Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Do you shoot till they drop

looks like every one agrees shot till they drop where i hunt the unwritten rule even though i do not agree with it is he who knocks it down tags it some guys are reasonable and if the see its hit will finish it off for you but most will race you to the kill even if they did not shoot and try to claim it as their own ELK MAKE THE NICEST GUYS CRAZY

Sounds like you've hunted the Colockum herd here in central Washington...

Depends--is the elk headed towards the truck or away from the truck?........






Casey

The first couple of years I just shot over the elks backs so it really didn't matter how much I shot.

Placement is king - screw up the first shot and well you know.

If you've killed as many elk as Saddlesore has well, any of us here would be lucky to do that.

washington has a very missed up ethics system in place once i had a guy try to take a cow from me that had my arrow sticking out both sides right in the heart he said it was his arrow in tell i showed him a quiver full - 1 of the same fletching as the one in the elk

Good thought Casey Makes me think of a couple of Deer. The largest Deer I ever shot I had to pack out, the smallest slid kicking down hill on ice, right by me, on down the hill and over a bank and ended up dead five feet from my truck

now that is some good planning!

Like most everyone else, I am a big fan of the "cervid double tap." Most anyone who has spent much time around elk can tell you stories of elk going further than you thought they should--or maybe even not recovered--from what should have been quickly mortal.

I used to be anal that I knew where it was when it went off.... after seeing some guns loose zero, and having seen non monolithic bullets fail, I now choose to continue shooting until they are dead.

And if they drop at the shot, thats an even larger sign to shoot again, assumign I was not doing a head shot....

Like others have said, the trip, the tags, the time... what the heck, bullets are cheap.

I will admit though that I use this train of thought on larger animals.... our normal deer, I just trust the hit and move on to watching again.

I hunt with a muzzleloader for the most part. If I know I hit the boiler works, I let the animal go off and die. If not, I'll reload as fast as I can and try to get another one in.

Same with a rifle really.

I'll shoot again if needed, but I don't go all "Postal." It doesn't matter how fast you fling lead in the air all around the animal, it won't die any quicker.

I've hunted mostly with single shots. With even the slightest confidence that the boiler has been punctured, I stop at one round.

I shot one bull 6 times because that is what my rifle held. He did fall over after the last shot. I had a very nice 4 shot group in the vitals, one back in the liver from when he stepped, and the last shot broke his rear leg but that was all I could see. I didn't have anyone calling my shots and didn't see any accurate evidence of the hits until the last.

On the other hand, I shot a bull at close range and could see the shot placement and sat there allowing the bull to tip over.

Many years ago I was guiding for an outfitter in Montana's AB Wilderness north of Yellowstone park. It was mid Sepember and the bulls were rutting and bugling up a storm. We ended up on Hellroaring Slopes just a few hundred yards north of the park line. The open park we were hunting ran down to the south and well into Yellowstone. There must have been 30 cows and calves with at least half a dozen bulls competing for the hot ones. It was quite a sight and somthing most elk hunters only dream about. Finally the herd bull made his appearence less than 100 yards from the boundry and 200 yards from us...he was a big 6X6 and probably in the 350" range. He presented my hunter a nice broadside shot that he took with his .264 Magnum. He dropped instantly at the impact. My hunter jumped up and took off running up towards him. I could see the bull's feet moving like he was trying to run but still on his side I yelled for my hunter to shoot again but he keep going. Then the bull looked up, saw the guy, got to his feet in about 2 seconds and was heading towards the park like a race horse out of the starting chute...in a vain attempt to reload and shoot, the bull was gobbled up by the black timber across the line and gone. That bull getting away still haunts me to this day. What was sad is there was plenty of time to shoot again before he got up. I was in my mid 20's then and the hunter I was guiding was twice my age and had hunted all over the world...He had that "macho" one kill thing going on. It was a long and quiet ride back to camp in the dark that night...

Gotta love the skulltap. Stuff just falls down and holds still. Failing that, if the animal does not fall down upon being hit, I shoot it again. Kind of my idea of making the kill as quick and merciful as possible. Just because I want to eat doesn't mean the animal has to suffer.

Scenarshooter - excellent story illustrating why a fellow ought to shoot until the bull is just plain done. That would be a huge disappointment.

I've only taken one bull elk, that was with a single 175 gr Nosler Partition from the 7mm mag. Was ready to send the second, but within seconds it wasn't necessary.

I think the point that should be taken away from this is... sometimes we don't make a perfect shot. Sometimes we do. Sometimes the gun is off for whatever reason. And simply seeing a bullet hit the right spot doesn't mean it'll work and or kill the animal. I've seen a double lung shot deer survive... So I no longer take anything for granted, even if I see where the bullet hits. There are those 1 in 100 issues that make me tend to either shoot more or at least cover the animal for a number of minutes with the safety off.

I travel 1400 miles each way to hunt elk. Pay for out of state bull and cow tags, take 10-12 days away from the family and work, and hunt on public property VERY close to private lines. I shoot until they quit moving. Last year my bull took two hits. This year, my cow took one hit and bull took 5. Sucker kept standing up, I kept shooting. And we were about 30 yards from the property line. Not gonna take that chance. I came home with full coolers and punched tags. That is important to me and my family.

I do unless they just drop [It has only happened once, a little bull]or they run out of view.

I've never had one make it more than 200 yards before they fell but I have tracked some for several days others have shot.

Elk don't seem nearly as hard to kill if they haven't been run or otherwise excited. If they have been stirred up it can take three good hits with an '06 to get them on the ground soon enough for me.

I have a similar story to scenarshooter. In 2005 I shot at a buck that dropped and slid down the mtn. He ended up upside down, antlers stuck in the snow, hooves up. Since he crumpled like he did, I didn't expect him to get up. I began to head toward him and my buddy said, "Hey he's still kicking." I looked up there and he was still hooves up, but his legs were walking in the air. I told my buddy, "he's not going anywhere!" About that time, some excitement kicked in because I knew it was a pretty nice buck.. then he jumped to his feet and began sprinting up the mountain. I reloaded and by the time I was ready, the buck was bolting around a corner. I fired and missed. We tracked that buck for 2 hours, until dark. It led us through 3 mtn passes, in and out of timber, only one small drop of blood in the snow the whole way. It was a long and painful night. God was looking out for me though, and I was there at daylight the next morning and found the buck, this time he didn't get back up. I think that my shot at the buck that knocked him down was a clean miss, but he caught some debris in the head, knocking him cold for a minute. He was on a steep rocky hillside, about 380 yards away, with tremendous windy gusts.

I keep shooting if they are on their feet, and stay on them ready to shoot, even after they are down for a bit.