Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Update on CO Bowhunter fatality

Thanks for the updates on the trial Smoke. I was wondering when the trial had been rescheduled.

Was he telling the truth or just trying to keep you from coming back to his favorite public land spot.

Our system of laws and courts is adversarial, so everyone deserves a good defense, making whatever argument they choose to make. Prosecutors do so every day.

That said, anyone shooting at a sound needs their firearm to have a catastrophic barrel obstruction.

I know it isn't up to me to know the facts or judge the circumstances here, and for that, I am grateful.

If it was my son that was killed, I'd pull out the Mosaic Law on someone's ass, I know that.

The day it happened the shooter told a deputy that he "saw a flash of white in the pines" and took a shot. Later, after consulting a lawyer he changed his story to say he'd seen a five point bull and shot at the bull.

He hired an expert in firearms safety and hunting incidents who wrote a report and gave an opinion in court that the shooter conducted himself in a safe and reasonable manner when he took the shot. The expert spent most of his time bagging on the people who investigated the incident, saying that they didn't collect enough information to properly analyze the incident. So I'm not sure how he could look at the same information and conclude that the shooter acted safely and reasonably. Plus, the investigators had a guy who admitted to taking the shot, told them exactly what happened and where to find the body. Maybe they thought that was enough. He also hired an expert in PTSD who said it's not unusual for people who've been through trauma to leave out details when they describe the traumatic incident.

I hope the jury makes the right decision.

The only risk to hunters in camo should be when they are behind an animal that is the target of another hunter. Shooting at movement or sound is the definition of negligent homicide.

lol

You have got to be a complete moron to shoot a human thinking it is an elk, gezeeeeee!

in Minnesota during any firearm deer season it is required to wear orange , even if you are a bowhunter during the firearm season. Colorado`s law on the non-requirement of orange for bowhunters during firearms season will probably save this dudes butt some . as a bowhunter myself for 50 some years i had no problem wearing a orange vest while hunting with a bow during a firearms season. i bet the families on both sides sues Colorado for this unsafe orange law rather its right or wrong ? i am not going to second guess the jury O.J. got off ?

smokepole;
Good morning my cyber friend, I trust the day down in your section of Colorado is behaving and you're all well.

Thanks for the thread and for keeping the updates coming, it's of interest to me for a few reasons.

Since I've been a BC Hunter Safety Examiner/Instructor for 33 years, we get access to hunting accident stats from BC and then nationally as well as from stateside as well.

The responsibility of the individual hunter to identify both their target and beyond is drilled into the students in our course. I'll note that one can home study and challenge the test for sure, but we've usually seen mainly adults or children with parents who are really, REALLY involved do well with the challenges.

Here in BC we have overlapping bow seasons with youth firearm and black bear firearm seasons.

Back in the day when we were fighting to get youth seasons going, the hue and cry from the bowhunters - mostly boomers like myself might I sadly add - was that the kids were going to shoot them all dead because they were wearing camo.

Our argument was more or less the same argument that I sent as a letter to the local coroner who conducted an inquest into the last accidental shooting in our area, the details of which I am somewhat familiar with, but the short version is one hunter shot another hunter who was dragging out a whitetail buck. He missed the buck at 30-50yds but hit the guy dragging it squarely, so there's that too. They were coworkers but not hunting together.

Anyways more or less here's what the letter said smoke -

"Here in southern BC where we hunt, at any given time there can be range cattle, ranch horses, feral horses, mountain goat, California bighorn, mule and whitetail deer, elk, moose, black bears, grizzly bears, wolves, coyotes and cougars in any given area. As well in the same area can be timber cruisers, prospectors, mushroom pickers, mountain bikers, cowboys on horses - so they sound like animals - and hikers.

We are required by law and regulation to identify first species, then gender, then in many cases antler point count - 6 point on one side for elk, 4 point above the brow tine for mule deer, no more than 2 points on one side for non-LEH moose etc.

After we've identified the species, gender and antler point count, the chances of the target being a human are non existent."

Honestly smokepole, I've come to believe that the pressure we put on ourselves and our fellow hunters to "get something" is a primary factor in these incidents.

The hunter has traveled a great distance, at great expense and believe that they will potentially face the derision of family, friends and/or coworkers if they come back from the hunt without pulling the trigger.

That's a problem - IF - that's the case.

Yesterday morning was the last morning of mule deer "any buck" section of the season for us and our eldest and I were up in a new spot looking for one for her. We spotted a first rack 2 point and put a stalk on him, but while she got into shooting position 3 times for it, there was always brush in the way or she wasn't satisfied with the shot angle for bullet placement.

We came home clean, with no meat in the back and both agreed it was an epic and grand in all ways hunt.

Somehow we - collectively as hunters - have to get that message out, that it's not only acceptable but of primary importance to not shoot if we're not comfortable with all the conditions of the shot.

I'm not sure I always do that smoke, that is to say communicate that it's okay to come home empty and I'm sure that many if not most of the hunting videos don't do that. The implication is that the hunt was a success because the hunter killed a big whatever it was they were after.

Personally I do not believe that mandatory blaze orange for hunters is the answer, because as noted above, all the rest of the 2 and 4 legged users of the same part of the mountain will not be wearing orange.

Anyways sir, I apologize for preaching to the choir for the most part, but that's where I'm at on the issue.

All the best and good hunting.

Dwayne

Dwayne: Thanks for the thoughtful (as always) reply. The day is mostly behaving but I think tonight we're expecting an invasion of goblins.

The case is of interest to me because I'm also a hunter ed instructor, and I've hunted this area the past ten years with both a bow and muzzleloader. It's interesting that the defendant in this case said the area was so remote that they weren't expecting to see any other hunters. I've been there and it's an area that I walk past to get into remote areas where there are fewer hunters, but they're always there.

In our hunter ed class we focus on game identification. We ask the students why it's important and they always say, "so we don't shoot the wrong animal and get into trouble." Then we tell them it's also a safety issue; if they make positive ID they'll never shoot another hunter. We show the students various photos and measurements of elk vs. moose and ask them if they think it would be easy to mistake a moose for an elk. They always shake their heads "no" in unison, and then we tell them that on average, 25 moose are mistakenly shot by hunters with elk tags in Colorado annually. And those are just the ones reported. This particular shooter had a bull tag, and the game management unit has antler point restrictions so a hunter can't shoot just any bull. Maybe that's why his story was that he saw a five-point bull, they're legal.

To your point on putting pressure on ourselves, this was the last day of their hunt and they were going to hunt a half day and then begin the long drive home.

And I agree that mandatory blaze orange is not the answer, it's just an excuse used by too many including the shooter in this case. Bowhunters in Colorado don't want it, and resoundingly so. And not only do birdwatchers, hikers, and mushroom pickers avoid it, I've seen plenty of rifle hunters not wearing it too.

Last, I'll say that I've had some interesting moments with livestock in the national forest. Once it was a brown llama tethered to a tree about four miles from the trailhead, up on the side of a mountain nowhere near a trail. I had a cow elk tag so it did get my attention until I'd sorted it out. Looked like a big old fuzzball when I closed the distance. The other time, I had a bear tag and heard an animal turning over rocks in a creek bed. I saw black through the brush, snuck up on it, and drew down on an angus steer. Would have been good eating!! Oh well, at least I got some practice stalking, those angus are really tough to sneak up on.

smokepole;
Good afternoon to you sir, I'm glad to read that other than a goblin onslaught you should be alright. Here's hoping...

Thanks for the reply, the kind words therein and for being a Hunter Safety instructor too. Obviously I believe it's important to have the next shift get a good firm foundation.

It's interesting that many moose get shot every year. I want to say we don't hear about that often here, but again it's possible it's unreported and left in the field. Our BC cleanup crew is amazingly efficient so the evidence would be gone in days.

Thanks for the chuckle with the livestock stories, we're well familiar with Black Angus range cattle as pretty much everywhere in the mountains here is someone's grazing lease until today actually when they're supposed to be off the range for winter.

The oddest livestock experience I had was on an elk hunt in the Kootenays back in about 87 so I was younger and more impressionable then. Still, it's got a bit of a Halloween vibe to it so here goes.

My late father and mother were friends with a couple their age, so in their late '60's at the time. The husband had been showing signs of occasional early onset dementia and before we left, his wife took me aside and asked that I keep a little extra careful watch out for her husband, which naturally I agreed to do.

We were there a few days and decided we'd hunt a mountain west of Canal Flats which looked good when we scouted it late one afternoon. The next day then was one of those still mornings on the mountains with just enough fog to keep the visibility to a bit less than 100yds or so, but we'd come a long ways to hunt and had LEH calf tags, so my hunting partner and I split up and headed separately into the fog.

We agreed to meet back at my pickup at 10:00 as I recall.

Maybe an hour from the pickup or so, I heard hoofbeats coming through the old growth in my direction, so I dropped down on one knee and closed the bolt on my rifle.

Out of the mist a white horse appeared, trotting towards me with it's head down so obviously trailing me.

He trotted up to about 25 yards from me, didn't change pace as it went in a circle snorting quietly like horses will do sometimes and then it left the way it came.

It was surreal and more than a little unsettling to say the least smokepole, as the first thought that struck me was "Death rides a Pale Horse" and that Death must have got bucked off somewhere back there.

I'll also admit that I walked over to where the horse was and checked that it left tracks - I went there smoke!!!

Anyways, the day got weirder from there as my hunting partner who was my father's buddy, so a senior, got lost and didn't show up at the pickup until about 1:00PM..

All that time I was sitting in the pickup trying to figure out how I was going to tell his wife that I'd managed to lose her husband - when she'd specifically asked me not to.

That's the story of the Pale Horse and the Kootenay elk hunt smokepole, I hope it gave you or someone out in the ether space a wee laugh on this Halloween.

Thanks again and good hunting.

Dwayne

This story has been told in every state for years!

The trial ended in a mistrial, so they'll have to do it again. Three jurors came down with Covid:

https://www.durangoherald.com/artic...n-accused-of-fatally-shooting-bowhunter/

#boosted

The first time I heard it was 50 years ago when I took a hunters safety course in New York.

Yes, New York is where the "brush shot" originated.

Which ushered in the era of the "brush gun."

Dwayne, I don't know how I missed that story, thanks for posting.. I'd guess that each of us has a few stories like that, things that will never be explained.

In keeping with the theme here, at least you didn't shoot the horse!

smokepole;
Good afternoon my friend, I hope you're keeping warm enough down there and the day is going well otherwise too.

Thanks for the reply and the chuckle, indeed it's good that I didn't shoot the horse.

It was shod too by the way, which I suppose speaks well for Death in that he/she/it cares about keeping the horse's feet healthy in the rocks?

As mentioned we've got feral horses in some areas that we hunt, but since they were originally First Nation's horses which have slipped off of Federal Reserves, they're not on the list of things we can shoot on sight.

Hogs are however on that list, but I've not seen or heard of feral hogs in our part of the valley.

Honestly I'm still trying to wrap my head around someone mistaking a moose for an elk, that's really puzzling on a number of levels.

Do you have any data on the folks who do that? As in are they typically out of state hunters? Vision impaired perhaps?

Funny too, after making my original post here I've called a local rancher for two different Black Angus range cattle - one young bull on Monday who'd ripped his ear tag out and a heifer yesterday with a #21 ear tag. I ran across them looking for moose on the first two days of our spike fork bull season here.

The ranchers are always happy to hear from hunters who find stragglers up on the mountains and in fact he mentioned that this particular young bull had done the same thing last fall too.

Usually there'll be a lead cow that will just decide it's time to head down and she'll take her calf and go. Our eldest daughter and I hit the main herd moving down the main logging road about 3 weekends ago now smokepole and we both chuckled at how smoothly that migration down works in the cow world.

My rancher buddy said when they get a new grazing lease area and move the herd to a new spot, it can take a couple years before the herd gets into the rhythm of when to head down. It's always a lead cow that starts it, just like a lead doe will usually cue the mulie migration out here with the alpine herd. He said the cattle will always have a pecking order in the herd and if you take out the lead cow or she happens to die, the second in command as it were will take over within a day or less.

Lastly he said that young bulls often will wander off on their own as they're not really important yet in the herd structure and aren't tolerated by the older bulls or mature cows typically.

Interesting I always thought.

Anyways that's the news from here smokepole, no bull moose spotted - or mistaken for elk either - but noncompliant range cattle spotted and whereabouts reported to the appropriate entities.

All the best and good hunting.

Dwayne

Dwayne, good evening and yes I'm managing to stay warm but we're supposed to get a pretty good freeze and some snow this evening.

I'm not sure of the demographics or resident/non-resident breakdown in the moose-mistaken-for-elk deal. One factor might be that moose weren't introduced here until 1978 and weren't really common until maybe 20 years ago? So there's not a long tradition of dealing with and seeing moose.

Our pet theory amongst the group I teach with is, when people see moose they're always in a wetland area or in the willows in stream valleys, so that's what people think of as moose habitat, and most don't expect to see moose up in the alpine areas and timber where elk hang out. So when they glimpse part of a moose where the elk hang out, they're not even thinking a moose would be there.

Still not an excuse but makes as much sense as anything else.

Take care Dwayne, and post some pics of your deer hunts this year!

I spent about a half hour in the back of beyond of F. Church Wilderness area stalking a sound.

Once spotted, it took a bit of thought to determine something black, wearing a saddle, tied to a tree probably wasn't an elk, so I decided not to take a chance on shooting first, positively ID later.

9000 feet up, I didn't get an elk, but I got some great moose video from 20 yards of a large Shiras bull tossing around a 20' long tree with his antlers.

He didn't look like elk either....

I was told by someone at the trial that the shooter left the scene, drove through the town of Rico and back to his lodgings before reporting the shooting hours after it happened. Not a good look.