Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Sick story re: loss of elk

I've been pinned down by a wounded 4x4 mule deer, I had on carhart bibs and a heavy carhart coat, if not for that i'd have been a bloody mess.

I finally got ahold of his antlers and was able to hold my own till he decided to take off, he made it about 50 yards and finally died from the bad hit.

An elk? I'd be [bleep] dead...

When I was about 10 or 11, I was hunting with my grandpa, grandma and my uncle. We dropped my uncle off at a spot and drove to a pre-arranged area to wait for him. We hadn't been there more than 5 minutes when he came running up and wanted a knife. I found his Buck knife on the seat and tossed it to him. He took off running and stumbling as his boots has no shoelaces. I knew something good must have happened so I took off after him.

About 100 yards into the timber I saw a dead doe lying there and a 2-point buck tied to a tree by his antlers with shoelaces! I kid you not.

Apparently my uncle had shot both the doe and the buck but only knocked the buck out. He had no knife and no more ammo so he took the laces out of his logging boots and tied the buck to a small tree. The buck was very much alive and pissed when we got there!

I don't remember the rodeo only that my uncle killed the buck and didn't get seriously hurt. My grandad was sorely pissed about the doe. I was sent back to the truck while words were exchanged.

He came on the hunt with only 2 or 3 rounds! He killed more than a 100 deer with his 22-250 and who knows how many elk. He was the best rifleman I had ever known and also the most prolific poacher. I probably don't know the half of all the stunts he pulled.

We all saw that video on youtube. You got your azz handed to you, just admit it...

No video, thank god.

I'm plenty amazed at the power of 200 lb steers and such, not to mention horses, cows, bulls, etc.

I wouldn't tangle with a elk or horned deer of any kind. And a doe would have to be pretty incapacitated 'fore I'd dive in.

Where do you guys shoot a deer that is down but still alive? Like some here have described, the good ol' neck shot is easier said than done. Somewhere along the line I read a suggestion that even on a downed animal, the lung shot was the best shot to dispatch a wounded animal. Kinda makes sense, no animal can live more than seconds with a bullet through the middle of the lungs, but I have never tried it.

Royce

Like in golf, you play it as it lies. Oftentimes they'll go down in brush where you can't get a clean neck or lung shot and you have to take what you can get. I've dispatched them with lung, neck, and head shots. If I have the shot, high in the neck works great because it's mostly spine. If you hit the spine, it's all over. Low in the neck can be a problem because there's a lot there that is NOT spine. It's muscle, windpipe, etc. Most likely you'll kill it but not immediately. From the side, between the eye and ear is good but don't expect to have much left for a taxidermist to work on.

A close up shot with a scoped rifle can be tricky for a couple reasons. For one, the scope sits higher than the barrel and you need to compensate. For another, most scopes don't focus that close and you can't see the animal clearly. I highly recommend trying a few 5 yd shots at paper to see what it'll do.

The best kill shot I know is one that I use when I butcher our goats - from the rear right at the back of the skull. I take out the top vertebra and the bullet continues on in to the brain. I've been able to use that shot on a couple game animals but you usually won't get the right angle.

Learned my lesson in this regard this year, and will henceforth carry more ammo! I figured 7-8 rounds is more than enough, and usually it is, but then sometimes stuff happens...
The 2 farm hand kids who came out to look and give me a hand asked if I didn't have a knife? Well hell yeah I had a knife, and with a bull elk its staying in its sheath until its time to start skinning. I've worked on cattle farms enough to know what I can and can't handle with a domestic animal, and I have no illusions about wrestling a bull elk.

I was always curious about this as well!!

Lungs

This^^^.

Ha, fer sure.