Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Ever been proud of a shot...?

... that you didn't take?



(Yeah, I know. How does this relate to Alaska? If you need to ask, you probably needn't respond. )

Yup. Portage River, spring of 2004. Walking along the river bank just to get out of Los Anchorage for a day.

A cow moose charged out of the alders and came across the gravel bar, stopping about ten feet away. I had drawn my pistol when she came boiling out and had about 4lb gone on a 4.5lb trigger when she whirled around and took off back to the alder patch.
As she trotted back, I noticed the placenta hanging out of her vulva and the fresh bloody liquid on the backs of her legs. She had just given birth.

Damned glad I didn't finish that trigger squeeze.

Ed

A couple of weeks ago I did not take an easy shot at a respectable coues deer. It was fifteen minutes into legal shooting light of the opening day. I just didn't want the hunt to be over that soon.

As it turned out, I got a better deer the next day.



KC

Nice picture there, KC, thanks. Would be nice knowing that story. Was that in Az? With a guide? Do you make that a yearly hunt?

Yes, every time I drive past a bar or a liquor store!
make mine a root beer!
or a ginger ale if I am in the mood for the hard stuff.

A shot not taken is a miss--

A shot not taken is a cripple not lost.

I had a head on shot on a pretty decent buck at about 120 yards Saturday. Problem is my muzzleloader gives 4-5 inch 50 yard groups. If that 127 grain patched round ball hit the soft part in the middle at the base of the throat, it'd punch the heart and that buck would be stone dead, but if it hit out by the shoulder, it didn't have enough weight to break bigger bone after penetrating meat to reach it. All things considered, a cripple was more likely than a clean kill. I let the hammer back down and tried to close the distance. By the time I got there the buck was gone. Oh well, it was the right thing to do.

I'll take a side of clear conscience with my tag soup.

Tom

The older I get, the more I miss. (Sometimes not being young - and dumb- ain't all bad. )

Had an easy shot at a nice moose across a swampy area, couple hundred yards max. You know one of those with the deep narrow stream running through it. I'm still glad I didn't take it.

My first year as a legal resident of Alaska and able to hunt as a resident, I went on a sheep hunt. Our second day also happened to be the first day of moose season. As we were making our way toward a band of sheep that were too far to determine whether there were any full curls, we spotted a bull bedded down. The bull was 60+ inches and unaware of our presence. I briefly flirted with the idea of taking him but it was 75 degrees and we were 12 miles from the road. I did put a stalk on him and closed to less than 20 yards before I popped my hat on some brush to get his attention. Once he figured out where I was and what I was he went about getting out of the area with some haste.

jaguar:

I've gone on that hunt five times, in southern AZ. We backpack about three miles to some springs and hunt from our spike camp.

Before dawn on the second day, we climbed a ridge across the valley from our camp. We got to the top of the ridge just as the sun climbed above the horizon. My friend started glassing from the saddle. I walked around the ridge to another saddle where I sat down to glass. Two nice bucks were in a gully just below me, maybe fifty yards away. But I couldn't see into the gully, so I didn't know they were there and I don't think they knew I was there either. After about half an hour, they began strolling out of the gully. I was surprised to see them so close and I kicked some rocks loose while I was grabbing for my rifle. They took off at the sound of the falling rocks. I could see that both were nice bucks. I shot the leading buck from the sitting position while he was running. I think I hit him at about 280 yards and he crawled a short ways after that. The rangefinder said it was 300+/- yards from where I was sitting to where he laid down.

No guide. I go with a good friend who lives in Flagstaff. He's the other guy in the photo. We've hunted together since 2004 in AK, WY, CA, AZ, CO, etc.

KC

First day of winter moose season some years ago, I had ridden the 40 miles or so it took to get "into the country" when I saw a pair of big paddles in the middle of an alder patch which was situated about 40-50 feet above the ancient river bed, a river which is now a trickle by comparison, running down the middle.

With moose, the killing is so easy compared to what comes after, a fact that I didn't take to heart when I was 25 or 30, and this was a decade or two after that.

Some say snow machines are cheating for hunting. If that's true, I 'cheated' for almost 700 miles more before we got our yearly meat put away that winter.

I went back over the original opportunity in my mind several times while rolling those additional miles, but I never regretted not burning powder the first day.

I posted mine before, with pictures. - "The best shot I never made". We got blown out (snow storm) on a sheep hunt 18 miles hike back in, still with 3 miles to the sheep.. Wife, son and I all had caribou tags and had walked through hundreds of caribou on the way in, with the season open.. On the way out, 5 miles from the highway, my son took a young bull. On reaching the vehicle with that one, we learned season was to close at midnight by emergency order. After only 3 days, the quota had been exceeded. Leaving my wife and dog at the truck with the meat, Ty and I headed back in a mile for the last 2 or 3 hours of daylight and spotted a huge bull on an adjacent hill.

It was about half dark by the time we got over there, we couldn't get closer without being spotted, he was mere yards from heavy cover, I had no good rest at 264 yards, and would have been shooting through the tops of grasses about half way between us. Crosshairs were all over that bull, so he walked.

Ty and I both came back to the truck with big chit-eating grins.

I can't recall any particular shots, but I just won't shoot unless I"m 200% sure...

Now a buddy shot a bou, thankfully not a moose, but it was standing in the river at the edge... I'dhave waited... he didn't.... river wans't deep, but it was late September out of Aniak and the one lake we started on had already frozen over once... the water was cool...

Caribou can be dragged by hand... Even a calf moose is a challenge for several guys.

Carbon credits?

That was quick! Stalk much?

He always seems to be right there! He makes me uncomfortable... I need to find a safe place!

if you are saying out of the river... well the two of us could not get him up the bank as it was a sharp drop to the river.... so gutted in the river to remove weight and then hack a hole in the alders and manage to drag him... would have been easier if it was deep enough to float him some.

But i'm sure others have endured much more. Regardless I"d have waited before shooting, and regardless the water was cool.