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Sad deal

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My God that's terrible, its gotta take a lot of gun to stop a charging bison !


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Originally Posted by jimy
My God that's terrible, its gotta take a lot of gun to stop a charging bison !



In my opinion that ^ right there is the problem. Fish & Game put a minimum caliber restriction on bison. Although a 30/06 is enough, because of the regs, most hunters choose a larger caliber. One they cant shoot. The last time I brought one in a CO told me that a full 75% of the bison harvested in Yukon have been wounded previously. Thats a lot of wounded bison.

Im not saying that was the cause in this case, because I dont know any more than what the article says, but I do believe guys would make cleaner kills if they used their normal hunting rifles. Our local gunshop has sold a pile of heavy rifles to guys who will only shoot them once or twice a year.

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Horrible.

Gives new meaning to "Dangerous Game".

Because they are dangerous.

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Those Woodland bison are just plain massive. Were I to go after one, it would be a 45-70 or 90 with the biggest and heaviest slug I could load. A zippy 30 caliber would be inadequate in my book.

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I wonder if a more common problem is not picking a bullet that penetrates well. I know a few folks who were unhappy with the 30-06 but they were using it with Blue Box federals designed more fore deer through caribou. That said I don't know what happened in the case of Mr. Stills. Must have been horrifying for him and even more so for his wife and friend. Terrible thing.

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that is very horrible what happened to this hunter and we can`t change that,but what my father and uncles taught me as a young hunter has probably saved me a few times and that is never approach a animal from the front and never consider them dead always checked them from behind with a loaded ready weapon. i even had a spear made with a big nasty wide and long blade and a heavy steel shaft i have finished of a few deer and pigs off with this spear,this spear is so strong i can lift a bigger pig up too with spear stuck in pig,its a heavy spear but its deadly.be careful this fall with a wounded animal they can hurt or kill you easy. Pete53


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Originally Posted by pete53
that is very horrible what happened to this hunter and we can`t change that,but what my father and uncles taught me as a young hunter has probably saved me a few times and that is never approach a animal from the front and never consider them dead always checked them from behind with a loaded ready weapon. i even had a spear made with a big nasty wide and long blade and a heavy steel shaft i have finished of a few deer and pigs off with this spear,this spear is so strong i can lift a bigger pig up too with spear stuck in pig,its a heavy spear but its deadly.be careful this fall with a wounded animal they can hurt or kill you easy. Pete53

Seems an extra round in one's rifle would be a lot easier to carry and as effective as that spear...

Have a friend who killed a WT with a spear, had a big write up about it.

Got in big trouble with the possum cops. There is no spear dear season in LA.

He got in trouble in Africa. Had a special spear made up with curare tip for elephants. PH had to finish off the victim. Got into a big Lacy Act prosecution, lost his hunting privileges for 3 yrs, cost him a bundle. Seem the PH got fined. Buds defense, he didn't kill the elephant with the spear, the PH actually killed him with his .470 double. The judge wasn't amused, hammered him anyway... If that's your defense, seems you in a heap of trouble...


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This is what keeps it real. There IS no assurance that the hunter will not be a casualty of the hunt him or herself. I don't think this reality is sad at all, personally. It's just the terms. It is as it should be. Pitting yourself against a 2000 pound beast is taking your chances, it is to be hoped (otherwise, why not just kill a ranch bison in a squeeze?)

It might be more representative of "fair chase" in fact if this happened more often. That it does not, suggests that the deck is stacked too overwhelmingly in favor today of the human side of the equation. It's "fair chase" from our perspective alone. No wonder we are in the condition we are in today. So little to keep us sharp.

Sad for family and friends, of course. That's a given, too.


From a race of hunters, artists, warriors, and tamers of horses, we degraded ourselves to what we are now: clerks, functionaries, laborers, entertainers, processors of information.
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Bison are like moose, they are easy to kill but it takes them awhile to know they are dead unless you hit them in the CNS.


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saw this on a Canadian news site...hundreds of comments happy the guy was killed, calling it 'karma'...got yer own brand of leftists to deal with and they are viral


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North61,
You are right on. When my guide friend and I went out to flush a bison from a near by water hole, we used cover and got within 50 yards before it broke and ran left to right . I put a 450 grain Kodiak FMJ through both shoulders and it dropped like a metal target. Did we go pose for pix? Heck no, I levered another one of our African DG rounds in my 45-90 and slowly approached close enough to see it was still alive, and then I put another 450 grain Kodiak at 2150 fps into its heart. Then,it gave up the ghost and passed on. We were still cautious to give it an eye poke before relaxing. Any mature bison could kill a hunter just by running over him trying to escape, much less an injured mad one trying to get even.
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BTW, that load shot through the bison just as it had multiple Cape Buff in Africa. Carrying a proven rifle cartridge combo does a lot for a hunters confidence. And for kills per shot record.


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Originally Posted by Dirtfarmer
[quote=pete53]that is very horrible what happened to this hunter and we can`t change that,but what my father and uncles taught me as a young hunter has probably saved me a few times and that is never approach a animal from the front and never consider them dead always checked them from behind with a loaded ready weapon. i even had a spear made with a big nasty wide and long blade and a heavy steel shaft i have finished of a few deer and pigs off with this spear,this spear is so strong i can lift a bigger pig up too with spear stuck in pig,its a heavy spear but its deadly.be careful this fall with a wounded animal they can hurt or kill you easy. Pete53

Seems an extra round in one's rifle would be a lot easier to carry and as effective as that spear...

Have a friend who killed a WT with a spear, had a big write up about it.

Got in big trouble with the possum cops. There is no spear dear season in LA.

He got in trouble in Africa. Had a special spear made up with curare tip for elephants. PH had to finish off the victim. Got into a big Lacy Act prosecution, lost his hunting privileges for 3 yrs, cost him a bundle. Seem the PH got fined. Buds defense, he didn't kill the elephant with the spear, the PH actually killed him with his .470 double. The judge wasn't amused, hammered him anyway... If that's your defense, seems you in a heap of trouble...



during bow season guns are not legal and not at night either ,bows suck to use on a wounded animal in the thick swamp after dark. that spear i have i always hang on to it and have killed many wounded deer and pigs.i don`t hunt with a spear only use spear for protection when a gun is not legal.


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I have shot all my life and put thousands of rounds through a very wide variety of rifles over the last 50+ years. I have shot enough game animals that I can put myself into a state of ZEN where "nerves" don't enter into the picture and I have a whole series of one shot kills. I have shooting ingrained into my muscle memory but I have often thought that it might all go out the window in the sudden adrenal rush of a life and death encounter, when the Reptilian cortex sends it's fight or flight cocktail of hormones into my brain and the ancient body gears up for a physical confrontation. What happens to the fine motor skills? Will I still hit that state of "Zen" were I can shoot well? I don't really want to find out, and one never really knows!

When I shot my first moose with a 358 Norma 12 years ago I was so confident in the power of the rifle that I waited for it to drop. I shot it through the lungs with a load that I had seen create huge cavities in the mud wall of my shooting pit. When he didn't drop I was shocked and disconcerted and sent the next round through one of his antlers because I was a bit shook up from surprise. I needed to settle myself to make the next shot count. In the end the first shot was a killing shot but a moose is big enough to shake off a lot of shock. There is a lot of lung there. If the small shock of seeing the moose seemingly shrug off the 358 through me off, what would the sight of a 1 ton wrecking ball coming to life and leaping at me with bad intentions do?

So take nothing for granted when hunting something that can hunt you back! I am amazed at how fast and agile something as big as a Bison is. It also weighs as much as a compact car and sometimes take a bit of killing especially if an initial marginal shot wakes up it's own adrenal response. These Yukon Bison are truly wild and they are survivors!

I am confident that a 30-06 with good bullets will do the trick, but if you can handle a bigger gun why not? If you get a bigger gun shoot it lot's so it is an extension of you and you handle it automatically. Be cautious on the approach and try to avoid being surprised by thinking of various scenarios that could happen. Nothing wrong with sending another round if you have any doubt. Might as well take the lesson offered from our poor, Yukon comrade who won't be hunting any more.

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Did bison hunts for awhile. Killed a pile of them, mostly heifers. And a few bulls that needed to go. From 223 to 505 Gibbs with my favorite the magnificent 416 Taylor. 475 and 500 single actions as well. Sometimes even a heifer will get snotty and come for ya. Been run up the fence a lot while working them. You better be on your toes around them.

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Good bullets can certainly make a difference, but Im not convinced they are required until the velocity goes north of 2800 or so. The reason I believe the bigger is better is the wrong advice is that the truth is most guys just cant shoot them. Im one of them. The fact is all of us can shoot lighter recoiling rifles better. I've been guiding full time for 33 years now and I see it every single year. Ask any guide with any experience and he will tell you he loves to see a guy get off the plane with a well worn 270 or 30/06. Chances are, that guy can shoot those guns.

When it comes to Yukon bison, I have personally killed four. Two with a 338 Federal, one with a 358 Winchester, and the last one with a 338 Ruger RCM. Only one needed a 2nd shot, and that was the last one. The first shot would have killed him but he was bedded on the top of a steep ridge and I didnt want him to move. He didnt. I guided for bison in the Pink Mountain country in northern BC back in the 80s and saw many guys take them cleanly with cup and core bullets.

A few years ago Fish and Game charged a first nation guy with hunting bison without a license or tag.They also charged him with using an inadequate caliber. He was using an old model 99 300 savage. They got him on the hunting without license and tags, but the inadequate caliber charge didnt stick since he had killed four bison with that old gun.

When I was a kid the First Nation hunters routinely killed moose with a 22 magnum.

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yukon254:
Top of the morning to you, I hope the weekend was a good one for you folks and this finds you well and at least a tad less smoky than we seem to be down here.

Thanks for passing on that story, it's always a tough thing when fellow hunters die doing what we love, but for sure those of us who chase in wild areas all face an element of uncertainty each and every outing.

It actually strikes me that many of us and I do include myself, wouldn't prefer it to be any other way, you know?

Nonetheless the chap was relatively young and that's always tough to read for me.

On the subject of cartridges and energy, we here in BC need a minimum 175gr bullet and 2712 Joules/2000 ftlbs energy at 100 meters to hunt bison.

All that is of course well and good until we ask why that might be when we can legally hunt a bull moose or elk with a .17 Hornet, you know? wink

Incidentally I've just typed a similar post on the CCFR face plant page whereupon I suggested that energy doesn't kill anything really, as if it was a requirement then arrows could not/would not work, but the evidence for that does not support the thesis in my view.

When I was a kid I recall hearing an old gunsmith in a Saskatchewan town on the edge of moose country tell us that the local FN Cree preferred using a .22 on moose. Their method was to sneak in, place one through the heart and then freeze so as not to spook the moose. They claimed it was less alarmed by the small report of the .22 and would often die as quickly as if they'd used their usual larger arms, which were usually either a .303 or .30-30.

Anyways sir, it's time for me to unload the firewood that our daughter and I managed to pick up on yesterday's hunt - no shooting was done and no animals harmed, but we had a grand visit and came down with enough wood to heat the place for a couple weeks at least. Not bad considering we didn't have a saw! laugh

Full disclosure, it's end cuts from the feller buncher. wink

All the best to you all this season.

Dwayne


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Originally Posted by sse
saw this on a Canadian news site...hundreds of comments happy the guy was killed, calling it 'karma'...got yer own brand of leftists to deal with and they are viral


If happen to get killed by a critter, they can laugh all they want to. I will have died knowing joys they'll never find in their cell phones.

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Originally Posted by 1minute
Those Woodland bison are just plain massive. Were I to go after one, it would be a 45-70 or 90 with the biggest and heaviest slug I could load. A zippy 30 caliber would be inadequate in my book.


The quickest lights out Bison kill that I've ever seen with a body shot was with a 30 cal 180 grain TSX



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We were hunting in area were a hunter was tag teamed by two grizzly boars. He is HD mechanic and serviced our fork lifts so I got to talk to him a couple of times. When we come on other hunters we stop and BS for a while. It's mostly BS, too. One of the hunter when talking about the attack said "That's why I shot a 300 Winchester Magnum !" I didn't have the heart to tell him his factory load was only 100fps faster than my hand loaded 30.06. Both 30 caliber.


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downwindtracker2;
Good morning to you my cyber friend, I hope all is as well as possible with you folks and you're not suffering too, too badly from the smoke.

Our youngest in Coquitlam says its about as thick as it is here - which is actually pretty....

Our eldest and I were up the mountain on Sunday doing a bit of hunting and I joked that we could pull out a big contractor garbage bag and take some home with us to save for later..... wink

Your story reminds me of several times when we'd just fired up our then new Shooting Chrony and to say it was an eye opener and a balloon breaker is an understatement for sure and certain.

Some of the loads that the boys thought were chained lightning were a tad slower than a load I was running in a BBR '06 using WW760 and 173gr Lake City Match bullets..... laugh

They were coming out at 2950fps from a 21" barrel and honestly that's way too warm, but I was young and crazier than at present... I think? crazy

Speaking of, I just bought a Pro Chrono from Budget Shooter Supply down in your part of the world and have to say the service so far has been good - chrono still in the hands of Canada Post and inching it's way eastward.

All the best to you folks this season.

Dwayne


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