This happened November 9th and there has been zero information from the authorities, despite a homicide charge being filed. Today the Colorado Sun published an article with a little more information. Here is the defense attorney's account:

The hunting party — which Jones said was “three or four” hunters — had radios and was working together to track the wounded elk. Watkins saw the animal through thick trees, Jones said.

“He saw the antlers. He saw the brown. He saw the animal was down in the woods,” Jones said. “The problem was that his buddy had taken off his orange and was kneeling next to the downed animal. (Watkins) saw that the animal was about to get up and he fired. That’s what caused his buddy’s death.”

https://coloradosun.com/2020/12/04/...nal-charges-in-colorado-death-of-hunter/

Hell of a thing.

Fuucking imbecile takes off his orange? SMH.

Yea , he won't do that again !

Doubtful the shooter saw that "the animal was about to get up" if he buddy was kneeling next to it.

What happened to " Be sure of the target, and what
is in front of it and beyond it " ?

This story happened last year in Tennessee , a terrible story about a man and his 9 year old daughter.

The shooter was never named, anyone familiar with the details ,

https://wgntv.com/news/a-man-and-his-9-year-old-daughter-killed-in-new-years-day-hunting-accident/

The shooter was never publicly named.

A friend of mine who happens to be a police officer told me that many hunting "accidents" are in fact intentional homicides. Done right almost a perfect crime.

Riverdog: No I had not heard of this before. Sure a tragedy of human error and carelessness.
Sad that one of our "own" died while recreating (Hunting).
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Theres just no reason anyone gets shot, even of their not wearung safety orange. It just shouldnt happen if one is certain of the target and seeing "brown" isnt certain so dont shoot. It was probably murder.

It is a possibility a bullet could be deflected after hitting an object in flight to the intended target and veer off and accidently strike someone. Rare. But its possible.

That's really sad.

This is a bad deal, and am amazed it does not happen more often out there with the apparent influx of hunters in the area. The Kremmling locale always had a high number wearing orange in the backcountry in the fall . Too many things can go wrong when the hunting population increases. Had quite a number of missions for hunters in that region when I was on the local SAR team. Some really weird [bleep] , too!

Love to hear some of those stories......

I would also like to hear a few of those tales myself, having hunted in that area more than a few times.

Had a secretary in our office fall in love with a coworker of mine years ago. My coworker buddy, her husband, and I hunted together a lot; her husband had no clue wife/secretary was fooling around with my coworker. The affair got to the “fatal attraction “ stage when she asked coworker to take hubby quail hunting and “accidentally “ blow his head off so they could marry.

The affair came to a screeching halt after her request and believe it or not they worked things out and are still married. Life can be strange sometimes.

Crazy and there is no way I would stay with that woman.

What I heard was, the guy who got shot found his elk...........took off his orange..........and had grabbed it by the antlers and was looking at them/turning the head back and forth when the other guy saw the "wounded" elk and shot.

An excuse ??? Nuh uh. But it's easy to see how it COULD happen.

Not to derail, but iirc many years ago an outfitter, Jody Hill, in that area got popped for can't remember what , but he was guiding Steven Seagal on an elk hunt near Kremmling as he was in the area filming a movie , Under Siege 2, that had some scenes in the canyon. Rumor has it that Seagal took a shot on an elk at 1000yds or so. Would have been mid 90's. Maybe some of you that live out there remember that.

Don't remember that, but I do remember Ty Murray getting in trouble for bulldogging an elk off a snowmachine up there.....

edit to add the only thing I could find about it....

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1995-02-10-9502090728-story.html

I would like to see that.. was it in a film?

Dam bull riders.

"Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey later identified the victims as 9-year-old Lauren Drawdy and 30-year-old Kim Drawdy. It was the last day of deer hunting season."

Reminds me of an article I read several years ago. Southern state, KY or TN I think, DNR did a study of Spring Turkey shootings to see why they occurred. They expected to learn it was Newbies getting over excited. Turned out, the majority of shooting "accidents" were done by local veteran hunters on the last couple days of season. The primary excuse was they got too worked up, embarrassed to go back to town and admit to their buddies they failed to fill their turkey tag for the season.

Prior to the blaze orange requirement in Colorado in the early 70’s, deer and elk hunters were routinely shooting each other to the tune of 3 or 4 a year.

It is true that the majority—but not all—were nonresidents. Strangers in a strange land, not familiar with the critters, the habitat or terrain, throw in a strong desire to kill a critter and it seems some people “see” things that are not really there.

The final straw that prompted the blaze orange requirement was when two kids got shot off of motorcycles near Gunnison in 1969. The hunter thought they were deer. Back then people were not charged with murder. Distraught, the California hunter committed suicide a few years later.

I take my blaze orange off when dressing a critter, and hang it in a tree next to the dead animal, and keep my hat on.

Now, we can understand why Colorado has the blaze orange viewable from 360 degrees on the hat. This was truly tragic.

o.m.g

Shooter was arrested in July

I think this happened in South Carolina and not Tennessee.

I forgot about that one....

This happened in northern MN and I met the shooter. The snow was pretty deep and a fellow in orange was bent over dressing the deer and the fellow I met thought it was a redfox laying on the snow( pelts were worth a lot back then) and he shot thinking he was shooting a fox. He nearly killed the guy but got him help and he lived. The shooter quit hunting.

I had my tent set up on his girlfriends farm and was running a trapline out of there.

Happens about every two to three years, it seems, in the Ocala National Forest....

That incident still comes up in conversations from time to time. I've heard variations of the details but one thing that never changes is how shocking the incident was.

I lost a cousin back in 1974, due to that... Tony was 24 and had a new born son...

it was mistaken Identity tho,, was wearing blaze orange when gutting a deer he took...

shot just range out of the woods.. Tony was gutting a deer in the middle of a field..

another guy named Tony was messing around with someone's wife, and from a distance resembled my cousin Tony...

The shooter was later found and arrested and convicted...

that happened on Thanksgiving Day 1974....

I always thought this one looked really suspicious.

I too, over the years, think many are indeed homicides. Things like mistaking the victim for a gray squirrel or turkey are just way too much of a stretch.

ya that one is right up the road. my bet is a trespasser he was giving schit to. theres some crazy mf'ers out that way.

I lived one of these first hand when I was 16. Heard the shot and went to see what they got and ended up saving a mans life. Still remember it like it was yesterday, life changing for all involved. Carelessness happens so quick and there is no taking it back.

I feel for all involved. Every time I see a story like this, I cringe, having seen the awful cost. My folks would not let me hunt any more that year and the following year I could only go by myself or with my older brother.

A year or two before Nebraska implemented the mandatory hunter orange rules, a kid I went to high school with, was sitting on top of a haystack watching a meadow. A hunter, from the area and someone who should have known better, thought he looked just like a coyote sitting up there. Shot him thru the head.

Shortly after that, another guy, in the same area got his leg shot off by a hunter in his own hunting party that thought he looked like a deer.

I have stopped hunting deer during the rifle season just for this reason, even on my own land.

A few years back in CO a muzzleloader hunter shot a female bowhunter in the head. All he could see was her head, said he thought it was a squirrel.

Latest info on the Kremmling shooting.
Sorry, I can't seem to make it into a link:

https://coloradosun.com/2020/12/04/intentional-discharge-of-an-aimed-firearm-leads-to-rare-criminal-charges-in-colorado-death-of-hunter/?vgo_ee=2b5MXSodDN%2BGitqZ3SC2Ib35hO7C%2FF3J%2FgQB9Uu3XAY%3D

Here's some info on hunting accidents in Colorado:

https://cpw.state.co.us/learn/Pages/HE-Safe-Hunting.aspx

That information gives all the credit for the reduction in accidents to Hunter Education but it doesn't mention the other thing that was mandated in 1970 which was hunter orange during the firearms seasons. Kind of hard to separate the two.