New member here. Hopefully this is the right place to post

[BigGameSeeker]

Mike Tyson once said "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face buck fever!". Hunt elk with archery. Once you've been close to and kill elk, you'll never get buck fever again. You might get bull fever, but...

I’ve always loved that quote.


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[chukardogs]

Lesson; Biggest deer I've killed stepped out into an opening on the last day of the season at 1pm. I'd been telling myself I need to get up and get back to camp because we needed get camp tore down and pack it out 4 miles before dark and then drive 6 to 7 hours home. It started snowing at noon and within a half hour or so, temperature dropped ten degrees and there was already a half inch of snow on the ground. The buck stepped into an opening at 125 yards in a bunch of saplings. I've sat in this spot for hundreds of hours over the years and just had to turn slightly to lay the rifle over the log next to me. I put the cross hairs on the neck which is all I could see at the moment and thought good enough and squeezed. I fully expected the animal to buckle and go down. Shot felt perfect! And yet, the animal was still standing there like he didn't have a care in the world. I shoot a custom 25-06 that'll shoot 3/4 inch groups all day so no time to worry. Jacked another shell in and by this time the buck had taken another step or two but the neck was still in view so I squeezed off another round and just expected the animal to be down and yet again, the Buck was still standing there looking around. Jacked another shell into the chamber and just before I started to squeeze, I thought to myself, nope, I haven't missed two shots from a rest since I was 10 years old. Something else is amiss in the universe. I pulled the rifle down just far enough to look over the scope and about a foot and a half in front of the barrel, there was another log laying in the same orientation as the log I was resting my rifle on. The upper surface of other log was about 4 to 6 inches above the surface of the log I was resting my rifle on and it had two perfect bullet holes about an inch apart and maybe an inch to an inch and a half into the meat of the log. I raised up onto my knees, layed my arms on the log I'd been resting the rifle on and squeezed off another round, dropping the animal. Lesson 1 and 2; always know what's directly in front of your barrel and if something doesn't seem right, it probably isnt.

[BigGameSeeker]

Wow. That would be just my luck too. Newtons law at work. Thankfully he stuck around long enough.


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[Pacific Ghost]

Here is some advice you have probably already heard. Don't focus on fully visible animals in open terrain; those are not difficult to see. Train your eyes to focus on the harder to see aspects. A lighter or darker patch, a contour line, an ear, a face, part of an antler, a small movement. Then, unless you are a super long range shooter, keep the wind in your face.

[BigGameSeeker]

Here is some advice you have probably already heard. Don't focus on fully visible animals in open terrain; those are not difficult to see. Train your eyes to focus on the harder to see aspects. A lighter or darker patch, a contour line, an ear, a face, part of an antler, a small movement. Then, unless you are a super long range shooter, keep the wind in your face.

I hope there’s not an obvious animal in that picture or I need a lot of practice spotting animals. As far as long range shooter, I don’t know if I will ever go that route out of fear I would just hurt something enough for it to suffer for days and die for no reason.


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[chukardogs]

Pretty sure there's something standing looking uphill in the top left quadrant.

[chukardogs]

An ear flicker has put a lot of venison on my table over the years.

[Pacific Ghost]

Keep looking. I'll post a zoomed in pic of the animal in a bit.

[BigGameSeeker]

I can’t wait to feel really dumb when I see it up close


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[Pacific Ghost]

In that pic we were fortunate enough to be blessed with a lighter patch, a contour line and part of an antler. Bedded bull elk in lower right quadrant. Just a big 6 point is all. Here he is in the center of this second pic.

[BigGameSeeker]

In that pic we were fortunate enough to be blessed with a lighter patch, a contour line and part of an antler. Bedded bull elk in lower right quadrant. Just a big 6 point is all. Here he is in the center of this second pic.

That was tough. I definitely see the antler now but I wouldn’t have noticed that in the first picture.


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[Pacific Ghost]

I took the picture of that bull off center in the scope on purpose for just this very reason; to see how easily other folks would pick it out.

Cheers

[Pacific Ghost]

Here is a lot easier one.

[BigGameSeeker]

Here is a lot easier one.

Ok that got my confidence a little higher than the first one. I’m not completely oblivious.


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[chukardogs]

What was the range on the elk in the first picture?