this may have been coverd before in this thread, but it,s getting long and i don't want to read all of them.
If you wound a dangerous animal, and he kills you, or even if you get away, but don't kill him, you now have a danger to every one else in the forest or the jungle, or where ever you hunt.
I got in some trouble at work once when a customer talked about shooting a grizly dear at long range with a 7mm mag.
i asked if he used a guide. he said yes and i said the guide should lose his licence, if not go to jail.
to wound a dg animal through negligence or stupidity, is criminaly iresponsible...tj3006

quote:

Originally posted by tjroberts:
this may have been coverd before in this thread, but it,s getting long and i don't want to read all of them.
If you wound a dangerous animal, and he kills you, or even if you get away, but don't kill him, you now have a danger to every one else in the forest or the jungle, or where ever you hunt.
I got in some trouble at work once when a customer talked about shooting a grizly dear at long range with a 7mm mag.
i asked if he used a guide. he said yes and i said the guide should lose his licence, if not go to jail.
to wound a dg animal through negligence or stupidity, is criminaly iresponsible...tj3006

Amen.

However, there is a benign way to read the customer's comments. It could have been a 'fish' story. What is long range? 150-200 yards? Was the rest solid and stable and the hunter experienced to take a shot during a pause of activity? (Probably not, judging by the story. So yes, the guide was less than responsible, especially if he did not follow up all the way. However, I only know Africa, not Alaska and its conditions. It sounds criminally irresponsible. But without details one must withhold final judgement, since every shot entails some risk.)

LOLOLOLOL......Tanz, I agree with you. I have hunted all my life and never had to take a 300 yard shot. It's amazing how some guys overestimate distance. However, with a 7mag on a brown bear, I would have tried like heck to get closer. I have only hunted black bear but I think Michael is right. When hunting DG, I think you need to get as as close as you can to insure a well placed first shot. A pissed off griz can be a lot to deal with.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bush:
LOLOLOLOL......Tanz, I agree with you. I have hunted all my life and never had to take a 300 yard shot. It's amazing how some guys overestimate distance. However, with a 7mag on a brown bear, I would have tried like heck to get closer. I have only hunted black bear but I think Michael is right. When hunting DG, I think you need to get as as close as you can to insure a well placed first shot. A pissed off griz can be a lot to deal with.

Dave,
even though I practice 300 yards on occasion, only 2% of our animals in Africa have been taken at 300-400 yards. For example, in the desert brush of northern Chad, shots are long, and on rare occasions a shot reaches out accross an East Africa mbuga.

Three years ago my son had an absolutely clear shot at a buffalo at the back of a herd, slowly working their way away from the last tree/bush of a forest. The PH who controlled the area asked my son to shoot an old matron past breeding. It was two hundred meters (his laser was in meters, we learned later, our US version is yards. The difference was moot, since we were sighted in for just about that exact distance). Anyway, the PH had seen us sight in the rifles the day before, (I had dropped a 250-yard heart-shot hartebeest in the morning), the rest was very solid (three sticks with the guide providing an elbow rest) and not a blade of grass over 6-10 inches all the way to the buffalo. When he had a clean broadside he was given the OK. The lungshot buffalo ended up running 200 yards and he got a second shot (unnecesary it turns out) into it before it collapsed in the broad open plain. Some called that first shot irresponsible, but taking a 25-75 yard shot in pretty thick forest can be riskier because of invisible, soot-blackened branches. Every shot involves some risk but our job is to make the first shot a 99 percentage affair and be prepared to follow up when something goes 'north' (that is when something goes 'south', to flip a US idiom). Bottom line is to use the largest most powerful calibre available that is ACCURATE and that one shoots ACCURATELY and confidently. And never shoot when in doubt, always wait for that shot that one is sure will drop the animal. That keeps the bad stories to < 1%.