HOLY SHIT you guys It sounds like you take your life in your hands every time you go hunting. All I've got to worry about is not treading on any snakes.

Bakes

Hey Mate, at least we don't have to worry about ROO's with rifles.
Charlie

I can tell you if I am wearing orange and shots come my way I will fire back as long as I am alive and have ammo. If you didn't know, in law enforcement, there is no such thing as warning shots, at least at my department.

My dad almost got shot by some "road hunters"
He was wearing blaze, head to toe and they kept blasting away.
It was the reason he quit hunting and ever took me. I was introduced to hunting by a friend about 10 years ago.

When I was about 10 years old my father took me to Maine to hunt deer. We had just come to the bottom of a creek bed when a shot hit a tree just over our heads. My father had just gooten back from Vietnam a couple of years before so he jumped on me and we hit the deck hard! He made me belly crawl with him behind some brush and he started looking for where the shot came from. It seemed like we were there for a long time but it was probably only a couple of minutes when we saw a guy coming down the hill with his rifle slung on his shoulder.

My dad told me to stay where I was and got up to go talk to the shooter. He came real close to where I was hidden and my dad approached him and said hello. The guy starts telling my dad he just took a shot at a deer down here and was looking for it! Dad said he didn't see it but wow, what a nice rifle! The guy was obviously proud of it and handed it to my father to admire. My dad made a show of oohing and ahhing over it for a few seconds then grabbed it by the barrel and slammed it into a tree and broke the buttstock clean off of it!

I watched from my hiding place as the guy was in shock and couldn't even speak as my dad screamesd at the guy for taking a shot at us. He then retrieved me and we beat it out of there as the guy was holding the broken rifle now held together only by the sling!

Years later I finally asked dad what kind of rifle it was and all he could remember was that it was a Weatherby.

[ 11-13-2002, 21:15: Message edited by: Dead Horse ]

Hobie
You forgot the most important thing about VA hunters-More then half the time there atleast case(of Beer) deep before they leave the deer camp!!!!
That's why I would not hunt with any of the clubs in Hampton roads area!! It was lets drink this case then stumble out and see if we can kill bambi.
Now for the piont of this post- Screw the courts if you cap around that hits anywhere near me your dead!! So you better make sure the first one has killed me!! I had a guy shoot me in the leg with a 22 when I was out squirel hunt when I was 16. He got shot 4 times. Lucky for him he survived. But this was back when the courts actually listen to the facts and not the lawyers. He was hunting with out a license(Poaching)-A Felon with a firearm on probation. Judge look at me looked at him an he went back to prison to serve the rest of 10 year sentence plus another five for aggravated asualt

if 2 rounds come with in 5 ft of me you are aiming at me and if i cant get to cover that will stop rounds asap, I will do my best to ensure you stop firing at me by what ever means it takes.

Went out shooting this morning, (got a nice boar)
Got to talking to a chopper pilot. We started talking about a place I have permission to hunt on but I know that a lot of people poach on this place to. A mate of his runs buff on this property and the chopper pilot said that his mate will shoot any poacher he saw on the place (nice bloke). That got me thinking about this thread. My thoughts on this are if I start taking incomming rounds off this joker I will shoot back. If I go to court and loose my guns so what, I'll still be alive.

Bakes

I see you're in Australia. Here in VA, if you went there knowing how he was it could mean that you'd be alive but only for about 8 years more. I think that is the average time for appeals.

I know when I would return fire;I've been there.
I'm alone at the range,shooting my Krag.I hear some shotgun hunters off to my left,and they are appearantly shooting at random;far too much for real hunting.The shooting gets closer,and finally pellets are dropping around me.I called out,telling them to stop shooting at me.They answered by fireing another round directly at me,hitting the bench.That is when I fired back.
This is a heavily wooded area,it's unlikely that a bullet would penetrate very far.In any event,they got the message,and left.
I'm a lot older now,and probably would react differently,today.On the other hand,I have strong feelings about wretched people like that;I just might do it again.
Frank

Read this and started laughing a bit to myself.

Gunnut45/454
"He got shot 4 times. Lucky for him he survived."
"Gunnut45/454-One shot! One Kill" Hmm...

Bakes "A mate of his runs buff on this property " Does that mean in Austrailial what it means here? Talk about feeling vulnerable...

Hope I never get in this situation. Please bring binocs into the field and never point at anything you would regret shooting.

QuietHunter
Yes he got shot 4 times!!! With a 22 at around 125 yds!! 2 in the chest, bullets end up very close to his heart 1 in the ass and 1 in his left thigh-only thing that saved him was his heavy coat and the distance between us . These were in about a 2 second brust. And this was after he tried to shoot me again -he missed I didn't. Now if I had shot him the first time with say a 30'06 he would have been dead instantly. As it was he was in the hospital for a month.

Want to try out the One shot, One kill theory Now?

[ 11-15-2002, 23:20: Message edited by: Gunnut45/454 ]

ROFLMAO
Did you cause any braind damage with the Texas head shot?

Sorry, it is probably not a laughing matter. It just struck me funny when I read your signature. Been hunting elk long enough to have something like... One shot, one kill... wait, needed another to knock it down... wait, its getting back up... there, that ought to do it. Was not even using MK's These elk can just be tough!

Quitehunter
The bloke who has the buff doesn't own the property, he only pays adjistment to keep his stock on there. It gets the heart pounding when you come around the corner of the creek bed hunting pigs and come face to face with a big buff, suddenly your 6.5X55 seems very small.

Hobie
I have permission to hunt there by the owner. The bloke with the buff has no legal right to kick me off the place. If he wants to be a dickhead and start shooting at me then I will shoot back.

Just got back from a 3 day retreat in the woods. Well toward the end of the day my buddy and I heard shotguns going off in the distance, then they started getting closer, so we honked the horn on the truck to let them know where we were. well they just kept advancing and shooting our way. Now, we are on private property, we've got a shooting range set up, so I let loose with a .45-70 downrange. That seemed to get thier attention, the shooting stopped for a little while until they came around our other side and started in again getting even closer. Well my buddy said get our hearing protectors out, well we both took our pistols a .357 & .45acp to the back of the truck, pointed them downrange and let loose with one shot, then we let the rest of them out rapid fire, they finally got the message, and quickly vacated the area.

[ 11-17-2002, 17:59: Message edited by: CharlieinKansas ]

I was picked on by my older cousin all my young life. I'll be darned if I was going to take it while deer hunting. Judge didn't see it that way though.

Been shot and hit once while out walking and not hunting. South of Great Falls, Montana...It's been 25 years, and I was attending the College of Great Falls at the time. Walking on a road during early fall, sunny, cool and crisp. Just a beautiful for walking down a dirt country road. I was wearing a heavy coat. As I came to a bend in the road I was shielded by brush on my right. I came past the brush and some grouse or something exploded up out of the brush, at the same time some guy was pulling the trigger on his shotgun, our eyes locked as the gun went off. I fudged my undies, the front of my coat was shredded and one pellet stuck in my chin. I was way too scared to be mad. The feeling of relief just washed over me, but that damn pellet hurt.

This day and age? You're joking, right? If I'm aware that you're 'scoping' me I will take cover and return the favor. If you are still looking at me when the hairs settle on your sorry ass I will take you out without compunction. If you shoot at me(all shots at/near/overhead), I will do as trained by my government. Take cover and return fire. I do not hug bunnies!

Because we're in the woods doesn't mean we are all brothers and sisters. Few years back some nut was killing hunters in the Ocala Nat'l Forest. That was plural, and the case was solved accidentally only in recent times. Psychos go to the woods too. If you're just "funnin' around", sorry that you're brainless and should be eliminated from the gene pool in any case. I elect to deal with the courts in person rather than thru my surviving family members.

Late 60's in Northwest Florida. I was hunting public land and had given up for the morning and was walking across a new clearcut with almost no vegetation at all toward our camp.

I heard a shot behind me and immediately knew I'd been hit in the neck. As I was whirling around I was thinking that I was being shot on purpose and being exposed like I was that my only hope was to kill before I was killed.

As I leveled my Model 94 in 30-30 at the center of the "hunter's" chest he opened his mouth in obvious fear and surprize.

I told him to drop his gun or I'd kill him where he stood. He was only about 40-50 yards away at the edge of the clearcut and I wouldn't have missed.

He dropped it and started swearing that he thought I was a deer.

When I made him step away from the gun and I picked it up I noticed that it was a pump shotgun. I glanced at the empty shell on the ground and it was Winchester low brass with number 6 shot.

I made him step further back and emptied the shotgun and all the other shells were high brass 2 3/4" magnum 00 buckshot....

That's how close I came to being killed.... If he'd had buckshot in the chamber like he probably thought he had then I might well be dead.

Being young and a bit of a hot-head I very badly wanted to break his stock and bent his barrel by slamming the gun against a tree and then giving him a good ole' southern ass whippin' but not trusting myself to stop short of killing him and not knowing how badly I was wounded I threw the shotgun at his feet and told him to get in his truck and leave before I "lost my temper".

He had the nerve to ask for his shells back and I told him that if he even made a move for them I'd shoot him.

He left quietly and I never saw him again.

I spent the rest of the day with my friends picking birdshot out of the back of my neck, head and heels of my hands which were the only parts of me that were exposed enough to suffer damage from the birdshot.

Yes... The whiskey was very good... As I remember it was Black Jack Daniels and I drank most of a quart to keep from flinching.

I'll always wonder if he intended to kill me or really thought I was a deer.... <sigh>

btw... This was before the days of hunter orange requirements and you can bet that I wear it all the time while hunting now!

$bob$

I find a discussion like this amazing on a hunting thread. Do you blokes wear "six-guns" on your belts for a quick-draw if necessary as well?

Personally I would just stay under cover and yell out. Fire a shot into the air if necessary to alert the person that 1) someone is there and 2) I am armed.

If they continued shooting then I would decide at that time and what the circumstances required.

This has happened to me when my friends where out hunting. We had left camp in a particular direction planning to hunt a number of hills. A friend stayed back in camp with him new .22 rimfire which he was all day shooting at rocks, trees, bushes. On the way back we could hear the .22 shooting off and also some whines of bullets. We thought "this bloke isn't that stupid that he is shooting in this direct?" Sure enough he was and got a considerable talking too for it. He was young and didn't ever do something like this again. If he did I would have taken his rifle and smashed it against a tree.

I wear a ghillie suit when I hunt, I move little and when I do it is deliberate and I know my surroundings. My friend walks gullies and wears blaze orange, he has been shot at 4 times in two years. If a half-drunk poacher/ road hunter scum ball wants to shoot at me, I'm fully prepared to take cover, manuever, stalk and close with my new target. Next year if he survives, doesn't go to the pen, will be a big gun-control freak from the fear of being stalked. I would disable his high speed mode of transportation and make him walk (while fearing for his very existance) while I practice a little.

TomA,
Just a question, Isn't Orange a requirement in NM?

NitroX,

Yeah, some of us do. I think the example you used is not what we're speaking of here. We're talking intentional acts of aggression with malice. That's redundant but it sure sounds good...

I cannot imagine any situation in which anybody with a modern centrefire rifle who seriously wanted to kill me would need a second shot. Neither can I imagine a real life situation in which I would try to kill someone who wasn't trying to kill me.

As said by others, what a weird topic for a hunting site. Not guys I wanna hunt with. Some of them sound like they drive aroung hoping for an incident so that they can justify stalking and killing a human being. Perfect ammo for the anti world out to shut us down.

[ 11-28-2002, 05:45: Message edited by: BBBruce ]

I have always said that when hunting "I WILL return fire". There is no excuse for shooting at any target you can't identify...PERIOD!!! I'm over 50 and with each passing year the law scares me less. What the hell is the point of trying to run away from one of these idiots? All that's going to accomplish is YOU WILL DIE TIRED!!

I figure that if I know where the shots are coming from, I will know from which direction to take cover, but flat on the deck will do for the moment.

Once behind cover, I would yell, but screw the warning shot. If he wanted to kill me, now he can claim self defense. The first shot would be an aimed shot.

That's Plan B. Plan A is to yell and stay behind cover and not get shot. If escaping over a ridge is a possibility, I figure a ridge is as good cover as any tree is.

Never know for sure unless it happens. If a decent man gets buck fever aiming at a buck, I don't know how he behaves aiming at another human being.

H. C.

But to answer your question: If I could not escape and the other guy was still shooting, I think I would return fire once I figure out where he was and I had a good sight picture.

[ 12-09-2002, 07:41: Message edited by: HenryC470 ]