Cow elk carcass claiming confusion & conflict

[Dos Perros]

No advice to the OP, just wanted to comment that I think you're a thoughtful dude.

 

[rtaylor]

Video your hunt and when you get a shot opportunity shoot for high should so it doesn't run. It would be hard to argue with you if you had on video which one you were shooting at. You'll lose some opportunities with a camera but you'll have memories you can rewatch and avoid people claiming your elk.

 

[highcountrymuley]

it is sometimes downright scary to hunt public land! an area i frequently hunt has tons of hunters bc tags are easy to get/plentiful, and there is game there. this year the elk herd had migrated into the unit and there was tons of hunters and elk in a small area, relatively speaking. Lots of hunters shot, lots of wounded animals, blood trails everywhere. I was lucky to get one at about 75 yds NOT running around for it's life. You would hear about 5 shots , some sounded like hits, the elk would turn and run and you would hear more shots a few hundred yards away, more shots. Lots of guys walking around in groups (hence the multiple shots).... very weird situation, but the game is there. People trying to fill their tags!

If in your situation it is best to give up that spot. Period. No matter if it is guys that have hunted there for years (and CLAIM the spot) or newbies that acutally follow you to YOUR spot, it is not worth the hassle/bad vibes/dangerous situations that are likely to arise. If you all had seen no game, you would blame each other for that fact . Or you may have made some new friends. But the likelihood of a bad situation with a worse outcome than your recent experience is very high. Live to hunt another day. You will take years to process this situation in your mental hunting file. The only recourse is to bail if your SPIDEY senses (as the warden said) are telling you it is a bad situation building... Just GO somewhere else. Make sure it's going to be super beautiful so you get something else out of it even if you don't fill your tag. Turn the corner in your mind. I have had to do this in my many years of public land hunting turkeys, elk, and deer. And to add some newbies in the mix? Man i would get as far away from them as possible.

It would all be multiplied if it were some huge buck or bull that others had seen in the area previously, still the same outcomes.... Good luck putting all this s*?! together!

 

[amassi]

Hitting them in the head from a couple hundred yards isn’t easy. Hitting them in the brain is even harder. You’re talking about hitting a 4” target at 200-300 yards in the woods. From a bench, maybe but that’s just over Moa. Hell, lots of rifles won’t shoot moa in perfect conditions. Take a 20 year old Remington 700, propped on a pack, with an excited hunter which it sounds like might be a brand new hunter, and you tell me you think they’ll hit the brain at 200-300 yards

And 2 elk lost further proves my point. They obviously can’t hit them in the vitals, but you want them to shoot them in the brain? Lol, come on.

I’ll say it again. A head shot is a terrible idea at distance! You hit them in the nasal cavity if you’re 2-3” off, you hit them in the eyeball if you’re 1-2” off, you hit them in the jaw if you’re 2-3” low. All the will result in death, and possible a slow, painful starvation.

Every rifle on this forum is half moa or better with single digit sd/es.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[Spence1875]

You did the right thing, I let a guy have a caribou I am 100 percent certain I shot in Ontario years ago. The guy and his buddy never saw us even though we had on tons of orange, basically shot over our heads at angle then tried to claim my bull. They both seemed half drunk and were very rude in general. Not worth a gunfight over an animal so we left, plus it did have ground shrinkage to be truthful. As luck would have tagged a way better bull the next day.

Getting I any altercation far from civilization is bad idea, but especially when you are solo.

spence

 

[156821]

I hate hunting around other people. I know for many it is not an option. I had a rather nasty experience last fall and it has pushed me even farther away from wanting to be in the same area. Your situation sounds crazy and I don’t envy it one bit.

 

[FLAK]

I simply will not hunt crowded areas.
More than once I've arrived at an area before
daybreak and turned around and left just from
the number of vehicles at the designated parking.
(State WMA's).