Thread: Poor bugger

I actually admire the skills and patience a skilled bow hunter has. This attitude towards fellow hunters bows or whatever their passion is is the reason we get pushed around and things made difficult. We cant unite as a group so it will continue until you've got no sport/hobby anymore...If your the perfect hunter and never stuffed up your one of the very few and I would actually find it very hard to believe there's anyone who hasn't. Its just that we dont write stories about our fuk ups

A couple of decades ago I shot a three legged deer in the Southern Kaimanawas. Was in reasonable condition for January, despite having a front leg missing from the knee down. Shot off. Breaking it down on site I discovered a .308 bullet buried in a hind quarter, coming in from about 45% from above. So almost certainly shot from a chopper. I'd like to see a human survive and thrive hit with two .308 rounds I would have thought it a lot easier to deliver a follow up shot from above, than from a static ground based hunter.

Yeah, you have to watch a 3 legged thar climbing around the cliffs and marvel at how they do it.

Interesting the arrow unthreaded. Would have bean sore but then deer when they fight often leave deep puncher wounds all over each other.

The will to survive aye , is that fat or puss around the broad head ? the poor bugger , they must have amazing immune systems to fight infection with lost limbs , not life threatening but I did shoot a Sika with a perfect bullet hole through his ear once and another with no ears at all , the one with no ears I could never figure out if it was a birth defect or some mean bugger caught it as a fawn and lopped its ears off …

Possibly mum ate them off when it was born. See it in cows occasionally. Mum gets carried away with the afterbirth and chews the calfs tail off.

I was about to shoot a billy goat once and he moved in on a nanny so I thought I'd give him once last chance to get his freak on , unfortunately she moved away quickly then turned around and gave him the "look" . He dropped his head in disappointment and a 308 sst made it a really bad day for him. Anyway when we got to him it turned out he had three legs, he was still in really good shape otherwise which was even more surprising considering when we cleaned up his skull his upper jaw had a break in it and a few teeth were missing.

Shot this fallow buck last year. Put my arm up inside him to skirt around the diaphragm with my knife. I hit a bit of “stuff” where none was expected. Though it might have been a piece of rib at first but didn’t feel right.

Then out it came.




It was up in the lungs. Entry wound had healed. Lopsided antlers likely due to the injury.

Arrow was coated in a calcium deposit. Sharp Edges worn off the broad head.


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Originally Posted by caberslash

Plenty of terrible rifle hunters too.

Easy to criticise from the couch.

Have you ever wounded an animal and not been able to recover it?

If the answer is 'No' then you have not done much.

Equipment can malfunction and errors be made, same as with rifles.

The accuracy and lethality of a modern compound bow or crossbow within 50-70 yards, along with expanding broadheads on carbon arrows, cannot be questioned. An arrow or bolt shot from 60lbs+ and over 400 grains will plough through 'bullet-proof' glass or kevlar vests.

What archery does require is a lot of practise and fine tuning. I still hold national records and have won national championships with a compound bow, but have not shot one in about 8 years due to work commitments.

Would I pick one up tomorrow and go bowhunting if was legal in the UK? No. Would I start shooting arrows again? Yes.

Agree. I'm not so comfortable with crossbows. Not because they are not lethal used properly but because a novice can pick one up and basically treat it like a rifle. Sooner or later they take long shots which are accurate enough but beyond the required kinetic energy range of that short bolt. A full length arrow tends to hold its penetrating energy towards the end of its accurate range. A question of inertia. Also it takes a bit more understanding and practice to shoot a conventional bow, whether compound or traditional, to hunting capability. Along the way the bow-person is likely to absorb a few more insights to how bows do and don't kill.

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

yes amazing what they can recover from - one evening at lake Waikaremoana one of our guys hit a red hind with his toyota tercel ran around the front as it was temporarily pinned - but it jumped up and ran of limping badly - about a year later I did an evening stalk thru the bush near where it had been hit and shot a 3 legged hind - back leg of at knee joint - bugger of a carry out - but she was only 700-800 yards from where she had been hit - was fat as to -

Reminds one of that classic early 70's foto of the guys down south westland whom using a MK1 Zephyr bowled a huge 14pt? stag. Yes they got the stag but it completely wrecked the front of the car and engine so the car was inoperable.LOL.

Originally Posted by Dicko

Shot this fallow buck last year. Put my arm up inside him to skirt around the diaphragm with my knife. I hit a bit of “stuff” where none was expected. Though it might have been a piece of rib at first but didn’t feel right.

Then out it came.




It was up in the lungs. Entry wound had healed. Lopsided antlers likely due to the injury.

Arrow was coated in a calcium deposit. Sharp Edges worn off the broad head.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That is unbelievable , poor bugger

Originally Posted by blip

I actually admire the skills and patience a skilled bow hunter has. This attitude towards fellow hunters bows or whatever their passion is is the reason we get pushed around and things made difficult. We cant unite as a group so it will continue until you've got no sport/hobby anymore...If your the perfect hunter and never stuffed up your one of the very few and I would actually find it very hard to believe there's anyone who hasn't. Its just that we dont write stories about our fuk ups

Thats the thing though.

With the way that hunting is portrayed these days ,new bow hunters seem to think that because they can hit a cardboard box at 50 meters that it transfers onto wild animals just the same. Unfortunatly these guys wound their way to failure or doggedly succeed at the animals expense.

If eveyone at all times only took the shots and used the calibers that were 100% ethical there would still sadly be those times that it didnt quite work out,thats the game of numbers.But going out with gear that has a propensity to wound and has a long and steep learning curve that most people just never master does more negitive damage to ethical hunting that a few blokes arguing on a forum.

Can you imagine what the graph would look like showing the adoption of muskets over bows way back when? It would probably look like Landrovers Market share after Toyota introduced the landcruiser.Everyone who could got one big reason for that.

So everyone has to hunt with a rifle or not hunt at all?

not everyone that hunts with a rifle is an ace hunter either, I now guys that are the best of the best and are top shooters and have all the stories in the world about what ace shots they are but try and get them to come have a shoot at a target to show you and all of a sudden the excuses come out...

A lot to reply to here it was fatty tissue not puss around the head,

I’m not huge on bow hunting while iv seen plenty mucked up with rifles iv seen far to many with bows it’s mainly excitable chaps who never should have taken the shot. I’m employed to find lost animals with the hound and the amount of wounded animals iv come accross while looking for lost animals is pretty terrible but once could have being avoided with patience and not taking less than optimal shots it really is a bunch or robin hoods running around poking holes in animals at my work