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Herd bull archery- 8'
multiple coyotes at the muzzle. One was just a few inches from my face with teeth out! The small one here-

Injured calf at 6 inches with a 10/22

Wild hog at 26 feet

Whitetail doe at powder burn distances with a 18" 12 ga. 3"00 buck. total pattern diameter was about 1". Small WT buck at 9' with a .41 MAG contender. Like many here, I've killed far more deer under 50 yds. than over. Killed a turkey close enough for the muzzle blast to take off a bunch of feathers.

I shot my 1st Wa. Black Tail buck at 6'. Tiptoeing up the hill a few steps at a time... lookin' and listenin'. The buger was bedded down, just lifting his head and opening his eyes... He won't do that again. He was BIG, too. Took an hour to get it 300 yards down to the truck.

In the early 1900's the Corp of Engineers canalized the creek that ran trough the old family farm in North East Mississippi, in order to make the land farm-able, I a sure the ducks and other critters would have just as soon they had left it be. By the 1980's there were very large trees growing on both banks of the canal which was 20 ft deep but but usually very little water except after a storm. Late one December morning I was home on leave from the Marines and was sitting on the South bank, on one of those old wood and canvas, pain in the butt folding camp stools, watching out across the canal. A small buck came crashing through a dead-fall behind me, he hit the bank of the canal and turned West up the creek. I leaned forward to try and get a shot an lo & behold here he comes down the creek bank towards me. Luckily I had already been turned on to the utility of low powered scopes and was carrying a Remington 742 .308 Win with a Bushnell Scope Chief 1 3/4-4.5 scope. I fired just before falling over backwards in the mud. The buck went off in the canal and landed on his back in a shallow pool with his head under the water. Funny thing is that I did not notice that the left beam of the deer's rack was broke off about 3" inches from his head until we roped him to pull him up on the bank. Those were some lean years for deer and any legal buck was fair game. I think my grand dad would have whipped me if I told him I didn't shoot a small buck because one side of his rack was broken off. There were powder burns on the deer's right shoulder, he couldn't have been more than a few inches away when I fired. These days I find lots of excuses not to shoot, he is on the wrong side of the lake, it's too hot to let em hang, too damn cold to clean a deer today, aw maybe the neighbors wont get him and he will be bigger next year when the weather is better etc. etc.

Michael

I've killed several deer inside 10 yards. I have had some that I didn't shoot close enough to poke with the rifle barrel. I have poked my gun at a couple during deer drives so they would run around the bush I was hiding behind.

I shot a nice 7 pt. in Ohio about 30 years ago. Somebody ran it right up to me. It was about 10 feet away and the wad from the slug was stuck in it's hide.

This is about the closest I could have shot. I was leaning against a pine tree watching a trail. Two mule deer does were running down the trail. One stopped right next to me with her head just on the other side of the tree. I tapped her on the butt with the end of my rifle barrel.

I shot a cow elk at less than 3 steps with a muzzleloader once. She was close enough that she had powder burns on her hair when I gutted her so the muzzle was probably less than 2 ft from her side. My brother asked why didn't I just wrestle her down and cut her throat instead of shooting her.

Up on a steep ridge sitting behind a fallen oak tree with Laurel bushes about 6-feet behind me. I could see 75 yards straight ahead, but I heard chewing behind me. I rolled over in a prone position facing up hill and she was 3 feet from the tip of the barrel in the Laurel bushes. 3006 in one ear and out the other, she rolled down on top of me.

I shot a doe this morning at about 9 yards. 130 ttsx at 3000 fps did a number on her. I think the blood splatter was farther than the shot distance.