GTA
General Discussion To Gateway To Airguns => Hunting Gate => : dk1677 January 29, 2010, 03:10:07 AM
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Cold only 10 degrees here and I was watching some birds at the feeder and I see a Red tree rat coming, I run to get the 850 and as I get back hes out about 25 yards digging in the snow, so I start cranking the window open and its so cold it makes a" click" he runs in to a bush but I leave the window open a crack and wait. just a few minutes and he comes back and I slid the barrel out and took aim at the sweet spot and pull the trigger. I don't know if it was the cold or he moved but he scurried off , It didn't look quite right the way he ran so I look though the scope for blood but cant see any but to be sure I go out to look. Sure enough there's a a small blood trail going to a brush pile another 20 yards or so, I poke around but nothing moves. I feel kind of bad as much as I hate the devils.I debated posting on it but others have had runners and I wanted to let them know it happens.
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I'm sure he's well preserved somewhere. It's 10 degrees here in CNY as well and I bet if you hunt around you may find him stiff as a board. Moral of the story. practice my headshots?
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Dave,
Yes it does !!
Had one up in a tree that had two through and throughs from below. One of which exited the left side of it's head.The other was belly entrance and out the back. It still managed to slowly crawl down the tree. It took several BB's from my Crosman 760, at point blank range to the head, to finish it off.
Two weeks ago, I had a prefect broad-side shot at another Red that was sitting on a branch in an evergreen tree back by my stone wall. Heard the distinctive "Twack" of a solid body hit, not the sharper "crack" of hitting a branch. It took off higher up in the tree. I went out to look and there were no tracks, blood, or any signs of it anywhere in the tree.
Those Reds are tough little critters.
Paul
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LOL funny thing a little while later there are 2 grays out there! One was on the move and the other was right under my bird feeder in front of a apple tree so I slowly open the window , creaking a little but he didn't move , lined up a nice sweet spot shot and just as I pulled the trigger he goes down for more seeds and I see the pellet hit the tree right where his head was ( he did do a excellent back flip ; ) )
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Hey, Jim,
Did you get to hunt any Grays this past weekend?
Paul.
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airiscool - 1/29/2010 1:54 PM Hey, Jim, Did you get to hunt any Grays this past weekend? Paul.
That all depends on how you define hunt. lol... I was out Fri, Sat and Sun. Posted a bit about my first weekend as a hunter under "Lonely Hunter"
http://www.gatewaytoairguns.com/airguns/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=24689&posts=21&start=1
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Yup I saw that one. I was away most of this past weekend and wondered how that went for ya with the warmer weather.
Paul.
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Dave,
I hate when that happens !!!!
How about a new version of an old saying, "He who's pellet hesitates is lost" ???? :D :D
Paul.
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yeah it happens. its hard to get that perfect shot on them. but you just gotta brush it off or else it will haunt you lol ive had a few un-clean kills myself but youcant hold yourself to it
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Yep, that happens....but we try our best to put them down with the first shot. Better luck nice time.
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Yes, it does happen. I'm reminded, though that not everyone is as honestly focused upon as clean kill as we are.
When I was a kid, and not yet old enough to take out the old Crossman .177 pumper without parental supervision, my friend and I would go out with his brother and sometimes his friend to "hunt" squirrels. The kid had this pretty powerful Crossman .22. I couldn't tell you what it was. It was over 30 years ago and maybe nearly a 40 year old gun.
Anyway, during those first several times out, I distinctly remember him taking any shot he could at the squirrel and the 2 or 3 of us chasing it round and round the trees. It would often take 4 or 5 shots to finally bring the squirrel down. The kid never really practiced and was just interested in shooting the rodent. It was a blood lust thing, I think. It was for us, too. We'd chase that poor critter like dogs on a scent. I'm not going to say I didn't like it, either. I think it tapped into something that lives deep in our "lizard brains". Something that we are hard-wired to enjoy because doing it kept us alive for millions of years.
I will say that upon sober reflection and discussion (I took hunting and fishing ethics VERY seriously as a kid) with my friend, we came away feeling that we could do better and should do better, when we were allowed to hunt on our own.
If I'm not mistaken, the next summer, we both got Sheridan 5mm's for our birthdays and we spent two months practicing every day. I'm pretty sure we blew through about 1000 pellets. On a pumper, that's a lot of pumps, too! I must say, we got good. We actually used to practice shooting bugs at ~20 yards. We actually hit them too.
When the squirrel season finally came upon us, we were out the afternoon of opening day. I can distinctly remember the shock at how easy it was for us to make a clean kill. We were so prepared. We'd flipped to see who would take the first shot, and the other guy was supposed to line up on the critter just in case there was a miss or a runner. Such preparation was unnecessary. It was one shot and down all day. I think we missed on two and hit just behind the shoulder and those guys ran feet before falling to the ground. I also remember the other feelings; slight disappointment at no adrenaline filled chase of wounded animals, pride at our shooting, relief at not causing any pain, and this glow of mature, adult, responsibility. Those were nice feelings. I'd say that day, and the day I won my first wrestling match, and one other ( ;) ) were the formative or delineation of my manhood.
There's a way that children or animals handle a hunt and there's the way that a man handles a hunt.
I think that's why it bothers us the way it does when we have a bad shot or an unclean kill. We don't want to be the little beasts that we were as children or the beasts that we see other "sportsmen" behaving like. We know we're better than that and we never want to be there. Of course, that it bothers us means that we never will, but it still sucks. We just need to remember that we do everything in our power to be responsible, respectful hunters, and that we simply can't be perfect.
M