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Ground shrinkage, deer and elk version

Some really high standards on this thread.
I thought the same thing. Half of what I shoot ends up shrinking on the ground.

I should cross-reference the “never had ground shrinkage” responders with the “never confused a hunter with an animal” responders and see how much name overlap there is.
 
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First time hunting Bull Elk in Nevada…glassed up this bull with a herd of about 100 cows and some rag horns. Since I was new to hunting branched antlered bulls I didn’t trust myself to field judge a bull elk on the hoof. I texted the first picture to a couple of my friends and most of them said he’d go 340-350”. Hearing that I decided I would take him. He ended up taping out at 326”, still beyond happy I was able to get my first bull elk but definitely had some ground shrinkage.
 
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First time hunting Bull Elk in Nevada…glassed up this bull with a herd of about 100 cows and some rag horns. Since I was new to hunting branched antlered bulls I didn’t trust myself to field judge a bull elk on the hoof. I texted the first picture to a couple of my friends and most of them said he’d go 340-350”. Hearing that I decided I would take him. He ended up taping out at 326”, still beyond happy I was able to get my first bull elk but definitely had some ground shrinkage.
Still an awesome bull congratulations
 
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Buck from last year. 3 year old, 16 wide. Thought he was 4 and 19 or 20 wide. Made a quick decision because I had a 30 foot window of opportunity. His deformed ears through me off. Kicked myself pretty hard for this one given that I knew this funky ear deer was in there and knew precisely how old he was because he showed up on my place as a 1 year old spike.

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Here he is the year prior.

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I’m not very picky when it comes to elk, but I definitely had the ground shrinkage feeling on this guy. He came in on a string during archery. Shot him at 19 yards bugling. Thought he was a much bigger 6 based on the white tipped 4th and him coming in from a slight uphill angle. Great experience and I would of shot him either way. I just remember thinking “I just shot a giant” right after the shot, deffinatley wasn’t the case.
 

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This one fooled me. His body was really small for a mature bull making his antlers look much bigger. He also had zero fat on him and was riddled with bot fly larva and had a lot of tape worm larve in his meat. Not a bad bull, but looks way bigger in the picture than he was. I think his main beams were like 38". Big bulls are in the mid/upper 40s. My dogs ate the antlers and didn't seem to mind. :D

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2023 elk. Had a very high bar set as 2 freezers are still full of bison. Passed on a 7 pt day 1. May have felt bad about that as we could have hunted wolves over the carcass.

Saw some cows 2 days later, gave a toot on the hoochie mama, he bugled and came out of the timber. I put one into his heart after seeing he was a 6 pt. in my scope. Yelled to my dad after I shot “he’s a monster!”

Walked up and saw I got punked. Still a good bull and fantastic hunt with my dad. Can’t wait to get back and do it again in that same unit.

On a serious note, am I thinning on top?

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