Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Ethical or not? 1376 yard elk by a 12 year old

I agree 100%.

Of course not. It was only a few minutes long. You didn't see the hours of time hiking over hill and dale HUNTING before they got ready for the shot.

You could have 1, 2 or a hundred rifles. I couldnt care less what you or anyone else does.

You want to call this hunting? A kids dad setting him up behind a gun, dialing up everything including the video crew & video cameras, and then shooting and missing a deer 1400 yards away, a kid who frankly looked about as excited as one who just got a C+ on his homework? OK. I was taught differently and hunt differently. YMMV

I hesitate to say this but if that truly was the kid's first elk, as a parent there's no way I'd let my son or daughter take that shot, much less put him/her up to it. Too much can go wrong and I'd hate to saddle my kid with the memory of a bad hit and a lost elk on his first one just because he was following my lead. If he's going to make a mistake and lose an elk I'd want that to be his decision, not mine.

You have to make a lot of assumptions to believe there was any hunting going on. For myself, I doubt it. I suspect they knew the area and either knew aforehand or were pretty sure the elk would be there. I can take you to areas where there are almost always elk and an opportunity for a long shot like that would pretty much be a daily occurrence during Colorado's rifle seasons. Drive up followed by a five minute walk, if that. No indication in the video that this place was any different.

IMO it was a set-up from the get-go and the kid and elk were little or nothing more than props for the video.

Agreed. In 2014 I lost my first elk in 32 years of hunting them. I still get angry at myself and a sick feeling in my stomach every time I think about it.

Coyote_Hunter,



Tell us the difference in your elk that got away and what you are complaining about.

And discussing it all not around a campfire but on computers linked to the internet, I think that is unethical.

BTW I don't think thats anyway to take your first animal either. It would not be with kids if we had any.

But I can sure see the time and place, especially for some of the youth competitors out there that are national champs and the like... the ability to make the shot at times and in places, is there.... Just have to know when and when not to.

Discussing anything on the Internet is obviously unethical, because Al Gore invented it.

First, I'm not "complaining", merely commenting. What other people do is up to them but what these people in the video did wasn't something I would do and no. I don't give them any kudos for their "hunting" skills as I didn't see anything I would remotely consider "hunting" in the video.

The elk I lost was the first and only one I've lost since I started elk hunting in 1982 and would have been the 14th for me since 2000 (15 years). Not at all sure just how many more I took between 1982 through 1999, or how many I passed on during those years because the shot opportunity didn't measure up to what I was comfortable with.

A second difference is I hit the elk with the first and only shot. In spite of the most massive blood trail I have ever seen, it escaped to private land where we couldn't follow. The dark blood and chest-high blood on the brush on both sides of its trail suggested a liver hit with a pass-through.

Another is that the range was 389 yards, not 1376 yards. I practice pretty regularly out to 600 yards and when the wind cooperates I am able to hit clay pigeons at that range on a pretty regular basis - something I proved two weekends ago to hit 8 clay pigeons at 600 with about 30 tries. While that is only about a 27% success rate all but a couple would have hit an 8" plate and I believe all would have been in the kill zone for an animal the size of an elk. I underestimated a crosswind, which we couldn't see or feel from our position, and that lead to my shot hitting the elk a bit further back than I intended, assuming it was indeed a liver hit. Add 1,000 yards and there is a lot more room for things to go wrong, as the kid's first shot miss proved.

Finally, I actually "hunted" to obtain the shot opportunity, something you suggest the people in the video did but without any evidence to back up your claim.

Convince me that the video wasn't just a promotional video with the kid and the elk being props.

Coyote_Hunter,



You and I are just the same. You are speculating they didn't hunt to get the video shot and I speculated they hunted to find the elk.

Recreational hunting, hunting for sport, as concept is what we've been discussing. The notion of sport implies rules, standards, and boundaries. Many have asked if the technologies, which have made successful ultra long range shooting accessible to the masses–– when used in the pursuit of game, conform to conventional notions and accepted norms delineating the scope of "good" sportsmanship. Battue references "fair chase", a long standing ideal frequently integral to many descriptions of acceptable sportsmanship.

Society evinces its notions of sportsmanship in the broadest sense through laws regulating hunting. While these laws are unavoidably influenced by widely shared ethical norms, they are not society's proclamation of an rigid ethical doctrine. We as individuals, are free, within the broad bounds established by law, to individually determine the scope and nature of sportsmanship in our personal pursuits of game. Every interaction potentially involves a novel set of choices. Choices about fairness and responsibility to the game animal.

Our choosing is not arbitrary. The sporting pursuits have a tradition of thoughtful and self reflective consideration. We're taught notions like "fair chase", honor, duty, and responsibility. Sport hunting is a luxury, not a necessity, that demands its participants individually develop and apply these notions. This is our heritage.

Just to throw it out for consideration. The Dad's face looks familiar and I'm sure I've seen him on some LR hunting show. Perhaps he owns the rifle company being used? Which if this is the case I doubt if the Kid hasn't had a pretty good foundation in LR shooting. At the end they even commented on the fact they have steel that goes past a 1000.

Hunting or shooting, it is up to the individual to decide, but I doubt if many of us here could hang with that Boy when it comes to shooting.

I made a post on another thread that shooting critters haplessly at long range was bad karma.. Ringman asked this...



this time I'll answer and cut to the chase -

Would it be OK for a God, or "God" to be careless with ending a life and causing crippling, or long suffering death ?

When you shoot an elk at a range it never, ever could be capable of defending itself via sensing you (and they've seen me at 100's of yards, but not at 1000 plus)... Then you are playing God and being careless...

If you play the "not careless card" - well your a liar.

I think my quote was - you'd better hope God isn't as careless as you are... The inferred principle is the gold end rule... God to no a God... Humans have dominion over critters, and our quality as gardians of them is shown by how careless we are with them, especially when harvesting one.

Tech makes people flinpet about responsibility... The Internet is a good example.

So go forth and multiply - .. Either responsibility, or otherwise.

Cheers
Spot

His Daddio and Uncle are the owners of Gunwerks.... Rifles, scopes, ammo, classes, undies, etc.... Just for conversation....

Tanner

Spotshooter,



You are using limited human intelligence to ask about an Infinite Being. I don't approve of all God does. What that shows is I don't understand. God brought about a world wide flood. If you look in the fossil record you see millions of dead things buried in sedimentary rock. Many of them have broken bones and many display evidence of extreme suffering. God does not need my input and I am certainly not qualified to judge His actions.

When I go hunting I use binoculars. I am always delighted when I find game before it knows I'm there. Many times the animal knows I'm there and goes on alert. Sometimes they wait to see what's up and sometimes they immediately run. My longest kill on game is a measured 400 yards. My longest on a varmint is 527 yards. I don't condemn someone for killing an elk with a spear; the way some here did awhile back. I don't condemn someone for killing an elk at 3/4 of a mile with a rifle.

I do my thing; which includes posting on the net.



I have no idea what you are saying in this sentence.

Great post Bob!

The same? Not hardly.

You stated pretty flatly that “You didn't see the hours of time hiking over hill and dale HUNTING before they got ready for the shot.” There is no evidence in the video that that is how it happened. To the contrary, the fact that the father talked about a gong at the odd range of 1360 yards makes me very suspicious that this was a pre-planned shooting, long in the making.

Nowhere, however, will you find where I claim it didn’t happen – I merely have strong doubts. In any case, I stand by my statement that I didn’t see any hunting in the video.

Undies? They got Realtree Scentblockers in stock?