Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Running Deer, How to hit them!

One day a good Bud pulled off the road to go hunt when the GW pulled up and asked to see his license. He replied why would you want to check my license?

GW said because I'm the GW and you are hunting. Brian said no I'm not, I'm just standing outside my truck and don't even have a shotgun in my hands.

GW gave a sigh, Brian broke into a grin and showed him his license.

Great campfire stories, B. thanks.

My dad hunted with two friends Ray and Foster, Ray was the best of them and had taken Arizona's big 10 and his trophy room was a wonder to a young dreamer.

For Ray's bear my dad loaded up the mule and they went into the Mazatzal wilderness. Ray shot a bear and it slid over the edge of a ravine.

Ray runs over so excited he slips over the edge and disappeared.

Dad runs over to look and Ray had fell 10ft right on top of the bear and was trying to scramble off it, not knowing if it was dead or not... luckily it was.

.........................

Ray told me, preparing for his lion hunt, he had prestashed water in different vantage points, so he could stay out as long as it took to kill one.

He eventually did shoot one and it crawled into a crevasse between some boulders dying and he couldn't get it out. These guys were all engineers working at motorola. So they had connections to get dynamite... they went back in and blew a hole big enough to retrieve the cat.

.....................

Those three were on a deer hunt and Ray somehow got turned around and lost. Three days in remote az.

A search was called in and they found his night camps where he built two fires to lay between and a deer he shot to eat off of... He was moving to try and get out and wasn't finding water.

He told me about it once over campfire when I was old enough to be in deer camp. His voice was quiet and dead serious.

He was at his end and knew it, the fires at night kept him warm but dried him out. He had made it to a ridge before dark and was laying there, when a light came on way below him... a lantern from a deer camp.

He literally crawled down the slope in the dark, a nightmare of a couple hours... he didn't think he would make it to the morning. All the camps around had been alerted so they knew who he was.

....................

Ray was a hell of a shot. They would roll grapefruit down slopes and Ray would shoot them with his 06. Dad said, he couldn't hit them all, but he'd hit a bunch. I personally saw him in the dove fields and one running 4pt muley across a canyon.

...................

Dad's the last of them left, he's 82 and we (brother and I) spent yesterday scouting with him for his cow elk hunt next week... I'm betting he can still get it done.

Kent

Great reads there Kent. The stories are just too short.

Amen, I enjoy reading these as well.

I purposely just hit the highlights to get all in one post, stuff I left out was like... when they were coming out from the wilderness trailhead pulling Jenny the mule on a rough two track in the old one horse trailer (that I remember well as a kid)... It came unhitched and was rolling to the edge of a canyon and the front just dug in enough to not go over.

Kent

As to original query: each of us has a slightly different tracking system in our marvelous ballistic computer brain (thank you, eyeball) and I've found that I cannot hit when I use the lead picture told to me by someone else. My instinct is to swing fast and not lead as much and it works. As said, jump shooting a shotgun helps, as does shooting floating sticks with a .22 in a fast flowing stream, where safe to do so. Fun with my boys.

We need a campfire story sticky option. These stories are almost as great as being at camp.

I was out in kansas at a shoot and this guy who was wearing a big AQHA buckle joined our group. I mentioned my uncle back in pa was big in them. He looked me over and asked his name. I said Herman .......
The guy broke into a smile and said, "Oh my, what a character."

Here's a couple bucks dad and Ray killed...

Since we are off topic and just telling stories I have one to share. It is kinda embarrassing but it is 100% true.

About 1987 I get an invite from a buddy to come hunt his family land, but I can only shoot a doe. I needed some meat and hunting on his place was almost a sure thing. He tells me that he has been wanting me to come hunt with him but has not been able to ask because his family did not allow non-family members to hunt the land. It turns out his entire family was in New Orleans and would not get back till the next day. It was lunch time and we were eating at a little drive in when the conversation took place. As usual I had all my gear in my truck so jumped at the opportunity.

We head out to amite county to hunt. He steals the key to his grandmother's big red 3 wheeler and he gives me a ride to a box blind overlooking a green patch surrounded by cut over. I climb in the stand after he drives off and not twenty minutes later the does start rolling in. I shoot one and she flops to the ground like struck by lightning. Another victim to my A-bort in .280 remington. I sit back to wait on my buddy to finish hunting. Tem minutes later the field fills up with does again. I just watch them till about dark thirty when the thrashers start making all that noise and decide my buddy would not mind if instead of one doe I kill two. They have plenty after all. So I flop another doe down not five feet from the first one.

My buddy and I, his name was Ed as well, were known for our twisted senses of humor. Many of our jokes involved farm animals and condoms. Of course they were only jokes. Anyway I hear the three wheeler coming back to pick me up so I get a bright idea. I scramble out of the shoot house run out to the does and pull them into a V with their heads touching and a small space between them just large enough for me to lay back in. I then jerk down my jeans to my ankles leaving my boxers up and lay back against the does and pull out a Marlboro and light up.

The 3 wheeler pulls right up to me with the headlight blinding me then the engine dies but the light is still in my eyes. I take a big ole puff and blow the smoke out, then say, "I mount everything I shoot." I expect my buddy to bust out laughing and my heart sinks when I hear an old lady voice say," Well that is nice, but you should not be smoking and who the hell are you?"

It took less than 2 seconds before my jeans were buttoned and I was grabbing my stuff getting ready to run. Apparently Ed's grandmaw had returned home early and had heard my shot and come to investigate. She started cackling about that time and I realized where my buddy Ed got his sick sense of humor. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life, and I doubt it will ever be surpassed. She helped me load the does and gave me a ride out to "talk" with her grandson and call the law. I follow along like a curr with his tail betweeen his legs. What good would running do, she knew me and had gotten a good look at my face.

We pull up to the house and there is my buddy Ed. Turns out he had heard her truck return home and went home to explain that he had taken someone hunting since there was not a good way around it. They had decided to send her down to pick me up as a joke. She never told Ed about the "situation" she caught me in,nor did she call the law.

I guess a good thing came of the situation. For years after that I was welcome to come hunt does on that place. I guess I am still the only non-family member that ever had that privilege. I used to bring donuts from town and me Ed and his grandma would drink ice cold fresh whole milk from the chiller in the dairy barn. She always brought us out coffee when we got through milking when I would come to help. She even let me sit in a box stand with her a couple of times. We never killed anything because we were always talking and cutting up. I became almost an adopted grandson to her. I called her frequently when I was away at school and came home for her funeral.

I told Ed the whole story at the wake and we laughed while we cried. To this day I wonder why she took a liking to me. I guess she just fell sorry for me.

Running Deer story,

I had yet to kill a Deer and we were up at another Uncles camp in Clarington, Pa.
for Doe season. Dad and I go out towards an old Swamp that was pretty much drained down.

I set up for a little watch and he moves on, but I knew he wouldn't be that far away.
Awhile later I hear a shot and then shortly here comes a couple full tilt buggy.
Get one in the scope and hit the trigger and shortly she goes down head first. Finally.

Dad comes up and I say I got a Doe. I tell the story of her going down in the scope. He said he shot at them standing and can't believe he missed. Anyway, I get some help with the gutting and we drag her into camp. Uncle and his crew show up and are making a big deal of the whole thing. Camp tradition was to hammer your empty casing into a tree in front of camp. I had saved it and all stood around while it was hammered in.

Dad finally says, I know I had to have hit that Deer lets go back and find it. I said ok and off we go. We go back to where he shot and after looking find a little blood and get a line. Then more, then more and it ends where the Doe fell.

Things got quiet on the walk back to camp. We looked that Deer over from head to tail and there was only one bullet hole and it obviously was his.

He said, "Son if I could do it over I never would have gone back" and I think it hurt him more than me

Great hunting and father / son story there, Batteu.

It makes you wonder at all the wonderful stories that over the years die out there, without ever being told or written anywhere.

Practice, practice, practice.

I'm sure you think that people that shoot at a flying birds, running rabbits, and the like are idiots too?

Where I live just about everyone shoots at running deer. You've never heard of driving deer?

I would think that the people which aren't skilled enough to do things that are commonplace, are the "idiots."

Not that I think those of you that choose not to shoot at running deer are "idiots;" just the people that project their inabilities onto others.

you're a little late, try reading the whole thing.......idiot.

I'm flattered you value my opinion so much to take it that hard though.

I am in the process of reading it, troll.
Sorry everyone, for responding to the obvious troll.

troll? really?

laffin here

I killed a couple rabbits yesterday. It was easy though with all those thousands of BB's in 11/16 oz of shot.

Dink

GFY (good for you)

I woulda posted elsewhere too if I were you. especially after your ass was handed to you in the nonresident rights thread.

My "idiot" brother killed another deer today.



Unfortunately, I forgot to tell him he would be an "idiot" if he shot at a running deer... Whoops!

One shot with a slug in a single shot shotgun. The deer was running full bore after being shot at by the neighbors. The shot was taken at about 50 yards. The deer ran 30 yards more, then collapsed and died soon after.

"Idiot!"