[Sam Dunham]

Was on an Elk in 1995. I was using a Quillian Patriot recurve,,[email protected] and 2216 arrows and yes,,tipped with 100 grain Thunderheads.

The shot came when three Cow Elk passed me at a trot below and I'm above them on a steep hillside at 10.000 in Colorado.

I could not draw as they passed below me and had to wait until they passed. First one, then two, and then largest Cow stopped at 35 yards quartering away and I sent an arrow into her last rib on the right side quartering forward that sunk to the fletchings.

Care to share one of your hunting shots?

 

[Matt_Potter]

On a gopher with a compound - range found at 85 yards - hit it right in the head - only thing poking out of the hole.

 

[Sam Dunham]

Nice,

 

[John in NZ]

In 1985 on a Wild Merino ram running down a mountain track toward me.
When he was 10 yards out I stepped from under cover and as he took a right angle turn off the track I shot to where he was going to be and watched in a semi slow motion as he and the arrow came together.
As he vanished around the side of the ridge I could see the fletches buried close in behind his front leg amidships, right were I'd seen it in my minds eye seconds before it had gotten there..
I Was shooting a new 55lb Hoyt Spectra compound barebow off my fingers.

John.

 

[John in NZ]

In 1999 I was on my knees 15 yards from a rabbit hole with an arrow on the string and the bow sitting on it's bottom limb upright out in front of me.
I saw a flicker of movement, lifted the bow,came to full draw and loosed the arrow just as Mr Rabbit appeared in the entrance of his home.
Both rabbit and arrow vanished but looking in I could see the fletching about two feet down the hole.
Pulling both it and the rabbit out I found He'd taken the wide washer backed field point directly under the chin and out the other end, just above his tail.

John.

 

[John in NZ]

Some time in the mid 80's I was watching a big Fallow buck as he came trotting down an old dry creek bed I was waiting in ambush about 10 yards out from.
Just before he came level with me I lifted the old Bear recurve, hit full draw an gave him a slight lead before dropping the string for the absolute perfect shot of all time.
Before the arrow got to him he did a full body length U turn and vanished back in the exact direction he'd been coming from as the arrow past cleanly through the exact place his chest an heart had occupied just micro sounds before hand.
I Just about cried that day, but it was still a great shot.

John.

 

[Sam Dunham]

John,,you are a hunter for sure!

 

[John in NZ]

During my one and only Whitetail hunt on Stewart island I'd done the ground study via google earth before I'd even arrived at the island.
I'd identified an area of fringe country dissected by a small stream and accessed from a saddle that fed into the area from the next valley over.
Early that morning I'd come in down wind along the beach and climbed about 10 foot into the canopy of an old stunted Tea tree to over look where the game trail that roughly followed the stream met in an intersection with the trail leading in off the beach.
I'd been there about 4 hours and there'd been a very light but steady drizzle falling the whole time.
I was just about frozen to the bone even though I was wearing four layers, and I was just about it give it up when I looked to the other side of the stream and saw the old doe standing their chewing her cud while she looked back up stream where I imagine she'd come from.
As she turned to look directly away from me I lifted the bow and shot her straight over the top of her left elbow.
Then as I hung out of the tree still in full draw position she ran 10 yards, then stopped and walked back to where she'd been standing moments before.
I followed her gaze to see two more does standing watching on from about 30 yards out.
As I looked back to the doe, she collapsed on the spot and my 40 odd year wait to hunt Whitetail deer had effectively just finished.

John.

 

[13033]

Up in the George Washington National forest, bow hunting with my buddies.

One had a flu flu and asked if I wanted to try it.

Said sure, looked around for something to shoot at.

Squirrel's nest, way up in an oak, about 30+ yards away.

Just drew back with my recurve and let her fly.

Right through the living room.

Couldn't do it again if I shot 100 arrows. LOL

 

[cch]

I stalked a blacktai doe in a clear cut that we spotted from a landing. My two buddies stayed there while I made my attempt. I made it to about 60 yds and saw her looking at me. I was still a little too far to shoot, I needed to get 10 yds closer. The doe was on the other side of a revine with some small alders between us. She thought she was hidden so didn't take off. I was able to make the 10 yds I needed. I ranged her at 49 yds and took a step back for a perfect 50 yds. I was shooting my Gen 1 DAS and knew at that range I just had to put my rst on her and I would be good. I was still snap shooting then. I lined it up and took the shot. I sent the big Centaur big game head through her ribs with a high lung hit. She ran 15 yds and piled up. I heard one of my buddies say he smoked him from there that was a long shot. I felt comfortable with it because she was a blacktail. I would have never had a chance with a whitetail as they wouldn't have been around.

 

[jerbearyukon]

Great stories guys.....I took a antelope in southern alberta on a trot once. There was about 40 of them.......I followed her as I was kneeling with my recurve lead her by about 10 feet and let fly......got her in the ham.....she turned and ran uphill and dropped into the sage brush.....she was down and gone in seconds.

Took a pheasant in flight once while I was whitetail hunting too...scared the crap outta me....I was trying to be all stealth sneaking alond an then this thing jumped up and started flying ......I had an arrow on the string and just drew and let fly......it was outta season (didn't know that then) , but sure tasted great.

Duck with a fishing arrow.....fishing for spawning pike.....big mallard swam up.....I was young and thought....SUPPER....duck is good on an open fire.

those are the memorable ones.....lots of close ones on bears but I have posted most of them here before.

Jer

 

[Rick Barbee]

This isn't a hunting shot, but I was really poor back then, and this put $500 in my pocket, so it was pretty significant to me.

 

[Mike S]

Rick was it thrown or hit at a distance? ( not that either is an easy shot!)

The only shot I can recall off hand with a bow was a quartering away shot on a doe with a compound at about 40 yds. About 2001 I was soaked and cold and wanting to get down...buddy called me on the old Motorola talk-bout and said they were at the truck.

The rain was coming down hard and as I'm packing up and about to lower my bow a doe came in and bed right down at about 20 yds. I whistled...she looked... I whistled again and all she did was stare at me. I waved my arm and said HEY! just to try and spook her off. Told my buddies on the radio, and they said just put her dumb *** in the freezer then. Now it was just for kicks, and I don't like to shoot at a bedded deer so I shot one about 5 ft over her back to spook her...heck she watched me draw the bow! After the shot she got up and walked 20 yds and bed down again. Thinking there was likely wrong with her I decided to take her. I whistled and this time she stood up quartering away and looked back. I hit the releaseand she turned straight away as the arrow landed. She went 30 yds at a slow trot kind of sideways like a young puppy learning to run and went down...

I radioed my buddies that she was down and we went to get her. What I thought was a shot in the ham turned out to be a Texas heart shot buried to the fletchings...and without being too graphic the arrow used an existing orrafice for half of its journey. Then I flipped her over I was like " her tail...its gone!" Took it clean off. The real shame if it was there WAS something wrong with her she had some sort of tumors in several places and we didn't want to eat the meat.

 

[Rick Barbee]

Mike, it was stationary/taped to the target wall at a 20 yard indoor range.

It was after league night, and the owner of the shop/range always let those who wanted to stay & play for a while.

We were shooting lifesavers for a quarter a shot, until only one was left standing.
Rinse & repeat. We'd been doing it for a couple of hours.

I was the only trad guy there, but was holding my own (breaking even) enough to
stay in the game against the compound guys.

One of the compound guys that was loosing lots of quarters got mad & left, only to
return a few minutes later with that old nickle. He shoved it in my face and said -
"I bet you $50 right now, that you can't hit this nickle fist try."

Being the cocky turd I used to be, I said "For $50 I'll shoot ole George in the ear."
To which he said - "I bet $500 you don't"

I didn't have $500. Heck that was A LOT of money to me, and simply told him that.
All of my compound buddies said - "Don't worry about it Rick, we got ya covered."
They then made him show them his $500.

They taped the nickle to the wall, I stepped to the line with my 98# recurve & 600gr arrows, shot ole George in the ear, and punched him all the way through the wall onto the service chase behind it.

You should have seen the mad scramble of folks running down there to find that nickle.
It was a mad house.

Anyway - my kiddos got some nice presents the next day, and THAT is what makes it
The Best Shot I Ever Made.

 

[stevelong]

I was shooting indoors with one or 2 other trad guys & a bunch of compounders.
We used to shoot at the big shop building in one of the churches.
BIG indoor area, heated, open rafters, metal trusses.....fairly tall to cross-ties.
We shot all the normal targets at 18-23 yards, sometimes opening doors & kneeling a bit to get to 40 yards.
Always at end of night, we'd open it up a lot, some of the guys would bring in remote control cars, we'd tie sticks & balloons to them, someone would drive it and everyone else tries to shoot the FAST-MOVING balloon in front of the target wall.
Other times we'd shoot erasers off of lead pencils at 20 yards.
Sometimes it would take 4 or 5 rounds before we'd get the eraser proper.
One night we were taping Ping-Pong balls to string, tying to rafter, in front of target wall......at 20 yards or so.
Several rounds of it and we all grazed it a couple of times.
One round several missed, I hit it 3 times in a row, not squarely the first 2, but 3rd hit I centered in and the arrow on the string swung up and looped over the rafter, and hung there, still all together.
Funny, couple of the guys bowed down, ONE guy got a ladder & shot a cell phone pic up close of the arrow on the string.
I wish I had the picture......I'll see if he still has it on his phone, it was ? 3 years ago.

 

[Sam Dunham]

Four years ago I had just went up a tree in the climber and no sooner than I had two come by right under me and to the left. The first one stopped at 20 yards and I finagled around and made a good killing shot and watched go down in sight.

The second one got away because I was nocking an arrow.

A third one came right down the path the other two came from and just stopped at a hard angle to the left. I was shooting a Bear warf [email protected] and Carbon MFX shafts and a three blade Woodsman head razor stropping sharp. I had to kind of put my back to the tree and could not get to full draw because the tree trunk was in the way. I just made it barely past half draw and my elbow hit the tree,,,I just aimed right down the shaft and sort of tried to expand and get a decent release. The arrow hit the deer perfect in the right side high and angled down and out the left side and passed through. I watched #2 drop in sight also.

Have killed two Bobcats with a Bow and one shot was pretty cool,,will tell that one later maybe.

 

[Larry Hatfield]

well, i'll tell of anothers shot. it was at the longbow safari in sooke b.c. a few years ago. one target was a steep downhill shot at an elk. whoever made the target did a great job. the enormous real antlers were leaned down on the body as the bull scratched his side. the kill was framed by two long tines. this made for a lot of arrows pinging off the tines and very few arrows in the kill.
because it was a sheer cliff that the shooting stake was on several groups would shoot and then they would all go down an acess route and score the target. so there was always a huge backup of groups perched like pigeons on the "steps" above the shootin stake. there were around 50 or so when my group moved into the "ready position". among the group shooting with us was dan martin of martin archery. dan hardly ever shot a long bow but is a really good shot with any bow.
just as he stepped up to shoot, a guy grabbed him by the arm and turned him to face the crowd and said, "this is dan martin of martin archery. he's going to show us all how to shoot this target!"
dan looked at me and sort of simulated a shaking of nerves. then he stepped up to the stake and pinwheeled the kill. a perfect shot!

 

[little john]

#1..Running doe at about 15 yds with Zwickey Delta and 60# Brackenbury Drifter....#2...Standing yearling at 30 yds same set up as first one, but shot just barely low of heart first shot..cut some brisket hair off. Found later....he didn't run...2nd shot...dead center heart/double lung. #3....Using Tomahawk Diamond SS Longbow 50# ...with Cedar arrow and Zwickey Delta...Decapitated a Fox Squirrel. #4...Once again same Longbow, Cedar Arrows with Woodsman broadhead...7 pt. at 10 yds. Many more memorable hunts/shots. But #1 and #3 stand out in my mind right now. A Zwickey Delta is like hittin em with a Meat Cleaver. Lethal broadhead !