One season....got me a new 300 wsm and was over confident in my own abilities. Took a 480 yard shot, quartering away at a raghorn bull, hit him in the hip. Tracked him most of the day, jumped him late that afternoon, got another shot off standing on a stump, wobbling and tired, 300 yards, broke his front leg at the knee. Went to camp that night sick and miserable. Tracked him all the next day in the thick reprod, blood in my own tracks from doing circles with him, but jumped him late that evening in brush with maybe 50 foot visibility, sniffed him out, took a quick shot...told my partner I think I pierced his ear...turns out I shot right through his horn. Next morning had help from my uncle and cousin.....My uncle heard him in the brush and allerted us so we could group up. I jumped the bull again, but this time I just ran after him until I caught up so he turned like he was gonna fight. He just couldn't out run me with 2 wounded legs.
I put him down. I was on the radio for 2 and a half days asking for help from spotters and others I knew were hunting in the area, but for the most part I was alone. It was a bad feeling and at the end of day 2 I was broken. Just never quit and when we got him hung at camp several guys came up to say congrats...that they had been hearing my saga over the radio and were glad I didn't give up and that I'd got my bull. Everyone said the meat would be fouled but it wasn't. I was pleasantly suprised by that, but it sucked that the bull suffered for better than 2 days, and only because I was over confident. That gun has the ability to make a good kill at that distance, but my abilities at that distance are only on a good day target practicing..... not after hoofing it for 10 miles and staring down the barrel at a legal bull 480 yards away, laying on the ground because there wasn't a good rest, adrenaline pumping, not even sure if it was windy, and thats coming from a guy with obvious signs of A.D.H.D. I'm a better hunter now because of it.
