, taken in the 2010-11 season, in January 2011. Snow on the ground, big 8pt, no shot for easily 20-30min as he milled through the woods out to a scrape and back. Finally got a shot as he was about to leave my area, and he dropped. I took a poor angle (not much choice) and made a mistake of not putting another shot into him as he lay there. He thrashed a bit then lay still for 20min or so, and I went down through the creekbed and up the ravine to get him. He jumped up and ran, and we tracked him a little ways, until he ran out onto a point where we figured he'd bed down for the night. I spent a sleepless night at home and was back at the lease before daylight, drinking coffee and waiting on sunlight to track him again. I found him right where I suspected he'd be, laid up in a grove of cedars, all but dead. I finished him with a single shot and drug him out. It was a surreal experience, and gratifying on many levels, as it was the first deer in several years, and came near the end of the season after not being able to hunt at all in 2009-10 due to financial and time constraints while I was laid off. I can still see the snow flying off of that buck as he bounded down through the creekbed and out onto that point. I remember every detail, including that I was able to find my 270Wby brass on the ground due to the cartridge shaped hole in the snow below my stand. I remember the angst I felt all night, and how easy it was to jump up at 4a and head to the lease. I remember feeling relief when I spotted him, and a touch of pride in knowing he'd be right there. What a scene.

Great thread, Guy! Love to walk through all these memories.

 

[Guy Miner]

Thanks.

My youngest son's first season of hunting deer got off to a rocky start. He was 12 years old, small and not very strong. At that age he was allowed to take a doe, and we went through nearly a box of cartridges just trying to hit one on the opening weekend. He was pretty discouraged. We had been hunting with several friends.

The next weekend, I begged off from hunting with "the guys" and walked up a small canyon with my son. We spotted some does about a half mile away, dropped behind a ridge and stalked closer until we ran out of cover at about 300 yards. Crept forward a bit more, but that was it, the does were on to us and starting to get nervous.

He was prone on the rocks, with the 6mm Rem on a bipod. I ranged it at about 275 yards, told him to hold on the top of her back, but no higher. I watched through my scope. At his shot the mule deer doe just sagged and fell, tumbling down the ridge out of sight. We walked up there, I let him take the low ground, so he'd be the one to find her.

Talk about a happy hunter! The little 95 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip had flown true, right through her heart and out the other side, destroying the heart & lungs.


Going on ten years later, that's still the longest shot he's attempted on game. I think I remember it as well as he does, maybe better.

Guy

 

[DrMike]

Such shared memories make for strong bonds in our children, Guy. Great account.

 

[JD338]

Bull Elk in CO.
The distance was 350 yards and I was shooting my 338 RUM loaded up with 210 gr PT's at 3200 fps.
I placed the cross hairs on the top of the back above the shoulder and sent it.
The bull dropped at the shot and I will never forget the whomp of the bullet hitting its mark.

JD338

 

[pre6422hornet]

Colorado 1999. Unit 57/58. I had already tracked and killed my first elk the year before on my first trip out west. On the third day of the third season we awoke to 2 inches of fresh snow covering the barren mountainside. Excited about the perfect tracks that awaited us, my buddy and I headed out and split up at the base of the range about a mile apart from one another. He dropped me off well before the first light of daybreak and our plan was to head straight to the top and try to cut tracks, pick out a big one, and go for it.

Almost instantly I cut tracks. Two hour in and the tracks had me on a meandering track around the base of the mountain. Then they cut up and over in a direction towards Jason. I started to get excited thinking that just maybe I could push some elk in his direction. Around 9:30 or so I saw a glint of hunter orange and with my glasses saw it was Jason. We met 10 minutes later when the tracks I was following, met up with the tracks he was following. We took up after the herd. 200 yards up the mountain we both stopped and froze. That beautiful smell of elk filled our noses. We stared ahead throught the quakies and couldn't make any out. Easing ahead we came across where they had bedded and the beds were so hot they were still smoldering. Thinking out loud I said " we should roll around in a bed or two so we smell just like them!". Next thing I know we are both literally rolling around in the beds and when we arose, I really don't think we had any sort of human odor left on our clothes....WE STANK!..

Anyway back on the track we were nearing a bench when suddenly the herd split. One went due north and the other due east. Thinking that they may be on to us, we split up. Since Jason was a Denverite and used to the non existant air and could probably give a sherpa a good run, I took the easier track to the east.

The track was still easy to follow in the now melting snow and I peeled off my jacket and was down to just a longsleeved thermal. The track went around a finger and up through a small ( 40 yard) valley. As I neared the top of the valley, mother nature called. I took a break, unzipped, did my business, rezipped, took a drink of water, and grabbed the Model 70 .270 and resumed chasing my quarry. I had only taken about 30 steps when my head and shoulders came up over the ridge in the valley.

All of a sudden 5 or 6 elk stood with eyes as wide as saucers, not believeing that this Ohio flatlander had just sneaked into their bedroom undetected. As they took off like a covey of quail, a last elk took to HIS feet. As he rose up from his bed I saw antlers.. The Model 70 snapped to my shoulder and I don't even remember flicking off the safety. I had about a 12 inch opening in the dark timber all the way to his shoulder and as soon as he reached apogee, the 270 barked and a 150 grain Nosler Partition Gold broke both shoulders. He dropped as fast as he rose. I covered the 25 yards in what I believe to be three bounds and wrapped my hands around the Stag of the Rockies. He was only a spike horn, but man was it a sight to see. I can close my eyes and darn near remember every step of that track, and the smell fills my nose and I just smile.

Jason was only 1/4 mile away ( if that) when I shot and he found me sitting next to my bull just admiring it. He slapped me on the back and said " way to go elkslayer" .

Now little did we know but Jason's dad picked up my track and had started following me in hopes catching an elk on the down hill side circle making an escape. About 10 minutes after Jason showed up his dad literally walks up to us and says " fancy meeting you two next to a dead elk". Then he snapped this pic. Thats me on the left:



And as you can tell in the pic, it was pretty nasty in there. We tried to drag him down whole, but even with us three it was too much. We ended up cutting him in half and making two trips.

Jason and his dad taught me everything I know about tracking elk and in the 2 years we hunted together in 57/58, the three of us took 6 elk ( 2 each) for a 100% success rate. After that Jason and I went after mulies in the North and we each went 2 for 2 on some pretty decent bucks, but that is another story for another night....

 

[gerry]

That's a tough one, I have several. My big game animal which was a bear, first moose which was a cow, first bull moose, first mountain goat, first caribou all are memorable. I can recall all of them fondly along with many others.
My first goat was memorable I really wanted to bag one in the worst way and at age 28 it happened. The shot came at around 250 yards after climbing up the slide my heart was pounding. With each heart beat the crosshairs would go from his chest to his neck I squeezed off and the goat collapsed of the cliff. I turns out I put a 200 gr Speer G.S from my 308 Norma Mag into his neck and killed him instantly Notice the lack of hunting clothes and a young, sweaty and happy Gerry




I can`t find a pic of my caribou 2 years later but it was also a dream come true.

 

[DrMike]

Great memories, all.

 

[Oldtrader3]

First antelope, running full tilt at 250 yards, killed with one shot to lungs from .270 Winchester.

 

[bbearhntr]

My most memorable shot is one that left a flesh wound on the bear and me shaking in my treestand. I was 22 and had wanted to bear hunt for quite a few years. Two of my uncles and some of their friends invited me to go with them. I spent 3 weeks prior to the season running baits with them and could not wait for opening day. The day before the opener we were checking baits again. I had picked one of the baits no one else was interested in because it was the first bait just inside of the state forrest we we hunting. Every one else wanted to travel deeper into the forrest. We baited my stand at 11 am and proceeded down the road system to get the others. When all of the bait sites were refilled we turned around to back track out of the logging roads we had just traveled two hours earlier. I noticed a carton of caramel that I forgot to apply to my bait and asked if we could stop on our way past by my bait station and dump it out. Much to everyones surprise my bait had been cleaned out. This was before trail cameras had become so popular. Everyone assumed all bears came in just before it got dark in the evening. I made up my mind right then and there that I would sit dawn to dusk the next day. Everyone laughed and said I would never be able to stand it that long but I was determined and stubborn.

The next day I got in my tree before light and waited, and waited, and waited..... By 5pm I hadn't seen a thing and was getting kind of down on myself for sitting all day in that tree when I saw a shadow move about 50 yds away. My heart about jumped out of my chest when I made out a bear cautiously walking down the trail I had walked in on 11 hours earlier. And he was not just any bear he was enourmous! I had left a 5 gallon plastic pail on the ground in the morning after throwing on a few more treats in the dark before climbing up my tree to sit, and his head made that bucket look like an icecream pail as he sniffed it. He was standing a mere 15 yds away and He looked up at me in the tree and started to stare. His face was all black and he had white wiskers around his muzzle. I was visibly shaking. He slowly turned to walk toward the bait and I drew my bow. He stopped broad side and looked my way and just as I settled my pin and touched my release he jumped the string. My arrow glanced off his front leg and he took off like a freight train though the thick brush. I was heartbroken! Of course every tale of the one that got away always involves an animal of GIANT proportions but I have yet so see in the woods or on a trail camera a bear as big as that one!

I have too many deer memories to list. Many successful and many not successful. The learning process is the best part of hunting and you can't learn it without experiencing it.

Great thread Guy :!:

 

[Luv2Hunt]

Christmas Day, 2008, out at Dad's place. My brothers and other assorted relatives were shooting new Christmas toys out on the back 40. My father had been out inspecting fences when he came across us and took out a varmint rifle and put on an exhibition for a few minutes. Then, with a huge smile, he told us "you'll need to live a long time to out shoot the old man." He left us to go back to the house and passed away that night after Christmas dinner.
I still remember his smile like it was yesterday. No, not a game animal but some memorable shooting.

 

[ajvigs]

This past February, I got to see my kid brother for the first time in almost 2 years. He came down here to Florida and I took him on a hog hunt on the back of Lake Okeechobee. I remember we were stalking this one big sow that was bedded down against a log. He had my sig. others 308 Vanguard and I had my 9mm, just in case. When we got within 40 yards it got up and false charged us, and then tried taking off. All I saw was my brother throw up the rifle and BANG. Rifle barked, and the pig fell over. We walked up to it and I couldnt be more proud of him. He got the biggest pig of the trip, almost 300 pounds. He still cant leave me alone because he got the biggest pig, just like he said he would.

When I saw him again in April I surprised him with the tooth from his hog I had made into a necklace.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Cool, nice pig!

 

[big rifle man]

My son was thirteen years old when I took him on his first whitetail hunt. He had practiced a lot with a pre 64 model 94 in 30.30 that had belonged to my deceased uncle who had taken an untold number of deer in his home state of Maine. My son had the patience to sit in 18 degree weather with about an inch of snow on the ground. My son actually saw the deer before I did and motioned slightly with his head to my left. He took his first shot and dropped a nice 6 pointer at roughly 45 yards. We dressed the deer together and the smile on his face was unforgettable. My second most memorable time was in 2011, Oak Creek, Colorado. I had worked hard over a number of years to get a nice Bull Elk but had a serious problem being in the right place at the right time. The first two days of first season were warm with midday temps being in the high 60's. The third day everything changed and we had a blizzard, dropping visibility to feet. The fourth day the weather cleared and temps were in the low 20's. At 7:30AM I heard a three shot sequence from the far end of the property and figured one of my buddies had scored (which proved correct). At 8:15 the Aspen stand and field I had been watching showed movement and I watched a Bull Elk walk from left to right out of a steep canyon. I lasered the distance at 326 yards which was quite a poke considering I had to shoot through the stand of Aspens into the field beyond where he was crossing. I picked a spot praying that he was going to walk through it and then watched as he fed slowly and moved along. After five of the longest minutes I had ever spent in the woods he crossed through the opening and I fired my .338RUM. He dropped on the spot, so fast that I lost sight of him. The area he had fallen was 5-6 foot scrub oak and he disappeared rather quickly. I waited a short period of time and then walked towards where I THOUGHT he had fallen. Interestingly enough, having been brought up in the Northeast, Western distances can be challenging. I walked over to the area and couldn't locate him. After roughly 20 minutes of my mind working overtime I got smart and lasered the tree where I had been sitting and found I was about 75 yards short of where I had taken the shot. I moved out further, did a short grid search and smelled him before I saw him. It made it all worthwhile when I saw his size and the rack he was wearing. He's now on my living room wall and a look at him brings back great memories.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Nice story! We all have the problem of being where the elk aren't. Elk can move 4-5 miles in half an hour at a medium fast walk.

 

[FOTIS]

This past February, I got to see my kid brother for the first time in almost 2 years. He came down here to Florida and I took him on a hog hunt on the back of Lake Okeechobee. I remember we were stalking this one big sow that was bedded down against a log. He had my sig. others 308 Vanguard and I had my 9mm, just in case. When we got within 40 yards it got up and false charged us, and then tried taking off. All I saw was my brother throw up the rifle and BANG. Rifle barked, and the pig fell over. We walked up to it and I couldnt be more proud of him. He got the biggest pig of the trip, almost 300 pounds. He still cant leave me alone because he got the biggest pig, just like he said he would.

When I saw him again in April I surprised him with the tooth from his hog I had made into a necklace.

tHAT IS A NICE PIGGIE DUDE!