Lots of folks ask about long shots in this forum. Never-mind that. How about close shots on wild game? What's the closest shot you've made or missed?
As for me. I once had a doe jump out on the trail in front of me only 15 yards away. I pulled my rifle up, aimed and bang...missed it completely! But guess what? The animal was so confused it stopped. I loaded another cartridge and bang! Missed again! I once made a 300 yard shot on a running deer, and here I was, missed twice at 20 yards.
Then there was the time I was squirrel hunting with a 20 gauge shotgun. Sitting on a fallen tree. Wouldn't you know it, part of the tree was hollow and there was a squirrel inside. I had a grey squirrel crawl up out of it about 10 feet from me and look me straight in the eye. I didn't bother to shoot, because at 10 feet with a modified choke, I thought I'd blow the thing to pieces.
I'm thinking that when hunting upland game with a shotgun, the close-in shots are harder, since the shot pattern doesn't have the distance to open up.
Your stories? Comments?
METROPOLIS12011-04-06T15:31:44Z
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20 Yards to a coyote.......
I was turkey hunting and an unexpected coyote showed up...... So I let him have it since the critter spooked the game.....
You noobs. Get out in the real world more; stop playing video games and messin' around on your computers. That's all I do, I do real world stuff ALL YEAR LONG. Thus, I'm a sick monster at basketball, and yeah, I can make that shot atleast six times in a row. My friend Jamal pulled it off like 16 times in a row once. No lol, im not like that. who does that anyways? btw- dont think ive ever made a full court shot before
Probably not in the exact category, but I once drilled a fox through the eyeball at about 10 feet. He had gotten into our chainlink chicken pen, slaughtered about 15 out of 20 chickens, but apparently couldn't remember how he got in through the chainlink roof, which was sort of patched together from scraps.
We heard the chickens carrying on and went down with my wife's old stainless Ruger .357mag, figuring the fox or bobcat would be long gone when he heard us, but then discovered the fox running around the pen, like Roadrunner on speed. My wife started to head back up for a more appropriate weapon, like a 12-gauge, while I waited with her pistol. Suddenly the fox stuck his head around the edge of the coop and I took a quick shot, barely aiming, and blew his head apart, right through the eye.
My wife saw it, so I just pretended this was no big deal and I could do shots like this all day. I suspect she knew there was a lot of luck at work there, but I'll never admit it.
The close-in shots seem a lot tougher sometimes, but I suspect that it's just our imagination IF you discount the difficulties in doing quick surprise-type shots. Seems to me that long shots are inherently more difficult, all other things being equal, since you are dealing with much smaller minutes of angle to actually get a hit.
I suspect this could all get a bit complicated with shotguns, and you'd have to crank in a lot of variable like barrel length, type of shot load, and choke (if any). For instance, if you were shooting a rattlesnake at 10 feet, you'd probably get a better spread at 10 ft than 6 ft in most hunting shotguns with an open choke (unless you were shooting a slug), but the shot at 6 ft would probably be better aimed, too, so the odds of a kill might well be equal.
The first rabbit I ever shot ran into some tall grass. We had it surrounded so it was just hiding. I shot it at ten feet with a 12 guage high brass load. I felt bad it wasn't even worth cleaning. That same trip I almost stepped on one. I waited for it to run and shot it at about 5-7 feet. This time I aimed for the head. Good eatin
We were on a hunting trip in SWA - now Namibia - and had two Brits along for the trip. Both wanted a lion trophy to take home - lions were plentiful then.
The one Pommie got his chance at about 100 yards and wounded the beast who ran off into thickish bush.
You don't follow any lion into territory like that never mind a wounded one.
Pommie "Had to do the right thing" and followed against all our arguments not to. I could not let the fool go alone and I followed behind him about 20 yards.
True to form the cat circled so as to wait for him as he passed.
Fortunately I saw the grass move and sighting along the barrel I took a snap shot as the cat jumped. Lucky shot it was for the Pommie but he dirtied his pants as the dead animal fell onto him.
He did not even see it coming. Its people like him who give hunting a bad name.