Me and two guys from another online forum have been planning a cow hunt this last sunday and we managed to make it happen. We met at the trailhead around 6 and started on the trail. It was a nice walk in and we got there at 9ish. We hung out at the end of the trail for a bit to catch our breath and stop sweating. Soon after we started up the river again, about 200-300 yards up the river I spotted some brown. Jason performed a textbook stalk and downed a small one. The day had started off as it should. After butchering it we started up the river again. Jason chose to stay behind and hunt the river and the small drains along it. So Ed and I headed off into the forest to get us some beef or pork. We ended up at a giant cliff face waterfall thing which was dry, I think Ed may have a pic or two. So we backtracked a bit and climbed up some muddy slope back into the bush. We headed northwest for a bit more or less aiming for where I believed the grassy area begins. About an hour into the hike I stepped out from behind a huge ohia tree and saw a cow about 40 or so yards away. I tucked back behind the tree and told Ed to step up for the shot. He kinda lagged a bit and by the time he poked out the cow started jogging away. He fired a shot and clearly hit it somewhere in the front quarter. I saw it stumble and turn from us and keep running, I put 3 rounds into its butt as it ran away hoping to maybe get a spine or texas heart shot. No such luck, we saw a small ammount of blood but nothing guranteeing a kill. We looked for a bit but couldn't find it. I have a feeling his shot hit shoulder and might have not penetrated vitals. While mine probably felt a bit like flea bites on it's butt.

At this point we started arching our track back towards the trail, about a quarter mile or so in from the river. We saw tons of sign, some places more than others. After crossing a few huge ravines we saw a real fresh pig wallow, another 5 minutes after we stopped to have a snack. About 10 feet from us a pig jumped up from a tangle of ferns and ran away. We never got a look at him though. As we rounded south towards the river we started to get into these real marshy little draws full of some sort of reed. There was a lot of fresh cow track everywhere and I knew we'd see one eventually.

Then I saw a branch shake about 75 yards through the trees. I let Ed know there was something ahead and we both dropped down low. They were behind a big tangle of ferns about 50 yards away. I crept up to maybe 40 or so yards away with a bunch of trees and logs in between us and picked the closest cow, waited until I could tell which way it was facing and put a 150gr slug right into his vitals. I saw it drop to its front knees when the shot hit and heard a lot of commotion. There were a bunch of cows running away from us and I assumed our cow was in the group. I waited a minute or so and poked my head into the trail to see if he was still there or not, I didn't see him so crept a bit closer to check for blood. Right then I saw its butt about 20 yards away, he was standing still behind a clump of uluhe fern. All I could see was his butt so I waited a bit. He took one step backwards and his vitals were exposed. BAM, one shot, BAM, two shots, BAM three shots! All these shots were aimed straight at his lungs and it looked like I hadn't even hit the damn cow. He didn't do so much as quiver like when a fly lands on their backs. Right then he took a step backwards and caught sight of me. I hadn't seen the head of the cow at this point and it was a giant mature bull. He lowered his head and started running at me from about 20 yards. I turned tail and started down the trail towards Ed.

I remember reading something on an online forum by a bunch of cape buffalo hunters. They unanimously (sp?) agreed that when you are charged it is best to wait and pick your shot wisely, rather than shooting as many bullets as you can into the neck, chest or snout of the animal. My brain flashed on this and I spun to face the cow with my last bullet. It's funny what your brain is thinking during times of severe stress. At this point the cow had gained on me and was only 10yards from me. This all happened in slow motion it seemed like, me spinning and cocking my hammer, planting my feet and centering my sights on the forehead of this massive beast. In this time the cow had taken another two steps at me, covering another 2 yards. As my sights centered I pulled the trigger and......*click*

After putting three rounds in the butt of the first cows I had only reloaded another 2 rounds. Very bad mistake. Right after my attempted last ditch effort I spun around again and saw Ed raising his gun, still 5 yards or so in front of me. He blew three 12ga slugs right by my shoulder and into the charging beast at a distance of about 10-12 feet. This put him to his knees and I kept running through the open swampy area, fumbling with my last two cartridges in my shirt pocket. I remember yelling at Ed to shoot him again but Ed had dropped his gun in the shuffle. He forgot to take out the plug in the magazine for it to hold more shots, so it was still in crappy California mode with only 3 shots. At this point he dove out of the way of the bull and over a small log dropping his gun on the bull side of the log. He had to climb back over the log with a still live 1000lb bull only 10 feet from him. He retrieved the gun and put one more final round into the head of the bull. I fired my last shot into its head to be safe.

This whole experience, as exciting and relieving it may be, is something that I could go the whole rest of my life without experiencing again. I nearly crapped my pants afterwords the adrenaline was surging through my body so hard I was stuttering and shaking like a leaf. Ed pretty much saved my life out there. I am SO lucky he was there and manned up to the threat instead of turning tail like me. Looking back at the event I can see how many faults I made. Didn't have a full magazine, sneaking up on a wounded bull...the list goes on, the biggest of which is being totally undergunned for a half a ton animal. But all I can say is I am so so happy to be writing this story on here and not in some swamp in the Hilo Watershed with a rotting bull on top of me. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, we got the bull butchered and nervously laughed for an hour or so. We got back to the river about 3:15 and met up with Jason. We started hiking out and it took us all of the 2 hour alotted time. We made it to the truck and parted ways.

I still feel like I can't tell the story right, it doesn't sound nearly as intense as it actually was. The whole thing took place in under 15 seconds or so. It's all such a blur. The whole 'dangerous game' thing kinda has me freaked out, Im actually considering ending the cow hunting and sticking to pig hunting.

Wow...sounds like quite the adrenaline-charged and eventful hunt.

Glad you are here to tell us about it. It could have turned out quite differently.

Great story, keep after those brutes, you'll be better prepared now! I saw mention of a 12 ga, what caliber are you shooting?

the only gun I own is a Winchester M94 30-30. I was shooting 150gr federals because it is all that's available here. A friend of mine has since given me reloading equipment so I just got to find where I can buy powder and primers. I am definitly finding a different gun before trying it again. The guy with me had a Mossberg semiauto 12ga with slugs.

quote:

the biggest of which is being totally undergunned for a half a ton animal.

Now you can get prepared for all the folks on this Board who believe shooting Deer with 22cal and Elk with 24cal is plenty.

But, I do agree with your being a good bit below the Cartridge level I would prefer for Free Ranging Cattle.
-----

There is one more problem, you can desire to Hunt only the Hogs, but there is no guarantee that the Cattle will not be right where you are Hunting. Due to that, I'd encourage you to get a bit more Adequate Cartridge.
-----

Good gosh, meant to include - Great Story and some fine flicks.

"More Power to you" - Briscoe Darling

Thats a domestic cow, I have roped a lot of them but if I shot one around here they would hang me from the nearest tree..

I'd like to see you feed some grass to these 'domestic cows'. They were brought here by George Vancouver as a gift to the king right around 1800. They have been wild for at least 100-150 years for multiple generations. Definitely qualifying them as 'wild' animals. They are a minimum of 3 miles from the nearest road and a half a days walk from the pasture they originated from. They are wreaking havoc on the delicate native forests and they have started an eradication hunt for them.

It looks an awful lot like a Hereford. However, domestic cattle will kill you, some of them (San Getrudas, Beefmasters, and Longhorns) seem to be more inclined to do so.

Where are you hunting them? Cattle usually aren't all that destructive to environments in the US.

Here in Texas, in some of the roughest scrub thickets you'll find along the Rio Grande, there are some wild cattle, and there have been a few folks to hunt them.

A guy I swapped some Contender items with a few years ago sent me a picture of a bull that he took. From what I recall, he was actually heading into the area to hunt when a rogue bull, unseen by the hunter, charged at his horse.

I don't remember all the details, but I know he used a few shots from a 45-70 to end the melee.

If I locate that photo, I will post it here. The bull doesn't look nearly as healthy as the one in the post above but instead was a scraggly-looking thing with sort of a mottled dark gray/brown coloration -- and I doubt it weighed more than 500 pounds.

The hunt is on public land in Hilo, Hawaii. Open to anyone with a hunting license. Bag limit is 2 cows per day. Maybe the original cows brought over by George Vancouver were Herefords??? Hawaii's native plants evolved with an absence of mammals so they're all real soft, no thorns and delicious for browsers like goat, sheep or cattle to eat. Any tree smaller than your bicep gets knocked over and stripped of leaves and bark.

So the limit is 2 cows per day? What the hell do yo do with all the meat? Why, if the are destroying the delicate ecosystem are you limited to two per day? Why not unlimited bag limit until they are all gone?

I will tell you that I have sure felt like shooting some cows in my day, and I would have had a lot of fun and enjoyed doing it, but I doubt if I would be posing with them.

Y'all need to import some Texas Cowboys or some Coonasses and they'd solve you cow problem in about a week.

I've heard about those wild cattle on the Pecos and Rio Grande but only on hunting forums. Kinda like Cow Hunting in Hawaii!

Alan

Next thing you know they'll be hunting cows under "High Fence"!

Alan

Those Brangus cattle can be pretty salty too.

A friend of mine had a little Brahma bull that tore up the County fair in Freer, Texas one year. He made a couple of rounds amongst the spectators then headed back to Benavides. We finally got him snubbed off to the goal post on the football field and hauled him up in the trailer. He grew up to be a fine bull and threw a bunch of F1 calves but he was never invited back to the Duval County Fair!

Alan

I think every stockyard eventually has a bull end up trying to climb the bleachers...

In HI, I can easily see how they could be destructive. Are those forests bordered by any open areas? Alfalfa might work to lure them out.

I agree, having a daily bag limit is a bit odd -- unless they're concerned about someone accidentally getting into a man's herd... of course, I think many of HI's laws are strange... (the gov't seems to be amazingly anti-gun, but should be promoting culling heavily to control pigs, and apparently, wild cattle.

Now that it's been explained a bit more, chasing cattle through HI does sound like fun (admittedly, my instincts would be to try and get them to market, more than shoot them, but that feeling can change quick...)

There really is no possible way to retrieve all the meat let alone get the thing whole to the market. The forest is too thick and hard to navigate to have any chance of herding them back towards the pasture too. The hunter's access trail is at the bottom of their range and we are supposed to be driving the cows back up the hill into the pasture on the slopes of Mauna Kea...yeah right. The closest areas are the pastures that they strayed from, about 3 or 4 miles up the hill. The fence is so badly degraded from what I've been told that even if they managed to get the cattle back into the pasture they would end up right back in the forest.

Hawaii is pretty lax on gun regulations, just hard to find them for sale anywhere. They do have pig, goat, sheep culling going on in various parts of the islands. A bunch of kiwis from Pro Hunt were recently on Maui culling pigs from fenced in areas of native growth.

Thats a good question about the bag limit and I'm not sure how to answer it. It is an eradication hunt sanctioned by the state...if the purpose is eradication...why the bag limit? You are so far in the middle of no where that no one can even hear your gun go off, let alone know how many cows you've taken.

Good job, Ev!! Sounds exciting! Feral bovines are not to be messed with! What caliber are you shooting there?

quote:

some Coonasses and they'd solve you cow problem in about a week

More like one afternoon and evening!!!

Hey Ev, You are missing a great opportunity with a readily apparent client base. Invite the guys over that believe they can just walk up and toss a rope over those Cattle and have them show you how it is done.

Be sure to take a good movie camera with a l-o-n-g range lens and sell the flick.

Oh yes, take an Adequate Caliber so you can sort things out once the calm and contented, woosie Cattle realize what is happening.

By the way, it sure doesn't take 100-150 years for some Cows to be quite defensive about their Freedom.

LOL! Great idea, Hot Core! I would pay to see that video!

Part of the fun of going to the sale barn is watching the bulls try to climb out of the sale ring. The other part is watching them load a bull that don't want to load.

Ev- AWESOME!!!! I have long wanted to hunt feral cattle, as I have personally seen the danger and hunt in chasing them, especially in country such as Hawaii.

To any who think this is just shooting a cow should become educated. On our ranch, most mother cows and bulls are very docile and workable, even though they are turned out on mountain ground for 4 months in the summer. BUT, I help the neighbor with his POS herd of wild, man killers. These cows hide like a whitetail, run like an elk, are mean as any animal I have ever seen.

In fact, just yesterday I was helping them Preg Check their cows when one cow decided to jump a 7' sub-corral fence and chase everyone she could find. I was moving them in into the chute and had numerous cows try to climb the fence to get me when I got close.

Ev- AWESOME story, thanks for sharing. Hope you find a way to retrieve more meat as you continue progressing in your hunting. Great read.

but losing money on animals that do their best to kill you is why raising them is so much fun...

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
but losing money on animals that do their best to kill you is why raising them is so much fun...

LOL!! Aglifter, that's damn funny!

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

I remember seeing Tony Mackris I believe on Under Wild Skies (before it was strictly Africa based) hunt feral bulls in Hawaii. I also remember quite vividly that he was using an iron sighted double rifle, no doubt in a double rifle sized caliber to boot.

Quite an interesting account. Thanks for sharing and congrats on the bull.

I have thought that buying some too big mexican roping steers, turning them loose on a couple of hundred acres of hills, trees, and pasture, giving them some occasional rock salt from a shotgun for a few weeks, and then selling hunts would be fun, profitable, and probably more moral than sending them directly to the abbatoir.

I've thought of doing the same with longhorns on our place. They could go plenty wild and I have known some longhorn bulls that would kill you given the chance. Of course I seen some Jersey bulls that would do the same. It's still a "cow". Don't get me wrong, after my stint in the cattle business I would love to shoot some cattle (legally). Maybe I still will and if I go to Hawaii I'm damn sure going to try my hand at helping out the ecosystem by offing a few feral bovines!

Alan

The animal that put the worst fear of death in me was a Jersey cow when I was a kid. Finally got big enough to milk her, but she always hated kids--probably due to my older brothers.

Ev

From one Hilo boy to another...Good Job! Though I've been in Wyoming for awhile I was born and raised in Hilo. Some of my fondest memories are of time spent in that same area hunting wild cattle and pigs. Great place and your story/pictures really took me home.

Mahalo and Aloha!
Matt

PS Not to mention the pipi kaula!

We were hunting on a farm in South Africa a few years back, and the farm owner asked if I would mind shooting some of his buuls that have gone wild.

I told him I would do it.

Sadly, we did not see any

EvBouret,

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

I would be posing with the cow too. Sounds like an experience to be remembered.

Ev,

Great story. Thanks for writing it.
I think you'll have a lot of fun reloading too.
You can mail order components for reloading if they are not available locally.

Don

Ev,

Thanks for sharing. Don't take the cowboy/coonass/roping BS too seriously. They're not going to do any better job than a Hawaiian at knocking off the cattle. Those things on Hawaii are as wild as the bovines of Northern Austraila.

Awesome story, sounds like a dog gone BLAST and a ton of work.

Enjoyed that; thanks for sharing! Sounds like some big fun, and challenging. Note to self if ever on a HI cattle hunt: in case all else fails, have access to red cape handy, and know how to use it!


KG

Do you mount these? I would love to have one right between my mule deer and rag-horn elk!

I didnt have the bull mounted. It would be a chore to pack the cape out of there. Like I said it's a pretty inaccesible area, and if I were to pack the cape I wouldnt be able to pack any meat.

The hunt is only for the extremely fit. The guy Ed almost shut down on the hike out and I ended up having to pack all his meat and gear because he had hit rock bottom. He was pale and shivering and lying down in the mud to regain himself while we sat down and rested. It was kinda intense.

Ev, Thanks for a great story. Do a lot of people hunt for these wild cattle?

Id say that 1 or 2 groups of hunters go in per month. So every other weekend someone goes in after one, that sounds about right.

That's really kinda incredible too. Where there are big ones there's bound to be some of the 500# variety also. I'm surprised there aren't folks traipsing up and down that mountain haulin out rib-eyes by the wheelbarrow load.

Alan