Darryl,
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<br>The spike bull I hit through the heart at about 800 gave no reaction that I could detect at all. I had bolted home another round and was beginning my squeeze for another shot when he suddenly reared straight up on his hind legs and fell over backwards. Never saw one do that before or since. I have had one heart/lung hit elk go down unmoving, and then wake up. Meanwhile I had closed the 125 yards to the animal and stopped him, or I think he would have run off, though not far.
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<br>As you probably have observed, many times you can tell where an animal is hit by his reaction, but not always. I've seen a lot of heart shot deer leap straight up in the air when hit. Some fall where they land from the leap, and others run. Animals hit well in my experience have run from 30 to 75 yards if they run at all, rarely farther. I hunt steep and I've had many roll a lot farther than they ran. (I've tracked some more marginally hit deer, one of mine and some for others, up to 3/4 mile.) One of the oddest ones in my experience was a young 4x4 mule deer that I shot though the heart at about 40 feet. He was standing looking at me, not tense at all as I came into his view. He dropped like a stone in his tracks and didn't twitch, the only heart shot animal I've seen do that.
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<br>Elk are the toughest critter I've seen take a hit in terms of reaction. Many of them do not give any indication of a hit even when it is mortal, and I think a good many hunters hit elk that they think they have missed, because the animal shows no reaction. A mature 6x6 bull I hit at almost an exact 100 yards did not even flinch at the sound. He gave no reaction whatsoever. The 180 grain Swift A-Frame angled through him from left front shoulder through both lungs, destroying one and about half of the other. The bull looked carefully around as if he was trying to locate the source of the shot, but did not show any indication of a hit, nor move a step. I was shooting from a rest over a big log and when he turned his head I put the second round right behind his ear, a shot I would not have taken had I not been sure he was dead on his feet. I just didn't want him to start moving and roll into the canyon. He rolled down nearly 100 yards anyway.
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<br> My most recent bull, a 6x6, I double lunged at 40 yards from a rest as he walked past. He quick stepped once, paused a beat, then continued walking with no sign of injury. He was in a burned forest and I lined up on the next good opening but he fell dead before he walked that far. I didn't measure but he walked somewhere between 25 and 40 feet, not yards, from the point where he was hit. I've had more elk NOT react to a hit than those that have reacted.
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<br>A fellow I know hit a bull elk in the belly (I think) with a 30-30 at a little over 400 yards. I surmise belly because though everyone was sure he had missed the bull, one guy said the bull humped his back before he walked calmly out of sight into the trees. Nobody was even going to go up there and look. I found dark blood going into the tree line and tracked the bull for eight hours, when we heard a pack of wolves jump him ahead of us and pull him down.
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<br>In the Columbia River Valley both ways from Golden, B.C., there is a magnificent swamp full of game that is a mile wide in places. On dry years, elk are in the swamps during elk season. I found three dead bulls on one day while wading for elk in the swamp, all hit by gunners shooting from either the railroad track that parallels the river, one of the roads, or maybe the hills. They were shooting at elk way too far away in the swamp. The bullet wounds were usually about in the middle of the elk, broadside, no exit. You would have probably killed, and collected, those bulls, Darryl, at the ranges fired. But how many guys who bang away at long range....
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<br> Those aren't the only such dead game I've found. I killed one wounded bull to put him down, not fit to eat, that had been hit by two jacketed .22 calibre bullets. The bad one was in the paunch and the bull could not have survived that wound more than another week or so. The other bullet was in the shoulder, at range so long it had penetrated about two inches and the pointed nose of exposed lead had mashed just barely flat, almost as large as the .22 diameter of the bullet. That's long range, minimal cartridge, and poor bullet placement, three goofs for that shooter on one animal.
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<br>By the way, my intent wasn't to be mean spirited when I wrote the satire post repeating about not losing animals, but it may have come over that way. It is my impression of the sum of LR posts, and I got to laughing. Like Lincoln said, some of those are great to write but you should never send them.
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