Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Trying to better understand (profile) true LR-Hunters ... ??

I know that we probably all consider ourselves "above-average" hunters/shooters (I know I do) .... and that the average hunting/shooting abilities of a Campfire-member are above those of all the Bubbas we assist at the range, during sight-in days. I understand benchrest shooting and even 1,000 yard target-shooting (with sighters) .... But when it comes to consistently whacking big game at 600+ yards, I must admit ... that armed only with my mostly factory sporter-weight rifles ... I am not worthy .... !

But, I would like to understand better, the Seasons/Conditions that you LR-Hunters pursue your big-game in.
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Could some of those who are true Long-Range-Hunters of Big Game (not varmints), "briefly" answer these questions (kind of a mini-poll).

1) How many years have you been L-R Hunting (arbitrarily defined as > 600 yards ).
2) What state (or states) do you regularly LR-hunt in.
3) What % of the time are you LR-hunting, across various the big game species: Deer/Elk/Bears/other ?
4) How many big-game animals have you shot at (LR) ?
5) How many were first-shot hits (no sighters)?
6) How many were (first)one-shot kills ?
7) What is your average (long-range) shot distance ?
8) Percent of time you have a spotter along ?
9) How long a season do you hunt ... ?
10) What is the bag-limit by species (if more than 1 animal ) ...
11) What does your Go-To LR-Hunting big-game rifle weigh ?
12) Do you also carry that rifle through the woods (or do you only hunt from a truck/road ... or a back-porch or backyard dedicated shooting shed ) ?
13) If presented with a 210 yard shot ... do you pass, in order to later take a longer one (and thus hone your Long-Range skills) ?

One of the things I'm trying to understand, is if this is mostly an East Coast/Midwest practice/phenomena, used predominatley on deer (shooting across plowed fields) into the back-40 acres, where the shooter can hunt/harvest 4 or 5 or more deer per 30+ day season .... (and ride-out on an ATV to inspect for blood) ?
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Since it takes 8, 10 or 12 years to draw a trophy Elk tag in many Western states, how many are hunting Elk (long-range) out here also ... or are you mostly focused on deer, where longer seasons and multiple harvest opportunities abound ?

Thanks,

.... Silver Bullet

Shoot well ... Shoot Once !

Assuming you aren't trolling.....

1. Can't say that I can tell you, though my first shot past 300 yards was MANY years ago as a youth. But the knowledge and skill to actually become 110% at 500 and beyond.... appx 1994.
2.Tx, and whatever other fall state.. CO, AK etc... I"m not purposely shooting LR though.(see sig line)
3. Depends on what I have for tags, but generally I get one tag and become specific, though here in TX it could be deer, exotics, hogs, javelina, turkey or varmints at any time.
4. 3
5. 3
6. 3
7. 565 yards, 670something, and 802
8.so far, 100% but if I"m alone, and I'm 110% confident I"ll shoot, the call is up to me and I err on the side of safety.
9. Deer is 3+ months, hogs all year...
10. Can shoot 5 deer or more, unlimited hogs, only buy one elk tag those years
11. Appx 11 pounds, though I use various rifles.
12. Carry where ever I go, remember I'm not dedicated LR, just have the ability, and I'm not shooting 1000 yards so far....
13.If they are walking to me, I'll often let them walk VERY close.... IE I'll happily take the close shot every time.(sig line....)
I rarely hunt VIA ATV. Can't stand the things really... I shoot, mark down a range, enter coords in the GPS, take a heading etc... and walk to the sight, I wouldn't drive up to a scene even if I could to look... I go all on foot till I'm sure its dead and found....

Jeff

Have never shot game at long range, but am putting together a rifle and outfit to gain the skills. My thinking is one cannot be too good of a shot, or have too accurate of a rifle. I'd much rather have 600 yd skills and never take an animal past 300 yds, then be sketchy at 250, not able to accurately range an animal and launch lead beyond where I can place bullets.

I am not nearly as experienced as most on this forum, and am relatively new to this, but here it goes:
1) How many years have you been L-R Hunting (arbitrarily defined as > 600 yards ). 8 years
2) What state (or states) do you regularly LR-hunt in. Alberta, Canada, ONLY. I hunt in British Columbia, but shots are seldom 200 yards plus.
3) What % of the time are you LR-hunting, across various the big game species: Deer/Elk/Bears/other ? We only have a four week season, unless drawn for a longer season. Deer is the primary game. So I would say 50%
4) How many big-game animals have you shot at (LR) ? I have harvested 4 deer at longer ranges, three at 4 to 500 yards and one at 630.
5) How many were first-shot hits (no sighters)? 4
6) How many were (first)one-shot kills ? 4
7) What is your average (long-range) shot distance ? 495
8) Percent of time you have a spotter along ? 70%
9) How long a season do you hunt ... ? As above, for deer, 4 weeks.
10) What is the bag-limit by species (if more than 1 animal ) Typically, in the "Long Range Areas" One Whitetail and one Mule deer, if drawn.
11) What does your Go-To LR-Hunting big-game rifle weigh ? About 11 pounds.
12) Do you also carry that rifle through the woods (or do you only hunt from a truck/road ... or a back-porch or backyard dedicated shooting shed ) ? I carry that rifle everywhere. Primary deer hunting is by vehicle, then once game is spotted by foot.
13) If presented with a 210 yard shot ... do you pass, in order to later take a longer one (and thus hone your Long-Range skills) ? Hell no, 210 yard shots are gifts, take them. I hone long rang skills on paper, buckets, frying pans, sinks, you get the idea.
End of quiz, how did I do???

1) How many years have you been L-R Hunting (arbitrarily defined as > 600 yards ).

Since 1990 was when the bug first bit me
2) What state (or states) do you regularly LR-hunt in.

wv and va
3) What % of the time are you LR-hunting, across various the big game species: Deer/Elk/Bears/other ?

I try to average 60-75% of my time alotted for hunting at LR hunting, mostly to keep in the habit of spotting game at LR, after you know the ropes so to speak, the shooting and spotting are what ya need to keep tuned in.
4) How many big-game animals have you shot at (LR) ?

22
5) How many were first-shot hits (no sighters)?


20, 1 was a clean miss at 503 yds, the other early in my days of dialing up, I miscalculated my elevation on a whitetail doe at 489 yds, overshot her and hit and killed a different doe, so I call it a miss
6) How many were (first)one-shot kills ?

20
7) What is your average (long-range) shot distance ?

around 500 I guess
8) Percent of time you have a spotter along ?

spotters, none yet, had spectators once
9) How long a season do you hunt ... ?

Three weeks
10) What is the bag-limit by species (if more than 1 animal ) ...

between wv and va I can take 8 deer and 2 bear
11) What does your Go-To LR-Hunting big-game rifle weigh ?

I have 3, 2 of which weigh 15# and a rifle I carry more which weighs 9
12) Do you also carry that rifle through the woods (or do you only hunt from a truck/road ... or a back-porch or backyard dedicated shooting shed ) ?


Yes
13) If presented with a 210 yard shot ... do you pass, in order to later take a longer one (and thus hone your Long-Range skills) ?

a quality buck I would take at any range, little more choosey with just a deer (does)

RR

I know the kind. I spent ~2hours helping people this past monday; ran out of light to shoot.

1) 5 or 6
2) Mississippi, Tennessee and Wyoming
3) Deer/antelope75/25%
4) 5
5) 100%
6) 4/5 one required a finisher to end it quicker.
7) 579 yards
8) 100%-- either my dad or my daughter
9) October to January
10) 3 does a day/3 bucks a year in Tennessee, 2 Antelope(draw), 1 deer Wyoming(draw), 3 bucks a year/3 does a year Mississippi.
11)13#
12) Carry it whereever I hunt...
13) No passes-- I shoot many more at less than 300 than I do at over 300... but the skills are there, regardless....

Thanks to those who responded to this mini-poll and at least by a summary of their responses, it confirmed some of the things I had expected. While someone may go into the woods with the tools and "capability" to shoot long range, most don't even average 1 long-range attempt, per year of hunting .. and this is with long (or multiple) seasons and generous bag limits. Give them a "close" shot opportunity .. and they are all over it.

These L-R shots are almost exclusively taken on Deer and Antelope size game (vs: Elk, Moose or Black bears, etc). While I arbitrarily defined Long-Range as over 600 yards, their average shot distances are more like 500 yards... and, they have a high percentage of 1st shot hits/kills on these shot attempts.


Silver Bullet 8 years, 2/3 avg 650 yds
Rost495.....13 years, 3/3 avg 680 yds
Rman .........8 years, 4/4 avg 500 yds
RidgeRnr...17 yrs, 20/22 avg 500 yds
Jamison......6 years, 5/5 avg 580 yds

While I had expected there to be more hard-core responses similar to RidgeRunners (dozens of harvests, with over 15+ years experience) but with a much longer average shot-distance .... maybe these other LR hunters don't have a good 1st-shot hit rate .. or use ranging shots to walk-in their hits .... or are mostly shooting Long-Range at Varmints (vs: big game)... or are just too shy to respond ??

The good news ... the Elk are safe and there are probably waaay-less wounded game in the woods from those who intimately know/understand the long-range ballistics of their rifles/loads/bullets ... than the "average" box-a-year Bubba.

... Silver Bullet

Shoot well ...Shoot Once !!

[
But, I would like to understand better, the Seasons/Conditions that you LR-Hunters pursue your big-game in.
- - - - - -

Could some of those who are true Long-Range-Hunters of Big Game (not varmints), "briefly" answer these questions (kind of a mini-poll).
I'll try to answer your questins as best I can Siver bullet
1) How many years have you been L-R Hunting (arbitrarily defined as > 600 yards ). 27 years
2) What state (or states) do you regularly LR-hunt in. Colorado and Pennsylvania--North Central---West Virginia from time to time also
3) What % of the time are you LR-hunting, across various the big game species: Deer/Elk/Bears/other ? 85% Sometimes I grab a sporter rifle and take a walk to warm up when we are LR hunting.
4) How many big-game animals have you shot at (LR) ? Shot at and killed wouold be ---Deer and elk combined I would say 35 in the past 25 years.
5) How many were first-shot hits (no sighters)? I'm a spotter shooter which means I take no chances with the wind and take a spotter shot 100 yards in front or behind the animal to judge the wind and make the scope correction. This eleminates any chance of wounding the animal. The following shot at the animal he is dead.
6) How many were (first)one-shot kills ? Like I mentioned previous, My LR crew of two or three of us takes one or two spotter shots first and then go for the animal. I guess you could say the first shot at the animal, they were "all" first round kills. We have large optics on tri-pods and we know where any hunter is on the mountain we are shooting into. If there's a hunter anywhere on that mountain, we don't shoot at all.
7) What is your average (long-range) shot distance ? On elk---1250 yards is the average From 500 (only one elk was killed inside of 1000 yards) to 2100 Yards on elk. ---deer the average is right at 1000 yards. My wife's last elk was 1350 yards.
8) Percent of time you have a spotter along ? Always and usually it's my wife and one or two frinds of ours.
9) How long a season do you hunt ... ? Everyday even if we fill our tags. We stay and help our friends get their animal LR if we can.
10) What is the bag-limit by species (if more than 1 animal ) One elk and one deer for each of us (my wife and I both) in Colorado. Two buck deer in PA. We don't kill doe
11) What does your Go-To LR-Hunting big-game rifle weigh ? I have several depending on the local we will be hunting and the range we plan to shoot. I have them from 22 Lbs to 67 lb bench mounted for extreme range and for elk.
12) Do you also carry that rifle through the woods (or do you only hunt from a truck/road ... or a back-porch or backyard dedicated shooting shed ) ? If it's the heavy bench gun---No I don't carry that in the woods. We set up in a shooting building I have up high in the mountain on my property here in PA. If we carry our guns and backpacks out on a ridge to spend the day, it will be a by-pod gun in the 22 lb class.
13) If presented with a 210 yard shot ... do you pass, in order to later take a longer one (and thus hone your Long-Range skills) ? I would take a close one if it was a nice animal but, I prefer the long shots anytime over the short shots. For instance---if there was an 8 point standing 210 yards away and an 8 point 1000 yards plus, I would go after the 1000 yard plus animal. There's more to placing a shot at 1000 plus yards as compaired to a 210 yard shot with the guns and equipment we have.

These are the facts Silver bullet and hope I answered all your questions satisfactory.

Later
DDCC (Darryl Cassel)

Fellows
In the previous post, my answers were supposed to be in bold print but, it didn't come out that way.

Would make the reading of my answers much easier.

Maybe the next time.

Later

Hi Darryl...How are things in the big woods

Darryl, off subject, but curious about no does in PA? System screwed up or herd screwed up? I shoot a buck about every 5 years and shoot does the rest of the time for meat. Just curious whats going on up there? Would think that does need to be culled out too.

Good to see your post!

Jeff

Rost495

The game commission and DCNR is trying to eleminate the deer completely because of the timber production on State Forrest lands. Most of this area here in North Central PA is rugged mountains and also mostly State Forest which is perfect for longrange hunting. The game commission has gone completly crazy and have allotted an enormous amount of doe tags in each game unit which covers about three counties. They've been doing it for several years now and it's terrible.
My neighbor, has 2500 acres and posted every foot of it. I in turn have done the same with my 100 acres and many of our fellow land owner friends in this area have done the same.
It's a sad day here in the Cameron county area to see "anyone" except a new Junior hunter kill a doe. It's to the point where a person can hunt on foot all day and never even see a deer.
There's a point restriction on bucks (3 points on one side) in this area also and we do see an occassional nice buck.
Not the case this year though. After killing decent bucks the past three years we passed on a 5 point and that's the only buck we saw in this area in two weeks of hunting longrange with very good optics. After my wife killed a beautiful 10 point in West Virginia (5 years ago)we only look for 8 pointers and up. Everything else can stay alive and grow bigger for next year.
I wish we had the deer you fellows have down in Texas but it just don't work that way here.
There are parts of the State that have deer but, for the most part, the hunters are in an uproar everywhere. Several of my friends didn't even buy a hunting license this year and they live in this area.

Hello Boyd

Saw your pic and your daughters in the Willimsport 1000 yard banquet report.
Congratulations to you both. You two hung in there again this year.
We will be putting 5 more benches in at Reade range for the 1000 yard compititions in 2008. There will be a factory only class also which should be fun. Those new Savage customs in the 6.5/284 will probably show up in numbers.

How did you do in buck season down your way?
Terrible up here. Berfields son got a 9 point the last day.
They hunted close to Monument.

Later

Boyd

I'm sure you heard about Jerry Phillips getting killed up here in hunting season.
I introduced you to Ernie Forrerst when you were here, if you remember. Jerry was with Ernie in his jeep out in Cole Run at the power line. It started to snow and they could't see to LR hunt from that spot. They packed up their equipment and started to pull up a hill at the power line and slid backward and sideways down over the mountain to the first bench which was about 100 feet. It came to rest on that flat upside down. If it had rolled another time or two the Jeep would have come straight off the cliff and down onto route 120 about 1000 feet below. Jerry was thrown out and the jeep rolled over him causing severe head trauma. He wass dead at the scene and it took three hours for help to arrive. Lucky there were two other LR hunters with them in another Jeep that went for help. No cell phone service in that area. Ernie was pinned by the steering wheel and was not thrown out.
Sad day anjd rest of the season after that happened to one of the LR crews in this area.

Later

Boyd

I'm sure you heard about Jerry Phillips getting killed up here in hunting season. It happened Tuesday of the second week.
I introduced you to Ernie Forrest when you were here, if you remember.
Jerry was with Ernie in his jeep out in Cole Run at the power line. It started to snow and they could't see to LR hunt from that spot. They packed up their equipment and started to pull up a hill at the power line and slid backward and sideways down over the mountain to the first bench which was about 100 feet. It came to rest on that flat upside down. If it had rolled another time or two the Jeep would have come straight off the cliff and down onto route 120 about 1000 feet below. Jerry was thrown out and the jeep rolled over him causing severe head trauma. He wass dead at the scene and it took three hours for help to arrive. Lucky there were two other LR hunters with them in another Jeep that went for help. No cell phone service in that area. Ernie was pinned by the steering wheel and was not thrown out.
Sad day for the rest of the season after that happened to one of the LR crews in this area.

Later