Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Approaching a downed animal

Story from many years ago: my grandfather was deer hunting, the other guy he was with shot a deer and it dropped. This guy was of the school of cutting the throat to bleed out the deer, so he sets his rifle down, gets out his knife, straddles back of deer. As he lifts the head the deer wakes and jumps up. Guy drops knife and wraps his arms around the deer's neck. As the deer starts to buck and run he's yelling "shoot! shoot!" at my grandfather, who is laughing way to hard to take that kind of shot. pretty sure deer got away. Should have poked it in the eye.

Like this. Stop a distance away when you can see the tongue. If the tongue is making any kind of motion that would suggest taunting, give him another. If the tongue is still, check to see if the eyes are Xs. If so, then you know he's dead.

A couple friends, brothers jacked a nice buck one night and it came alive in a large construction garage. No problem for these guys, they shot him again while he was running around inside. Quite proud of him, had him mounted and is on the wall in the same garage

sambo3006----- Turkey hunting I carry a tape recording of a Mexican Mariachi Band playing and while playing it I do The Mexican Hat Dance on it's head.

I remember that pic and the story behind it, great to see it again!

If the eyes are closed its still alive, if the eyes are fogging over its dead

My cousin and I had our wives in a small boat back in some swampy stuff up in Ontario. We were catchin frogs with red yarn and a small treble hook, swing im over into the boat, grab legs and whack their head against rhe side of the boat. One must have just been knocked out cuz it came to and started hoppin around. Both women jumped up and ran to opposite ends of the 12 foot boat, nearly dumped us all, including all the bullfrogs we nabbed.

Ever since then I carry my 12ga and give them a finishing shot! (The frogs, not the women.)

Caught a big snapping turtle fishing at night from a big freight canoe. My cousin was faking sleep in the bow and would not help me land the turtle. I finally got hold of the tail and hauled it over the side and dropped it in the canoe.

Leonard objected because the turtle was headed right at him. He ended up swamping the canoe and we lost a bunch of stuff.

My moose last September was really close and fighting with another bull when I shot. Willows deflected the bullet and the bull was trying to get up so I moved in close to clear the willows.

After I killed him I looked up to find the other bull still standing there at maybe 25 feet trying to figure out what just happened... Scared me badly when I realized he might have decided to come after me, not realizing I had just given him all the cows!

Nothing on those stupid hunting shows is real, same for the magazines. They have already found the animal, moved it for the best shot, and probably done a couple of practice runs. "Boy, I would have never shot this big ol' naturally raised 400 point bull elk without this Remmington 700 CDL and Premier Accutip bullets".

Then they edit out the fence in the background.

I shot a smallish 7 point whitetail last season and while the shot smashed both front shoulders the internal damage was less than anticipated. I knew he'd have to go down hill and once located him I could see he was flat out down but still breathing. Approaching from the tail end I thought he'd slip away and just kept my rifle pointed in his general direction when all of a sudden he's swapped ends and I had a seriously PO'd antlered animal at 10 yards. Fortunately, he could not rise but it was pretty plain he'd have loved to take a piece of me with him. A "quieter" ended things but then.... My son-in-law once grabbed a "dead" pronghorn I'd dropped only to have the goat jump up. We named that one Lazarus. It's so easy to get a bit casual especially with smaller or non-dangerous game.

I often wonder what would happen, if more folks would give em the 30 minute break... WTF else is so important generally, that you have to haul over there quickly..


Animals do not die as quickly as folks think....

Uness the amimal is down in sight, wait 30 minutes on crowded public land and you'll possibly find only a gut pile. I make every effort to drop the critter within sight when I hunt public land, especially on opening weekend. I can only imagine what it is like to hunt public land in PA, NY, NJ etc.

in PA if you're on public land, you shoot until you can't see your target safely anymore (see another hunter or the animal disappears) then you follow up right away or someone else will have it.


my dad got a nice 8 point my first year sitting in the woods with him (I was probably 10) heard the shots coming up the hollow and he was the one that finished so he got to keep it

I learned 30 yrs ago to check the eye!

Was on a deer drive - Yes we could legally use dogs.
Still, had to have big time safety rules: We (hunters) were dropped strategically off along an old logging road. Such that each hunter was at/in a low point along the road. This way there was a hill between each hunter so we could not accidently shoot one another. The absolute safety rule was that you DID NOT move from your drop-off spot until you were picked back up after the hunt.

I shot a 6pt. "Died" right in front of me on the road. Since it would be awhile before I was to be picked-up, I put my gun down and stepped over the back of the deer to cut its throat and let it bleed while I waited. Deer got up - Me on its back and ran down the road. I was holding on with both hands even with my knife in one. The ride was so ruff I couldn't let go to even to stab it must less cut the throat. All I could do was holler hopeing the hunter on the other side would hear me and not shoot us at the hill top. Luckily he did and I saw laughing about the time I fell off the deer. He was laughing so hard he did not even get off a shot when the deer and I had separated!

Was so embarrassed, all I could think of was to throw my knife down and holler that "I've had to get me a gun next time"! Latter that day he even offered to let me use one his.

Sambo3006--- one can hunt on public lands in (NY) the Adirondacks for a whole week + --- without running into another hunter.

Yep, I hunted a tract of 28 thousand acres state (public) land in the southern Adirondacks for years and saw a total of four other hunters in there. Can go for miles and not see another track.

Best not dead animal I every experience was not " Big" game. We used to hunt a goose blind that was a box about 8 x6 by four feet tall. One morning there was 4 of us in there plus two retrievers when one of the dogs started growling . I turned to be eyeball to eyeball with Two perfectly alive and less then happy greater canada ganders... ended poorly with dogs and fists a flying .

I was squirrel hunting when I was a teenager and saw a large
raccoon asleep in the top of a dead tree. It awoke and raised its head up, I was using a 22 magnum and put the cross hairs on his head and fired. He crashed to the ground and I walked up to him and flipped him over with my boot. He immediately came back to life and tried to bite my boot, I grabbed a large stick and whacked him good, killing him this time. I skinned him right there and the bullet had only grazed his head. Im glad I didnt grab him by the tail and pick him up, probably would have got bitten pretty bad.

Several years ago in ND I was hunting with my dad and my nephew in an overgrown pasture. My nephew shot a nice buck we jumped up at about 150 yds away. We knew the general area where he went down but the grass and brush was thick and 2.5-3 ft high all over. We got to the general area where we thought he went down and started looking for him. All of a sudden the buck lunged at my nephew with his antlers pointed at his legs. It was a quick and violent effort from an adrenalized deer and luckily it came up maybe two inches short due to Trevor reacting with a quick rearward hop. The buck turned out to have been spined about 1/2 way between the neck and the tail. I can assure you there was nothing wrong with his will to live or his front legs as they propelled him a good 7-8 ft. in a single, violent & rapid lunge. He got a quick finishing shot before he could reload for another attempt at goring my nephew. It was an exciting end to a cool hunt with a kid from AL shooting his first deer with his grandpa and uncle present and it all taking place on his late great grandfathers land.

I know there have been some funny accounts of pheasants turning out to not be dead but sometimes the situation can actually get serious. I was hunting another time in ND with my dad and my cousin and we had limited on some nice big late-season pheasants. We were grabbing them out of the back of the pickup to pose for a limit picture with our 9 beautiful birds. Well it turns out that a rooster that my dad grabbed was camera shy. As my dad grabbed the bird by the neck/breast area this big rooster proceeded to spur the $hit out of him on the underside of his wrist. It quickly become apparent why this is the go to spot for people trying to off themselves because the amount of bleeding that commenced was damned scary. The situation was amplified by the fact that dad is on prescription blood thinner. We didn't have a first aid kit handy so we kept packing snow onto his wrist and compressing the area in an effort the get the bleeding slowed down. We always try to keep a first aid kit in the hunting rigs now as you never know what might happen and it's usually quite a ways to medical help.