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A BAD NAME

RANDALL K

New member
Joined
Nov 10, 2002
Messages
92
Location
Rapid City, SD
I recently spoke with my dad to see how his elk hunt was going this year and he told me some disappointing news. That, coupled with something I experienced during last years (2001) season compelled me to, shall we say, get on my "soap-box" and express my extreme displeasure/annoyance of what I heard & saw
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On opening morning my dad and brother heard 8 shots, not far away, in rapid succession , dad said he could tell by the sound that there were at least 3 bullet impacts. A few hours later they met a pair of hunters who were 'packing-out' the elk they'd harvested. They were the ones who'd done the shooting, they'd gotten into a herd of about 50 animals and had taken one. Continuing to hunt, my dad soon saw a dead elk in the distance.

After reaching it they found it'd been "gut (paunch)-shot," and had just, very recently, died. My brother decided to go ahead and claim possession of the dead elk and put his tag on it. While my brother started to clean "his" elk, my dad back-tracked the animal. It turns out it was part of the herd the others 2 hunters got into. He also found ANOTHER blood trail, which he followed for a distance. Although the blood loss seemed heavy at times, it eventually stopped, and he lost the trail among the other elk tracks, so he went back and finished helping my brother. Turns-out that when the other hunters saw the herd they just shot until something fell.

Last year, just after dark on opening day, I was coming off the mountain and saw a disturbing sight. About an hour before a hunter saw some elk feeding near the road, he'd harvested one, drug it down to the road, and gutted it right there in the parking spot. The really bad part of this is that this wasn't an "unimproved" or "back-country" mountain road, it was a paved and heavily used road about a mile from a mountain town, and the gut-pile was only about 25 ft from the road, where it could easily be seen by all. And, unfortunately, the scavengers didn't "remove" it for another 2 days, it wasn't gone until the fourth day of season.

On the second day, of that same season (the day after I saw the 'gut pile,') I came upon a couple of hikers. We spoke for a few minutes, they were a couple of non-hunters who were just out for the day. I informed them of the on-going season and the importance of "being-seen" when in the woods during this time. They also expressed their displeasure of the easy viewing of the 'gut-pile.'



There are many groups/individuals out there who are taking efforts to see our favorite activity abolished. Incidents like those above just adds support to their argument, they'll single-out such un-ethical practices and use them to paint a bad picture of ALL hunters. Unfortunately, these "anti" groups are gaining ground, in my home state of Colorado they've already managed to eliminate our spring bear season, and the use of leg-hold traps (which caused a very serious financial strain upon the families of a couple of fur trappers I know --even destroyed ones marriage), and I'm always reading of legislation challenging outdoorsmen in other states.

Our sport is under serious attack, and such a "lack of ethics" (as those above) only weakens our struggle. So, if you witness a fellow outdoors-person using bad or questionable ethics, stop them, if they give you flack, the local game-law enforcement officer will be very interested in the details of your situation. If you come upon an unethical act "after-the-fact," please take a few minutes to either correct it, or make it less noticeable. We must take these necessary steps to ensure our favorite sport, that is often taken for granted, remains; many won't miss it until if's gone, and then it's too late
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Don't let the unethical practices of a few give us a... BAD NAME!!!
 
Good Post and so true. Encouters with slob hunters always leave me pissed off. 3 weeks ago I noticed a skinned coyote sitting by the road into my hunting area. The coyote was dumped only about 100 yards from someones house and along a residential road that we use to access some state trust land. shit like that is going to have those homeowners bitching and we could end up loosing access. I went back after the morning hunt and dragged the stinky fugger a few hundered feet into a wash where it would not be seen. This weekend I noticed 2 skinned coyotes in the same exact spot. I hope I see these guys out there I have always wanted to see what would happen if I shot a tire out with my bow!!
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Beings that hunters, unfortunately are not a majority of the population, the image we portray to society will determine are ability to do so in the future. We can and as in the above examples are our own worst enemies. I hope all that care start doing more to put out a better image of hunters.
 
I agree with most everything said, except for tagging that elk. My buddy gut shot an elk last year and every bit of it tasted like shit. DId your brothers elk end up tasting alright??
 
I agree, this does give us a bad image. Like the others have said, we need to shape up or we might lose this great sport. I have been hunting before and spotted a gut pile near the road when I was returning, all I did was cover it up with dirt but it made it so you wouldn't see it from the road because it was only a few yards from the road.
 
Good post! As most of us are aware, those type of individuals are not the same as what we all consider to be hunters. The bad thing is the antis don't look at it the same way.
 
Maybe if this clown had a gut pile in his/her dooryard they would understand the impact of this behavior.
 
I witnessed a similiar experience two years ago. Early in the day I passed a man road hunting on a 4 wheeler. Later that afternoon as I was getting ready to go out on my evening hunt, WHAM! I hit the deck along with the other 3 hunters in camp. I stepped out on the road and this same guy on the 4 wheeler was standing in the road right over his forky buck. He shot it right on the road and was firing directly at our camp! (At least he hit his target)

Later that evening, as I returned to camp, I had to go around his gut pile that he left right in the middle of the road. This was a main mountain road too!

About 10 miles from camp, I came across another gut pile on the side of the road.

Tasteless!

bulldown
 
Same thing happened to me this year, only the slob turned out to be related to me. I'm still upset with the situation.
 
In Wy. this last season, there were guy's just shooting into the herd that I got mine out of, you could tell by all the wounded animals and the blood trails every where...All they have to do is wait for a second and take a nice standing side shot, they are presented all the time from what I saw...
 
How many shots were there Russ? 100? 150?
And a total of 8 elk were taken.
All it would have tken is a little patience. It is definitly a good program they have going, but more rules need to be applied and ENFORCED. It is by no means a lack of personel to enforce some with all the G&F officers and Park Rangers that are available for this hunt.
 
I hear that, what was it, 15 minutes after the shooting stopped, a warden showed up at the kill site we were on. I don't personally know what they can do to enforce better shooting from some of the turds out there, the one I shot had a bullet hole thru one of the back hauches and had that quarter almost ruined, I don't know if I want to shoot a wounded one again. That was a huge waste..Pretty much a quarter of the elk was damaged from these sloppy butt wipes... There were also 3 or 4 blood trails going up the hill by way of the heard. I'm guessing they were just shooting at the big blob of elk and not actually aiming at one particular animal with nothing behind that animal...
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