I am not going comment on the ethics of the first shot, I don't know the dude or what he is capable of. What I will comment on is the the actions after the shot.

Dude should have reloaded and been ready for a follow up shot, That deer gave him lots of time for a follow up shot or two if he had not stood up and been BSing with his buddy. That behaviour I have an issue with. He could have ended it very quickly with minimal suffering for the deer if he was paying attention and not caught up in the glories of his 7 mag and 180 grain whatever bullet and the great shot that he made.

If my old man caught me acting like that he would have whupped my ass.

I am a big fan of and have taught or tried to teach to everyone I have helped to learn to hunt to reload as soon as reasonably possible and get the cross hairs back on the animal or where it fell out of sight or to move where you can get the cross hairs on the animal and be ready for a follow up shot for at least a couple of minutes.

The first words out of the mouth of the 4 African PHs I have hunted with after a good shot on an animal are "reload", meaning be ready for a follow up shot.

I am a big believer no matter how good I think the first shot was if any game animal gives me a second shot I will take it. I have seen several dead animals get up and move out. Most recently a buddy of mine shot a mule deer, I was watching the deer through binos and called the shot high and little far back. I encouraged him to "get up there and kill that deer", his response "no it's dead" I ask him to humour me and either shoot again it or stick a knife in the ribs to make sure its dead.

During the conversation the gets up and runs off uphill, 3 more shots and the deer is now dead. It could have been finished much sooner.

Just my thoughts.

Could have summed it all up by saying "what Beaver 10 and Greg W said" guess I'm just long winded today.

All the best GRF


Last edited by GRF; 01/19/19. Reason: commenting on posts made while I was typing