Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Ever lose an animal you felt was well hit?

I lost three bucks in one day on Afognak Island...

First I shot in the neck in deep snow. Dragging him to the beach I found where a brown bear was bedded when I shot... less than 50 yards away. Tied the deer to a huge log on the beach with halibut ground line and went to get the skiff. When we got back the deer was gone, but you could see the trail the bear took while carrying the buck.

A couple miles away I was following the edge of a clearcut and stepped out to the edge on a step knob. Two bucks steeply downhill from me and less than a hundred yards away died. My buddy came out of the woods and looked over the edge in front of me and started laughing.

A bear right below me ran straight away from us and stopped when he found the deer. Only two times I ever lost deer to bears around Kodiak. Carrying a Bob and my buddy was carrying a 223 in an H&K, so chasing bears off deer was not an option.