shots to remember

[jamaldog87]

have you ever had a shot so good that you remember it? the  best shot i have ever made was back in 05 when i just had got my 2200 airgun. back then i did not not you could not hunt crows with a airgun. So i had just put a 4x15 scope on there and i was riding my bike to the back woods along a road and i saw a lone crow dinking water on the other side of the pond that was by the road. so i stop and used my bike as a rest and aimed. the road was up on a hill and the pond was down hill and i had no idea how far this was from my game. So, i aimed high and took the shot and hit it in the body making it roll down the hill half way. it was like watching a mountain goat roll down a mountain.  later after i learned more about hunting and shooting i took a range finder and walked it and it was 85 YARDS that shot was.  I have never made a shot like that again and it look like it was luck that i made that shot.

[Grumulkin]

I well remember one of my best shots.  It was Christmas Eve and my family was opening Christmas presents.  My parents were cautious conservative Christians so I didn't have so much as a BB gun but I had made my own "gun" out of a piece of wood, a cloths pin and a rubber band.  The ammo was dried "China berries."  I would wrap the rubber band around the China berry and then use the cloths pin to hold it.  When I pressed on the clothes pin, the China berry would be flung down range.

Anyway, whilst opening Christmas presents, a mouse poked its head from behind a book case. I grabbed my weapon and sent a China berry into its head knocking it out cold.  It was then flushed down the toilet.

While remembering my China berry gun, I also remember how nicely a China berry bounced off David Perez's bald little head but that's another story.

[Davemuzz]

The very first buck (and first deer) I shot. It was my third year of deer hunting with my Grandparents. Yeah, both my Granddad and my Grandma hunted. They were quite a pair. My Granddad was a quiet thoughtful man and my Grandma was more the opposite. She was a very knowledgeable hunter, but always seem to find the humor in any given situation....even when you did something incredibly stupid. (Not dangerous stupid....just stupid). She called that "learning"...which it was.

But I digress. It wasn't a fantastic shot. But they were both nearby....each over a different knoll when I hit that half-rack 4-point buck square in the chest. He was about 70 yards. The shot was made with my brand new Winchester model 88 .308 with open sights. I worked all summer and saved the $132 to buy that gun.

Yeah, I remember that shot. 1973.

Dave

[Glanceblamm]

I figured that the 1-1/2yr old buck was around 120yds away as it paced back & forth through an opening of around 18" in the fully wooded area. There had been some shots around 1/2mile on down the line and this guy had came from that direction but was undecided on what to do and stopped broadside in the gap. With my sights held behind the shoulder but even with the top of the deers back, I let fly with a patched ball out of the .50...Upon the report, I swear that I could see the bottoms of all four of the deers hoofs (for just an instance) as it went down on this bang-flop. I think that you could have knocked me down with a feather!

What had happened was that my guess of 120yds in the woods was actually around 102yds and that ball only dropped an inch catching the buck square in the spine. I guess that the old saying of "if in doubt-hold on the hair" worked out for me this time.

[okielectrician]

The shot or shots that I remember that will be with me forever was my first buck.
I and two of my fellow workers were lucky enough to get drawn out in a special hunt in Oklahoma's special hunts program.
We arrived late and the directer would place hunters so you would not be on top of each other.So we were placed on a hillside.
It was still before daylight,so we each wondered into our areas.
I walked about 100 yards into the woods,sat down and leaned back against a tree and dosed till sunrise with my win94 30-30 across my lap.
About a hour later I heard what I thought was a restless hunter  coming up the hill.Looked over to see who it was to let him (or her) know I was there.
Instead I saw a 16pnt buck(counted the points later)coming up the hill about 60 yards to my side(talk about starting to shake)I raised my rifle very slowly took aim but by then all I could see was his hind legs and tail,his front was behind a large oak tree.
So i took aim in front of the tree wainting for him to move.and waited and waited(This gun is getting heavy)Then he moved forward one step expossing that rack and his neck I raised and shot hit him in the neck and he turned and headed straight towards me shot again and hit him in the heart,fell to all fours and when he quit sliding his rack was about a foot in front of my boots Been hooked ever since.

[Mt_Sourdough]

We had a beaver flooding out our field and I was told that I should try to get rid of it.  Well, after a long day of chasing elk over several ridges and never getting a shot opportunity, I was returning home with my head slumped in disappointment.  As I moved along through the trees, I could see a v in the new beaver pond in our northernmost field.  The distance was a little over a hundred yards, but I lifted my opensighted 30-30 up to my shoulder.  I led a little in front and threw out a hail Mary.  The beaver just rolled over belly up.  I went and retrieved the beaver and found that the bullet struck it right behind the ear. 

[Davemuzz]

  The beaver just rolled over belly up.  I went and retrieved the beaver and found that the bullet struck it right behind the ear. 

 

[jamaldog87]

We had a beaver flooding out our field and I was told that I should try to get rid of it.  Well, after a long day of chasing elk over several ridges and never getting a shot opportunity, I was returning home with my head slumped in disappointment.  As I moved along through the trees, I could see a v in the new beaver pond in our northernmost field.  The distance was a little over a hundred yards, but I lifted my opensighted 30-30 up to my shoulder.  I led a little in front and threw out a hail Mary.  The beaver just rolled over belly up.  I went and retrieved the beaver and found that the bullet struck it right behind the ear. 

nice very nice i love to kill beavers.

[cwlongshot]

Nice thread!!

 I just wish there was some way to "download" the visions and tales of each or our experiences in the outdoors!!

 I too have a crow/airgun story from my childhood.

 I had a old Sheridan 20 cal rifle and a bunch of crows would sit and make a racket in a big old tree at the end of one side of our property. This is in the country out in the sticks so a shot from this gun in any direction at any elevation would only strike a tree... Anyhow, that tree was something like 100 yards from my upstairs bedroom window across the yard. For about a week I shot at crows sitting up there, I'd get in a shot or two before finally scaring them when I got the elevations correct and hit the limb that they where on. Finally I connected, bang, followed by, thunk of the pellet strike and over toppled that noisy crow. Right into the waiting mouth of our local feral cats!!

 Then there is the hip shot deer and the head shot pheasant with a pistol and all those wonderful bangflops we can all envision.... Nice idea for a thread, thanks for letting me share.

CW

[T/Chmr]

Last year, late in the season, I still had a doe tag to fill. About 730 am had a nice healthy doe come into my food plot about 160 yds away.  It being late in the season she was quite curious about the box blind I hunt from, so she kept standing straight on and looking up and in my direction.

I have a T/C Prohunter.243 that I have tons of confidence in, so I used the other chair in the stand as an elbow rest, laid the barrell out the window and placed the crosshairs deadcenter on the end of her nose.  I thought it's the nose or a clean miss.........What did I learn from this.....they don't go far when hit in the end of the nose.

[Icehunter]

I was in a field camp with a group of Inuit hunters a couple years ago. We were drying a bunch of fish (Arctic char) and the gulls were getting into it all the time. What the guys do in that situation is to kill a gull and lay it on the rocks by the fish - keeps the others gulls away. A bunch of the guys were down on the beach with an old rusty bolt-action 22 LR shooting at the gulls. The gun owner shot and missed twice, he passed the gun to another guy who shot once and missed. I walked over and laughed, asked for the gun, and told em it was going to take a white guy to show the Inuks how to shoot. I got down on the rock they were using for a rest, lined up the sights, and smoked the biggest gull there. I looked back at the guys, laughed, and said "told ya". It wasn't an impossible shot by any means, really nothing to brag about, but it increased the level of respect the local hunters had for this "southerner" in their camp.

I always find that being able to shoot and hunt makes a world of difference when you're in the Arctic, these guys hunt and fish for a living (subsistence), literally living of their shooting ability, and being "one of the boys" is a huge help in the camps. A similar case last summer, in a different place, I had a Remmy 870 there for bear protection, and a box of cheap # 4 for practice. I took all the local hunters with me to teach them how to shoot the shotgun (they're generally rifle people and not that familiar with shotties). After everyone had a couple shots to get a feel for the gun, I took it back and asked one of the locals to throw an old piece of bone up in the air. I put three shells in the gun, hit the bone in the air with the first shot, hit it again as soon as it hit the ground, and then hit it the third time as it was landing again. I'm no Tom Knapp or anything, but when I turned around all the Inuit hunters had their mouths wide open, speechless. The first one to speak smiled and said "can you teach me how to do that?", and the younger kids followed me around very closely for the rest of the week - every time they saw me with the Remmy they came running down the beach, haha.

[tn_junk]

When i was about 10 years old I had a Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun. Friend and I were walking the fields on my grandparents farm. Saw a chicken walking along a fence row. Looked like a mile away. Friend dared me to shoot at it. I did. Chicken dropped dead on the spot. BB hit it right behind the eye. Was my grandmothers favorite hen "Maude".
Got a very serious butt whipping, and learned an important lesson about gun safety.
Later, as an adult, I walked off the distance on that shot. Only about 35 yards, but a very lucky shot with that old BB gun.

alan

[T/Chmr]

I just remembered another great one....it didn't really involve a firearm.  Back when I was in 9th grade, I was at a friend's house swimming.  There were several of us there one of which was my girlfriend.  She was swimming the length of the pool underwater when I threw a tennis ball as hard as I could toward the end of the pool.  She surfaced and turned around just in time for that tennis ball to hit her right center of her forehead.  It hit her so hard it made her head bounce back against the edge of the pool...a double thud.

Needless to say, she didn't give me a goodbye kiss.