Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Survey, I have killed most of my deer/elk UNDER xxx yards .......

Most under 500 for me.

hunting in the woods of northern minnesota most of my life,the majority of my shots have been well under 50 yards.
Not until visiting my uncles ranch in montana did I take a deer at over 100 yards,longest about 350.
I have had for the last 10 years or so,an atypical stand spot in northern minnesota.
the water level being down a few feet since the '70s ,(when I wandered the area as a young lad),what was once a series of beaver ponds that afforded good jump shooting of mallards,now has become an open grassland that provides shots out to a full (lasered) range of 450 yards.
The farthest I have shot there so far is 150 yards,with most of the 10 or so deer taken there being between 90 and 125.
Almost all of them cross the opening at what used to be beaver dams,but are now just ridges of slightly higher ground connecting the old banks of beaver pond.
A few deer have been taken right out in the middle of the old ponds,most notably a 6 point buck following the scent of a doe,with his nose held high,walking straight upwind ,in a 20-30 mph november blow,right at dusk.Another 1/2 hour ,and it was dark.
It is quite differnt hunting there, as most places I have hunted here, you can only see for less than 30 yards or so.
This place ,I had to pass the biggest buck I have ever seen while hunting,a big (at least 10 point) buck with a harem of 1/2 dozen does seen on opening day of muzzleloader season at a measured 320 yards.Too far for the open sighted hawken I held at the time.

Bob,

That's a good observation.

The 10 biggest mule deer I've taken were at ranges between 75 and 360 yards, and only two were taken at 300 or more. The average range was 208 yards. The two biggest were both taken at right around 200.

I've never shot at any mule deer beyond 360, and haven't failed to take any buck I've shot at. Most have been one-shot kills, but a couple were missed by the first shot, one of those due to the first shot deflecting on tall grass.

My 10 biggest whitetail bucks, all taken west of the Mississippi, were shot at ranges between 30 and 225 yards, the average range 126 yards.

20 yards. Someday I'll do better.

I'm going to go with:
Elk - Most at 100 yds or less
Mule Deer - 150 yds.
Whitetail - 75 yds.
Priarie Dogs - 300 yds (just cause the challenge makes it's fun)

I've killed over 100 whitetails in the past 32 years. Only six were more than 100 yards. The longest...242.

John for me and likely you,too, the scales sorta tip a bit closer for the east,and a bit further out for the west;but both seem to linger inside that 400 yard mark;usually a lot closer. I'm sure there are exceptions in the west but most of the best mule deer country I have hunted tends to be pretty thick.

My first mule deer hunt was in the Breaks in Montana, but I went from there to the oak brush jungles of Colorado and it was a bit of a shock....that stuff, the PJ's etc, are thick and hard to see far.


My shots for antelope and elk average a bit further but elk are a lot easier to see than a big mule deer..

The area a person generally hunts in will certainly dictate how long his shots are going to be. Being "out west" doesn't necessarily mean long shots, for example the west slopes of the Cascade Mountains are pretty darned dense. I've hunted primarily in eastern Washington, northern Idaho, BC and a little Montana plus one trip to Africa. Since my first deer kill in 1950 the average distance has been 77 yards. That sounds awfully precise but several of those kills were just my best recollection on the distance. The longest kill was 256 yards and that was lasered.

L ongest 75 yds, closest 15 yds avr. 25yds.

Mule Deer, thanks for mellowing out this thread and lifting it to the next level. If I averaged big game killed my first 15 years it would come in well under 50 yards. If I averaged the past five years I'd guess it would be closer to 150 yards.

I tend to hunt thick stuff where the critters hide, so even in vast wheat and sage during my early years I would sneak along in a brushy ditch and shoot things at point blank range. How one chooses to hunt any terrain is a huge personal factor. Bow hunters manage to kill antelope in Wyoming. Closer to my home, we can snipe blacktails across a clearcut, or get in amongst 'em and powder burn them in the thick wet brush. My bow hunting years still influence me to hunt a style that gets me close, but I just enjoy hunting however we go at it!

My biggest muley grosses 182, shot in timber at 40 feet while still hunting opposite to the flow of a migration route.

In the East where I've mostly hunted in heavily timbered areas, shots are most likely under 100 yards and that's my experience - you just can't see anything at more then 100 yards. There is heavy undergrowth that limits visibility. Often 25 yards is as far as you can see. If you are fortunate enough to own (or able to hunt) on farmland, shooting distances can be a far as in the West.

When I was in college (early 1960's) and worked in the West (Idaho and Montana), visibility was generally greater due to less undergrowth (although this is somewhat different now) and with mountain elk parks (meadows) the range for shooting could be a lot more. I've got several photos of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in which you could shoot 500 yards across the hillside and 3/4 mile across the canyon.

It is interesting that many gun and hunting magazines seem to focus on longer range hunting and less on the skills and experiences of shorter range, brush, snap shooting. Perhaps it's not as glamorous as 300-400 yard shooting, but it is more prevalent.

Which raises another topic - tactical rifle shooting. Custom gunsmiths and gun magazines seem to focus on 500 yard tactical (read sniper) rifles that are often bought by police departments and are capable of 0.5" accuracy. (Let's exclude individual shooters who enjoy long range target shooting and military snipers were long range shooting may mean survival). It is rare where a police sniper needs to take a shot at more than 200 yards; he can find cover at close distances in virtually all instances.

At distances of 100 or so yards a $700 Savage with a $500 scope will do the same job.

Whitetail, average under 100 yards, longest was 220.
The only elk was at 250.

Ken

Bob,

I've hunted whitetails in half a dozen states in the Midwest and East, and it really doesn't seem to differ as much as hunting whitetails in the west as much as many people think--except for hunting pressure, and there's plenty of that in much of the West, too.

There's thick stuff and open country everywhere whitetails live. Northwest Montana is VERY thick, something like Maine with bigger mountains, and a lot of the farm country in the Midwest is just as open as farm country here.

I never have killed a good whitetail buck anywhere further east than Montana, Colorado and Texas, but have passed up some I probably should have shot. The biggest was on a muzzleloader hunt in western Kentucky, a very nice buck that I rattled and grunted in to within 50 yards and probably scored in the 150's. But the landowner was trying to get some age on his deer, and the buck wasn't old enough.

Also, I'm probably spoiled by whitetail hunting in Montana, where it's generally possible to find a buck in the 140-150 class, even on public land, and occasionally a buck much bigger than that. I once hunted in Alabama where they bragged up their big bucks. Passed up one that maybe would have gone 125-130 a few days into the hunt and they thought I was nuts for not shooting that giant.

I believe the longest successful shots I have taken at game were at a pronghorn in Wyoming (499 paces), a couple of elk in Wyoming (440 paces), a Red Stag at 325 yards, and a Mule deer at 325 yards.
All other game has been at or under 300 yards, and I would guesstimate the average range for all at around 200 yards.
Last critter taken was a Water Buffalo, last week, at 140 yards.

My results very close to this...

Under 300.

Under 150 yards.

JB, I had a hunch the distance of kills by many hunters would be what is being posted. There is truth to your posts about replies following trends, but I did leave the topic open ended.

Don't know why some of the long distance hunters are not chiming in, as the thread is not to bait and flog them. It was merely to see if my hunch was correct that more game is killed at short to medium ranges, no matter what part of the country.

Mine looks like this:

Under 50 yards: 36%
50-100 yards: 36%
101-200 yards: 14%
201-300 yards: 14%
301-400 yards: 6%

86% under 200 yds....

My furthest was 400 yds.

Appreciate all the feedback, and honestly. Perhaps some LR guys will chime in, I am interested in hearing from them also.

Lastly, speaking of big bucks, points above are true, most big mature deer hang close to or in thick cover. One only needs to see the trophies bow hunters take to realize they know where big bucks live, and hunting them up close is very doable if desired.

It's pretty much nothing but solid woods on the state forest land I hunt in NY. There are a few old clearcuts that are too grown up for a beagle to get through without getting shredded by blackberry brambles and multiflora rose and a few scattered beaver ponds but that's it. In short I'd be happy to kill deer beyond 100 yds and would if it weren't for all of the trees and bush. A friend of my son in laws came here from Montana to visit and hunt with us a few years ago. At the end of opening day when we were all back at the trucks swapping tales of the days hunt he said he'd seen a 15" wide 8 point { 3 or 4 point to you Westerners I guess} that morning. When I asked him where it was he said "we pass those little ones up in Montana". My reply was "this ain't Montana son". He hunted with my sons for 6 more days and never saw another buck.