I am sick

[Bait O' Eggs]

I posted a story a week ago about the bulls we were chasing the last weekend of bow season. One of the guys I was hunting with stuck a bull the last day and we found about a thimble full of blood spread over about 1/2 to 3/4's of a mile.

It was one of those shots that the shooter started off on the radio how he was sure he got double lungs, and it was a huge bull, ..... he was way excited and has never kill an elk with a bow. When I got to him 10 or 15 minutes after he shot, he was still shaking he was so excited, he hadnt even walked over the 20 yards to where the bull was standing to see if his arrow was there or if we had a blood trail.

As we follow this elk that was not bleeding enough to effectively follow. We kept questioning him as to where he thinks he hit it. He did not see the arrow fly, he did not see the arrow hit the elk. The elk flinched like it was hit and wheeled and ran. He kept saying there was no way he didnt stick it good, because he had all 4 sight pins on the elk when he shot. As we track this elk, we kept questioning where he was hit. Never did find the arrow, and only had blood on one side of the tracks when we would find blood. So we didnt think he had a pass thru shot. Arrow may still be in the elk ????? :whazzup: The blood drops were no closer than 30 yard apart and the drops were far and few between and lots of fresh elk tracks in the area so his were hard to follow.

One of the things I kept thinking was while we tried to track, was shooting 20 yards and he had all his pins in the elk, the 20 yard pin must have been high on the elk. I would hold my bow out and envision an elk at 20 yards and with my 50 yard pin on the elk, the 20 would be way high in the elk. I was thinking he must have been stuck high in the shoulder above any of the vitals. The lack of blood and distance we traveled excluded a lung shot.

As we hung ribbon along the trail when we found blood, our hopes diminished the farther we went. The arrows had dark green and black feathers and we never did find an arrow. We spent hours near the last blood drop trying to figure out which way the bull went. He traveled in mostly a straight line angling down the hill until we lost his blood right at the creek. The trails went several directions at this point as we left the side hill and entered the flat at the creek. There was a lot of blowdown in the area and the bull was kind of limited to going on one of the trails unless he got in the mood to start jumping blowdown as you can see in one of the photos. It wasnt a high probablility that he went thru the blowdown sections wounded when there were good trails thru the area.

We finally gave up after we couldnt figure out which way the bull went and made the long hike out of the canyon to head for home. We were hours later than we had wanted to get on the road. The shooter thought about it all week and decided he was going to go look for the elk this last weekend, it would be stinking after a week if he did infact kill it, he had a slim chance of finding it. He made the 6 hour drive east and the couple hour hike into the canyon to look for a "maybe" dead bull. He found the bull not far from where we lost the blood trail. I want to make the trek because after walking what seemed like every square inch of the area looking for a drop of blood, I am curious how close I walked by a dead bull and didnt see it. The arrow was not in the elk when it was found, and he could not really tell where it was hit. It stunk so bad and was decomposing it was hard to cut the horns off, and the bugs had gotten to the elk and were eating it up.

And before somebody tell me it isnt legal to possess the horns. It is, since the bull was killed legally, and the tag was punched. The animal was just not found in a timely manner and the meat rotted on the hill :depressed:

It is times like this that I just dont know how to put my feelings into words :depressed: If you have a wounded animal stick with it and dont give up.

[nitrobass]

Not sure what to say....At least the willingness to go back a week later is admirable, but the false notion that the bull was ok and lived to see another day would have been easier to take.

[Crayfin]

Bummer.......nobody likes to loose one--I will second the admiration for your buddy to go back and see what he could find. I think he has the makings of a outstanding outdoorsman. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

Lots of people will tell you they have never lost one--then again, lots of people will tell you they HAVE missed one-shows you how often some of them are wrong

I took pictures of a bull that was double lunged-dead center of the body, that barely bleed enough to fill a table spoon on his hide-ran down about 4" and stopped! We found him with compasses doing grid patterns and I think we still got lucky. My buddy said he drilled him and would not give up. Took us 4 hours with 6 people but we got him.

My hat is off to all of you who looked for this animal-Sorry about the loss

Crayfin

[nitrobass]

Talk about bittersweet. If you didnt tell the story behind it I'd be excited for the guy. As it is its weird to see someone smiling while holding it up. Thats an incredible 5 point.

[Killertraylor]

THAT SUCKS!

Never thought I'd say that about a guy holding a nice rack.

[Bounty Hunter]

Thanks for the story and the follow up. When you first mentioned what had happened I had feared the worst. :depressed:

I once shot a deer that I couldn't belive I'd missed . We couldn't find blood or the deer. My dad asked me all the way home "What did you see in the scope?" "How did the deer react?"
"Are you sure you had the crosshairs on the deer?" He convinced himself to go back and look for it some more. Two hours later we found the buck up under a tree recently dead.

I'm not sure that what your friend did is legal though. Picking up horns off of dead animals is the reason they say that they are state property. They don't want people poaching animals that then going back for the horns. If you play the 'he punched his card' card, then it might be considered wanton waste. Not trying to stir the pot, but seems like a possible interpretation. I know the game warden would understand though. It's like an honest mistake, just like when Bill shot that doe a year or two ago on a buck deer hunt.

I appreciate all the stories like this that you experienced hunters share. I'm definately not an experienced hunter when it comes to big game so I try and learn everything I can from your tips and suggestions.

[Gus Orviston]

I shot my first deer while laying prone over a log. The forked horn was 50 yards away. I had a 4x scope on a 30-30 that was spot on, and I knew it. I watched a few doe feed over a grassy area and the forky stepped into the same spot. Perfect. I was solid and let it rip. I look up and they all ran down the hill. MMMM, it didn't fall down? uh oh. I walked over to the area. No blood, nada. I knew I hit it. It didn't fall down like the stories I had heard, it didn't react in any way showing me it was hit. I looked for a long time, and found a single spot of blood.

The bullet entered between two ribs, cut the diaphram, and exited bewteen two ribs. Didn't touch muscle nor bone. Hence he didn't fall down. That buck ran 200 hundred yards. I found him because he was breathing so hard with a sliced diaphram I could hear him. He laid down and let me catch up and finish the job. Quite a lesson for me, and I will always go inspect something that is shot at when miss was an excuse for a run away animal.

gus

[Gus Orviston]

I got to say it must have been tough. I haven't tracked with you roy but I know when Denny and I hunted with your Dad he demonstrated some outstanding skills in this area, and taught me tons ....so I can easily imagine how hard it must have been, and the effort put out.

I have seen friends give up way too easily, and assisted them to keep looking for hours. You shoot, you better account for your miss/hit. That means even if an animal walks off without a flinch, you got to go over and begin the process of proving the hit/miss.

I like the determination and follow up... good role modeling.

gus

[ 10-07-2003, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: Gus Orviston ]

[Crayfin]

BOE--out of curiousity do you know what that bull scores? Having a discussion about it in the office and just curious.

Crayfin

[Bait O' Eggs]

FYI - The shooter has killed several bulls in the past with a rifle just never a bow.

He printed up the Pope and Young measuring instructions and tried to get a close approximation by measuring himself. (I have never tried to do this so I dont know how hard it might be)

Here is what he emailed me

We came up with 286.5 minus 4.5 in deductions. If we are even close to accurate,
its a 282 bull

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv">I have no idea how close he is measuring

[Crayfin]

FYI-It is legal to take the horns as long as you tag the animal. Wanton waste would not fit the description of recovering an animal that you lost.

I friend of mine (who works for ODFW)had to go through the same things this year.

CRayfin

[Mello-Yello]

What is soon to be the official #2 Pope & Young Whitetail (Zaft buck, shot by Wayne Zaft)was taken in a similar fashion. The guy shot it, couldn't find it. Went back the next day and the coyotes had gotten hold of it. He tagged it, yet got no meat. You can't believe the turmoil he's gone through over this whole ordeal. A lot of people questioned his ethics, tagging an animal with no body? did he use a bow? Did he just happen onto it? There's a lot of $$$ and fame associated with possessing a #1 animal, and thus, a lot of temptation by people to attempt fraudulous approaches. You'll see Wayne's mug on many advertisements holding his 'pending' world record. Whatever equipment he was using, that manufacturer wants a piece of the pie.

For the longest time it was going for the #1 spot, but the Pope & Young scoring panel recently scored it just under the #1 (all potential world records are scored by the scoring panel for final, offical score at their annual meeting).

Bowhunter magazine has covered this as the story unfolded.

M-Y

[Killertraylor]

I think you are probably right - that it isn't waste since you made a good effort to find the animal, but that doesn't mean that OSP won't charge you with it. Game cops write some of the worst citations I've ever seen. When I first started practicing law (and was prosecuting) I was asked by a client to defend him on a case of waste. He had shot a deer with a rifle that ran over 1/2 mile and across the highway into another hunting unit (on the border of the Imnaha and Chesnimnus units as I recall). Because the animal was wounded, he pursued it into the other unit and it got up about 10 yards away. he went for a head shot and hit the lower jaw and it ran back into the Imnaha unit and into a dry creek bed. They tracked it in the creek bed for several hours and the blood trail finally dried up. They even videotaped the tracking effort.

They returned to Portland, sad and dejected that the animal had got away and would likely die a miserable death. A week later they were met at their door by OSP and issued citations for Waste and for Hunting in a unit for which they didn't have a tag. Seems some local landowner wrote down their license plate number and reported them. After several months of negotiation with the DA, I was able to get the charges dismissed in exchange for my client travelling back to the hunting unit and cleaning up garbage in the woods for a few days.

So - even if you make a good effort to find the animal, don't think the OSP won't charge you. In this case OSP might think they have a pretty good basis since you were able to find the animal a week later in the same vicinity where it was shot. I guess what I'm saying is even though I don't think your friend committed any crime, don't be suprised if the police show up on his doorstep - especially after posting those pictures here.

Good Luck.

[Bounty Hunter]

OK, you know what?

Now I FEEL SICK.

I have no right to comment on others actions here. I was just brain-storming, on the spur-of-the-moment.

Sorry I brought it up... :depressed: