Shots in the field

[Guy Miner]

It's one thing to shoot at the target range, another when going after animals in the field. Some prefer shoulder shots, some prefer heart shots, some lung shots... All of us want to make quick, sure kills with that first shot.

In the field though, game often doesn't stand broadside, waiting for the hunter to make the perfect shot.

What are some of the most challenging or interesting shots you've been presented with afield?

What worked, and what didn't?

 

[Guy Miner]

I'll start with one or two:

In '05, I was hunting mule deer with my youngest son, above the Columbia River here in Washington. Walking, we rounded a finger and found several doe & fawns standing not 50 yards from us, and one nice buck sneaking away to our left. My son couldn't see the buck, which was rapidly leaving the area, running, so I slapped my Rem 700 into my shoulder, put the crosshairs on the buck, and started swinging ahead to give him a little bit of a lead. When the crosshairs got out in front of him I pressed the trigger and that buck just cartwheeled and collapsed at about 125 yards.

Turns out I'd given him too much lead. I'd been hoping for a shoulder shot, and instead almost missed, putting the little 100 gr .25-06 bullet into his ear hole, taking out the brain. No wonder he dropped so dramatically! Not long before I'd switched to the .25-06, and it was fairly new to me. But the shot worked. Luckily! Could have easily been a miss. In a way it was, but the backstraps sure didn't taste like a miss. Over the years I haven't taken many shots at running game, particularly with a center-fire rifle, and obviously I've got some learning to do...

 

[DrMike]

Guy,

I've threaded the needle a few times, and I don't do that much anymore. I had a minimal shot at the moose I took two years ago. He was standing behind a tree, peering at me with an eye on either side of the tree. I stepped to the right and placed a 130 grain E-Tip from my 270 WSM into his chest. He didn't drop at the shot, but he did stumble just a bit as he turned. As he ran, I hit him again with another round through the lungs, which dropped him on the spot. For me, the most challenging shots are running shots. Two bears, in particular, stand out. The bear I shot last fall at 174 yards which was just beginning to run. The shot was offhand, and I was using a 200 grain TSX from my 350 RM. It was a good shot, though it hit farther back than I would have liked. It took out the diaphragm and lower lungs. A few years back another bear was running off an oat field about 220 yards from where I was standing. Shooting offhand, I shot it with a 250 grain Kodiak flat nose from a 356. The shot was centred in the chest, killing the bear very quickly. Though I've made a few such shots, I'm loath to take them under normal circumstances as I don't consider myself accomplished. I have never missed when I did take such a shot, but I don't have a great deal of confidence in my abilities. Consequently, I've passed on numerous occasions on deer, moose and elk that were running. Sitting or kneeling would have been out of the question due to vegetation or landfall.

 

[Guy Miner]

Last September I was out for black bear here in Washington, on a hillside that had large, thick berry bush patches separated by wide areas of rock & grass. There were also deep ravines leading down the mountain, choked with trees and brush. Glassing early in the morning, we spotted a bear feeding about a quarter mile below us, on the edge of an acre sized berry patch. We stalked closer, using the ridgeline for cover and ended up just over 300 yards away, perched on some rocks well above the bear. There was nothing but sparse grass on the rocky hillside, and no way to get closer without spooking him.

What made it interesting is that the bear would stand, revealing his top half, and grab branches pulling them down to him, so that he could feed for a few seconds. Then he'd drop to all fours, and literally vanish in the tall grass. This was going to be a matter of timing.

I set the .375 H&H Number One on a pair of folding shooting sticks, and got the bear in the crosshairs of the old Redfield 2-7x. I had it set on 6x, and the rifle was zeroed at 200 yards, meaning that I had to deal with about a 9" drop from the 260 gr AccuBond at 2600 fps. It was also a fairly steep downhill shot, lessening the horizontal range to the target. Fortunately there was very little wind.

No sooner did I have him in the scope, than he dropped to all fours and vanished in the grass. I waited. And waited. He popped up again in the same place, facing away from me and reaching up into the bushes. How the heck am I going to put it through his shoulders when he's standing up, facing away from me? So... I held at the base of his neck, and squeezed. We could hear the big bullet hit and he dropped instantly, then dragged himself about 5 - 10' under the berry bushes.

Later, skinning him out, we found that I'd missed the spine by a couple of inches, but the AccuBond had drilled right through him, in the back, and out the chest. I was pretty pleased with that particular shot.

Guy

 

[Guest]

I've had some challenging shots, Guy, as we all have. I tend to be a cautious shooter, and in fact have only ever missed two deer I've shot at. Both misses were purely my fault, but were workable, near broadside shots, oddly enough. In each case, I got too excited and screwed up the shot. The first one was a big 4pt white-tail when I was 14. Bear in mind that "big 4pt" means he was probably 3.5yrs old and in great health, down in the sandy coastal plain in Florida where I grew up. It would have been my first deer, and I got very excited and made a poor shot, right over his back. The second was a recent experience, on the last day of this deer season, just a couple of weeks ago. I had a shot on a broadside doe, standing in a field eating. I was "spot & stalk" hunting, which I've not done before, and had already seen a doe I couldn't close on before she left our property, so my excitement level was very high. I stalked to within 150yds of this doe, and set up on sticks to take the shot. Easy shot, and I've made longer from many treestands, but in this instance, you'd have thought a 250" buck was out there, not a doe, because the stalk (literally belly crawling the last 75yds to get to a clear shot) had me so amped up I was shaking. Daylight was running out, so I did my best to calm down, but I didn't follow my normal shot routine and missed her completely.

But, besides those, I've had some tough shots based on angles and locations, and most of the time it's either been vegetation obstructions (and a subsequent small shot window) or it's been horrible angles. The buck I shot earlier this year was about 175yds away and through thick woods. I could see him clearly, but there were tons of bare branches between us, making the whole thing a "thread the needle" situation, as Dr. Mike put it. He put his shoulder into a hole in the brush about 5-6" across, and I took the shot. Hit him right in the shoulder and he dropped in place, which was good, in as much as I didn't want him to go off the end of the ridge point and get down 700' or so in the ravine going off the side of the mountain.

I had an interesting bow shot on my first bow kill, not because of obstructions or such, but because the angle was insane and the deer was literally about 10' off the bottom of my tree, so I shot almost straight down through the ribcage - entering above the shoulder blade on the right side, and exiting just to the left of the sternum, slicing both lungs in the process. Hardest part of that shot was when I was aiming - I had to pull off of my peep site to be sure I was on the deer, not just on brown leaf clutter on the forest floor. That doe walked about five steps and dropped, so tracking was a breeze.

My dad shot a white-tail running in front of a pack of walker hounds down in Florida when I was a kid, with a spectacular series of shots. We ran dogs down on some national forest land south of Tallahassee. Dad had his Browning BAR in 243Win, with open sights, and this buck (a very large 8pt for that area - though a basket racked 8pt) was running along the treeline about 100yds across a clearcut, with the dogs behind him. Dad dropped to a kneeling position and shot five times. As I recall, he hit the deer all five times, ranging from chest to gut in point of impact. The deer ran straight along the treeline, and fell dead in the ditch at the roadside. I don't know that I could have made those shots, but maybe...

I've passed on a number of shots on deer and coyotes due to lack of good angle, or too much obstructing brush between. I'm probably more careful than I have to be, but it's just how I hunt. I didn't get a shot at the same cinnamon-phase coyote while bowhunting because he kept ducking in and out of the brush as he trotted by at about 25yds. I'd have really enjoyed getting him, as the coloration was amazing.

 

[Elkman]

I could write a book on this one. So I will not get started.

What works? ;practice ;confidence in your weapon ;good bullets ;a steady rest, prone if possible ;behind the shoulder shots ;enough weapon ;fitness ;determination. :grin: :grin:

 

[Guest]

Elkman,
That pretty much says it all, I agree.

Don

 

[Antelope_Sniper]

Interesting shots that put meat in the freezer?
1000 yards, broadside, dead calm
700 yards, boradside, 40 mph crosswind, steady, but no gusting.
550 yards, 20 mph gusting cross wind
100 yards, off hand, only the neck and head visible from behind a brush pile.
150 yards, deer facing me, chest deep in sagebrush, sun has set over the horizon, last day of deer season.
Just the head and neck peeking out of the tree's 300 yards fm a dead rest.
375 yards, in a snowstorm, heading downt he mountain after camp was packed up.
125 yards, off hand, antelope at a full run
300 yards, tail shot elk running full out away through the trees.

Those are just a few interesting shots off the top of my head.
Now you can see why I like hunting with enough gun and a good bullet.

 

[1Shot]

I am also a causes shooter. I mainly deer hunt and do it out of stands. The most interesting shot I ever made on a deer was this one. I was hunting over a soy bean field. Straight away from me the field was 200 yards wide to the woods. To my right you could shoot about 800 yards if you wanted. One evening about 20 minutes before dark I caught a flick of something straight away from me just inside the edge of the woods 210 yards away. I got my field glasses and kept watching that spot. After about 10 minutes I saw what it was. It was a deers ear and it moved again. I really zeroed in on it and could just make out one eye and the ear and I could see part of an antler as the deer stood behind a big pine tree. I watched until it got dark and that deer never moved. The next evening about the same time I was scanning the wood edge and there was this deer again right behind that big pine tree and all I could see was it's eye and ear and part of an antler. Same thing the next evening. The next evening which would be day four I decided that I was going to kill that deer if it came back and stood behind that tree. It did. I was shooting my custom Rem. 700 Shilen #6 barrel 25-06 that is a real shooter. At that time I had a Leupold VXII 3-9X50 with standard duplex cross hairs on it. I had the rifle sighted in to strike 3" high at 100 yards. If you placed the junction of where the heavy part of the vertical cross hair where it meets the thinner part of the cross hair it was dead on the money at 200 yards. I got a good rest with the rifle on my shooting rail and put that thick/thin junction of the vertical cross hair on that deers eye and squeezed the trigger and BOOOOOOM. I sent a 117 gr Sierra Pro Hunter screaming out the barrel at 3000 fps and then heard a SMACK. I got down out of the stand and walked over to where the deer had been standing. It was laying in the same spot. Man that 117 Sierra made a mess out of that deers head. Bullet entered it's eye and just exploded it's head. It was a 6 point buck. I found one side of it's rack about 10 feet behind it and the other side was still attached by a thin piece of hide to what was left of the upper half of it's head.

Another deer kill that was no feat of marksmanship but was really cool to me was this. I had traded my hunting buddy out of what was at the time my first 25-06 rifle. It was a Rem 700 Varmint that somebody had magnaported the barrel, why I don't know. He had already worked up a load with 52 grs H-4831 and a 115 Nosler BT that was a tack driver. I had zeroed it with my scope and shot it some to get used to it at the range. I always was wearing ear muffs. I took it deer hunting on a piece of land that a friend had. It had a huge power line cut through it. I was hunting on the cut. You could shoot either sex and take two deer a day. The leaves were still thick and I could not see in the woods behind the tower stand I was in but I could hear something in the leaves really close behind the stand. Out walks these 4 doe deer. One starts walking down the cut to my right. I let it get about 100 yards and when it turns broadside I place the cross hairs on it's front shoulder and squeeze the trigger. BOOOM and my ears almost bust BEEEEEEEEE. The deer drops in it's tracks. The other 3 deer take off straight across the line cut and just as the biggest one gets almost across it turns right and starts running down the edge of the line cut. I swing the rifle through it just like shooting a bird with a shotgun and as soon as I pass it's front shoulder I fire. That deer is in mid air in the middle of a jump when the bullet hit's it right in the center of the front shoulder. It does a half barrel roll and when it comes down it lands in this big mud hole and the water splashes everywhere. It looked just like some of the pictures from a gun camera on an WWII American fighter plane shooting down a Zero into the ocean. I killed one more deer a few days latter with that rifle and could not stand the head busting muzzle blast from that magnaport anymore. I sold it and took the money and put it into making my custom Rem. 700 Shilen barrel 25-06.

 

[mcseal2]

One of the cooler shots I've made came earlier this year. I could see a coyote standing on the other side of a terass in one of our fields. All I could see was part of his head, not his back or side. I didn't think I could get closer without him hearing me in the crunchy stalks. I ranged the terass at 200yds, and figure the coyote to be at about 260. I was trying to decide how to get the shot, when I had an idea. My rifle was dialed in for 200yds and would be dropping about 5" at 260. I aimed just high enough to clear the terass and the bullet dropped right over it to make a lung shot. I thought it was pretty slick at the time to hit a part of the coyote I couldn't even see. It seemed like a better chance than trying to hit the top few inches of his head at that range

 

[1Shot]

It is called indirect fire. It works pretty good with a 105mm and 155mm cannon. :mrgreen:

 

[YoteSmoker]

Two instances of lucky shots stand out in my mind. One highlight and one lowlight, I guess.

One day when I was 19 my dad and I were deer hunting together in Lake City, Michigan. My dad dropped me off at the road and then he took the truck up into the woods that we were both familiar with and had me wait to give him time to get into position and then I was suppose to hunt my way to him and maybe casually push any deer between us his way. Well, I walked into the woods maybe 50 yards or so and stood on the parallelling gas line giving him time to get to his stand and low and behold I see the head of a deer and antler. The buck was laying down about 75 yards from me. All I could see was his head. I put the crosshairs of the leupold on his eyeball and pulled the trigger of the sporterized 03 springfield my dad had given me. At the recoil of the shot, I didn't see the deer anymore. I walked over to where it was bedded. The 165 Ballistic Tip sure made a mess of his head after it indeed entered the eye ball! My dad drove back down at the sound of the shot, saw the deer, then asked "Now tell the truth, where were you really aiming?" I've forgotten about some deer hunts but that is one that we'll both remember.

On another hunt maybe the same year, can't remember, we were float hunting down the Manistee River in Kalkaska, Michigan just a little ways North of the previous hunt. We both had doe permits. Float hunting is kinda like road hunting but it's legal and productive. This particular afternoon, 3 does jumped out of their beds and tried to escape back into the brush but parralleled the river. They were moving full tilt. I shot and made a perfect (lucky) heart shot on one. I didn't have a lot of time on that one. It was an awesome shot but little did I know that I had shot the smallest scruffiest deer, basically a yearling minus the spots. You know the ones that look the size of a dog or a sheep's head. Anyway, we got home and I remember my dad yelling at me to shut the garage door quick before the neighbors see!

 

[Greg Nolan]

Running shots! I guess shooting different rifles makes me less likely than the one gun man to get good . I have made a few fantastic hits but the number of misses keeps me very humble. One I did hit is still on my wall. It's a nice 4x3 mule deer I shot from a ridge top as he bounded as mule deer do and I swung like a shotgun and when the rifle went off I was looking at the cross hairs 2 feet ahead of his body about even with the bottom of his chest as he was just starting down from the top of his bounding arc. I was also looking about 4" of the top of the sage about half of the 200 yards away. No plop sound, a clean miss. Ahhh foooey. The second of the two bucks headed up the snowy ridge behind a tree line and since there was no way in the world I hit the first one I swung on the second but he was an artful dodger and dropped over the ridge and gone. My partner joined the ruckus at that point from above the uphill deer and got a shot off and declared a clean miss. I walked up the ridge to my partner and we were discussing what went on and I pointed to where my deer had crossed the ridge and bounded down the saddle and I found myself pointing at a deer laying in some red snow. I had hit it in the spine about 8" behind the shoulder. Later that same trip my partner and I put 10 rounds at a trotting raghorn bull at about a 100 yards in an open meadow. He never flinched and we never found him. A big Ahhh fooey

 

[257 Ackley]

Love the stories 8)

Two I can think of real quick. One was a nice 6 point buck that came out of a field corner right at dusk on the last day of whitetail season about 10 years ago. I was carrying my custom built 7mm-08 shooting 140 grain Swift A-frame bullets. I guessed the range at 650 yards, so I got in a sitting position, held about a foot over his back and squeezed off a round. Snow flew up between his legs, but he had no Idea where the shot came from and gave me another chance. I held about 3 feet over his back and squeezed off another round and he dropped :shock: . We paced it off and it was about 840 yards. That is the longest shot I have aver taken at a big game animal.

Second happened to a brother, not me. He was about 16 and hunting a thick wooded area that had alot of scrapping and rubbing sign. He was hunting with an old 760 30-06 that I had sold him when I bought a new rifle. I was hunting a ridgeline about 300 yards above him in case anything tried to pop out around him. He saw a huge buck coming down a trail. His first shot was a clean miss from about 50 yards. The buck turned and charged him instead of running away. My brother started to back up and fell over a log across the trail. His next shot was from the hip as the buck jumped over him. He was still laying on the ground shaking when I got to him about 10 minutes later, with this huge buck laying about 20 yards away. It is still the largest deer anyone in my family has shot (not rack wise but body size) with a field dressed weight of 237 lbs. I would not even think about trying to drag that monster out of the woods today. It took us over 4 hours to drag it about a mile.

 

[cloverleaf]

A couple come to mind. Both show off my inexperience. Back in about 89 I drew a tag for antelope back home in SD. I skidded to a stop on my folks yard in time to grab Dads 6.5 Jap. before we left for Belle Fouche. More evidence of my ignorance was I didnt think much of the 6.5 and was disapointed that Dad didnt offer to let me take the 7MAG. Today that rifle is costom stocked with a forged bolt and a K-4 weaver. In greatest part due to the fact that I couldnt hit the broad side of a barn with out a scope. Any way, at the time it wwas open sighted. I emptied that rifle (like 6 shots) over the back of a goat at maybe 75yards and never touched him. Can you say "buck fever" and I was flock shooting to boot I learned an embarassing lesson about preparation.

Amazingly enough I got asked back and about five years later I was hunting with Dad on a beautiful little ranch just ouside of Belle. Literally close enough to town that we couldnt shoot that way. The antelope were laying up in the shade under the trees of a neighboring ranch where we could not hunt. We sat and watched them the better part of two days and kinda figured where they moved when they did. In that part of the country, antelope will follow sheep trails. So we set me up with my back to a fence post about 150 yards from a trail and waoited for them to move. The short vversion of the story is that I took a shot at the first goat to come over that little rise. He stopped quartering towards me and looked the other way, at my Dad who stood up about a quarter mile away to get his attention. I tried to put a wobbly shot right behind the shoulder where the white and the tan meet. My shot hit high and forward breaking the little bucks neck. He collapsed on his feet in the most dramatic shot I have ever seen.
My Dad, who is rather sparing with his praise, said, "that was a perfect shot! Just like they do it in the magazines!" Incidentally, I had given up on the 6.5 by then and had bought the first 250. It was that shot and Dads comment that got me hooked on the 250.....

Excuse the black and white photo...couldnt find the color one. NO I'm not THAT old... CL

 

[Polaris]

I've got 2, I can't decide which was tougher.

First was last fall. Got one of those worst case shots at a doe whitetail, she jumped at the shot and got a bad hit. Trailed 400 yards to wooded pasture and began glassing my front trail. Spotted a big black doe eye peering at me from under a balsam at about 150 yards through my scope. Had to take the shot offhand as she was about to bolt, and had to lean around an aspen to get a firing angle. Held for the eyeball, hit her 1" below it. Thumbhole stock on my mauser and walking with the sling already wrapped helped my steadyness as well as my NRA 3pos highpower shooting made this shot possible. Practice your offhand!!

Second shot was when I was 18. Was on stand on the edge of a square 40 acre sodfield. Group of hunters across field jumped a nice buck and serenaded him with at least 30 shots from semi autos and lever guns hitting him in the front leg, the paunch and a superficial shoulder wound. He ran towards the ditch opposite me, exactly 440 yards away. I tracked him in the scope, hoping he would stop at that ditch, calculating my firing solution to the ditch and taking an improvised rest against a tree. About 15" elevation and 20" Kentucky windage dumped him with a single shoulder hit when he stopped to size up the ditch. I heard the exclamation "HOLY $*&^" from across the field. I guess the other hunters were impressed, even more so when I let them have the deer. Know your ballistics if you're gonna shoot long.

 

[mcseal2]

It is called indirect fire. It works pretty good with a 105mm and 155mm cannon. :mrgreen:

I'll bet!

 

[Polaris]

Got to post on the running deer thing. Those are my favorite shots, although some frown on them. Used to hunt with a large party until attrition/old age got the better of them. Most of their kids either moved out of state or didn't take up hunting. We did a lot of drives so I got lots of experience shooting at running deer from a young age.

My favorite shot was with my trusty Rem 788 in .308. We were driving a 40 of heavy brush and even at 15 I had developed a reputation as a shooter so I was posted on the sodfield at the north side instead of the customary role of a 15 year old as driver. A large doe busted cover at 125 yards doing mach 10 across the sodfield. Instinct took over and I just swung the rifle, about a deer length lead I slapped the trigger shotgun style and she went a$$ over teakettle about 4 flips on the sodfield. I still remember seeing lumps of sod and peat flying all over and seeing her do the crappie flop right there. Dropped to prone and put in a head shot just to be sure. First bullet hit just ahead of the shoulder blade, causing enough shock to drop her in her tracks. Second shot wouldn't have been necessary, but one can never be too sure. I believe in shooting till they quit twitching so long as no extra meat is involved. I never had to drive again after this shot until we had multiple deer hanging. I was nominated meat getter on every drive :grin: .

 

[Gm weatherby man]

I'll give yah two, one time I was hunting at the farm in a hay field next to a round bale for cover and gun rest about 300 yards from where the deer usually come out to feed, waiting on day light. When the sun started to light up the sky enough to see out into the field I stood up and took a look. I could see this lone white-tailed doe I guess to be just shy of 300 yards, waited for legal time and rested the cross hairs on the top of her back and gently pull the trigger on the old 303, being scope shy at the time closed my eyes at the shot. When I opened them she was standing some 10 yards farther looking back, figuring I miss judged I held a additional 6" over it's back. This time when I fired I had both eyes open and say the doe stumble a couple yards and drop. The kicker is when I walked off my yards to that doe I found the first doe in the deep fall growth of grass at 292 yards and the second at 303 yards. I was tagged out for the year using up my one suplemtal doe tag andy general white tail tag. No buck for me that year.

 

[Gm weatherby man]

Second, I was moose hunting one fall, spotted a good bull at the end of a cut block at the bottom of hill. He was working his way up to me when I heard a truck heading our way. He was a good 500 yards and down hill on a 20 deg. Angle, I had a decent rest so I gave 24" over his back and let fly with the old 303 Brit. I emtied the whole clip on him as he turned to run away. After he entered the bush I went back to my qaud and made my way to the bush line , then walked in 40 yards to see him bedded down like he'd been In a thuff fight. He went to get up when he noticed me, but two quick slugs and he was down for good. When skinning him I learned that only two original slugs hit in the chest, the rest where clean misses. :wink: