Good points Tom.
Question Tom, at what ratio of clean kills vs. wounded animals are acceptable to you? 10 kills, 3 wounded? 3 kills, 10 wounded?
In my state, wanton waste of game, not recovered by a good faith effort is illegal and punishable. How does this play out in a scenario where 'pot shots' might be taken at game, and said animals are never recovered?
What about wounded game that may have been taken cleanly by other hunters not out to snipe game? What about unrecovered animals, the meat not eaten by a hunter, and they are taken out of the reproductive pool?
What about hunters who get '2nd dibs' on shot opportunities, when bullets are flying over them towards game they are stalking?
Thoughts? Are ANY and ALL LR Game Sniping shots justified? Or should one consider the true costs of shots gone awry?
Whats an acceptable range? 800 yds? 1200? 1600? 2200? Where does this trend end?
For my particular tastes I would like my ratio to be under 1/10. I definetly don't like the thought of waste. We are likely in the same boat on many of these opinions.
Issue here is the assumption. No one can assume that the hunter isn't a practiced shooter. In addition, it's up to choice. The guy behind the rifle might not care if they loose 9 of 10 animals. We hope that there aren't many out there like that.
I'll share a story that might set my thoughts off. My uncle and I were standing near the barn at a farmer friend's property. It was hunting season in Pennsylvania. As we were standing there a doe dashes between the two fields around 150 yard running parallel to us. My uncle pulls up his rifle and fires off a shot and we see the deer tumble. We walk up to the deer and it's spined. Without hesitation the farmer pulls out a knife and starts gutting it. The damn deer is still completely alive and this guy is gutting the thing. To him that's just normal. He's a farmer. Me I was pretty shocked.
This happened when I was younger. Around 17. Now that I've been there and done that, I've slit a few throats etc... That and what the farmer did were pretty much on par.
Different points of view I guess.
Tom
