I have been reading this with too much dismay not to comment.
A different take: That was frankly a disgraceful and unethical use of a young kid. Dad pushes the kid into a performance in front of an adult entourage and a video camera that is shoved into his face. Many parts of that video were obviously reenactment. Are you really going to have the cameraman in front of a kid setting up a loaded rifle for a long-range shot? I hope not. But look at the performance, yeah, the kid is carrying the rifle on his pack, but Dad takes the rifle, sets it up, dials in the distance, works the bolt a-la-Palin, and pontificates through the whole performance. (I intentionally watched it without sound – actions alone speak loudly.) The kid reenacts working the bolt and pushing off the safety – no way someone was shooting video that close to his face and in his way when he was actually shooting (really?).
Did that kid look comfortable behind the stock? Not really. They must have cut it down, but he was still struggling to get things to fit, see out of the huge scope that dwarfed him, and get into a good shooting position. Was it ethical to have a kid who was that uncomfortable with his rifle and shooting position attempting a long-range shot like that? Not. Why does anyone think he had a clean miss the first shot? Poor rifle fit, poor shooting position, maybe can’t see well out of the scope because he is so far back from it, then you add stress from the performance pressure and adrenaline from the buildup to the shot! Maybe he is actually capable of long shots from the bench on a rest. Should his Dad have been translating that to him lobbing extreme shots at a bull elk, shooting from a field position?
The question has nothing to do with the kid’s decisions and behavior, and everything to do with the group of adults pushing and enabling this stunt show. What is the kid learning from the hype, decision making, and expectations placed upon him? It is a nice bull, but does the kid know enough yet to really appreciate that? To appreciate the animal he got, what it is, how it lived, what a gift it is?
On shooting game at ultra long ranges where there is time for many things to change and go wrong with a shot, aside from the merry little breezes between shooter and target, or the animal moving, I am in the camp of many other opinions already stated. For an inanimate target, go for it. For a living, breathing animal that feels pain and may suffer a lingering death from a bad shot that is not immediately and successfully followed up, I just can’t agree. From that distance you can’t get there quickly and do what you should to finish it. If you are going to hunt, hunt. Get close enough for a fail-safe shot (yeah, I know sometimes fail-safe shots can have problems, but less so at 100 yards or under than at over 1,000 yards), be prepared for a follow-up, if you lose sight of your animal, stay with it until you get it or you really do completely lose all sign. Put your all into it. Go look the next day if you need to. Hunt responsibly. Those really long range shots fall into a different category than truly hunting, they are shooting, sniping, call it what you will, at least to my ken. But then, for me, the thrill comes from getting as close as I can for a shot, then making a quickly deadly shot.
