80 Yards out

[BT]

You have shot alot of practice @ 60 yards and you are pretty darn good at that range but you have never shot 80 other than to shoot a few for fun.

Now you are at the last day on a once in a lifetime Elk hunt and here is what you see.
Your guide insists that there is no way you will cover any extra ground without being busted and that you are just lucky to be this close.

You have a 3' X 2 1/2 foot lung area plus liver because of the quartering shot.
The guide says that the shot opportunity is the next time he bugles because he wont move at that moment.... in his opinion.

What are you going to do?

[Greg Krause]

watch him bugle and try like hell to prove to the guide that I can get closer. I'll get more into it later..........

[bambeklr]

I just wont shoot past my effective range. Thats that. The guide will have to try and call him closer.

[lockmaster]

I would INSIST on trying to get closer. If that couldn't happen, I'd lay down my bow, enjoy the sight and walk away with good memories and know that beautiful creature was alive and well to be stalked another day. Just those memories and that vision would far outweigh the torment of having taken a shot that I would only be taking "just to see if I could do it".

[stilllearning]

I get out my camera quick. Not going to take a chance on wounding the animal.

[tedicast]

stilllearning said:

I get out my camera quick. Not going to take a chance on wounding the animal.

Great Answer!!!!!

[vonottoexperience]

Shoot him of course!....with my 300win mag ;D

[Greg Krause]

for kicks I went outside today and wanted to see what the farthest shot i could take is at my house. I moved the targets so i have only been getting 50yd shots all summer. i found that if I stood on the opposite end of my pool, it was 72yds to the target. I was able to kneel down and shoot over the pool, over the upper patio, under the deck, over the lower patio, over the driveway, through the yard and into my target butt. i took 10 "cold" shots. No warm ups at all. all of the shots were in the 6" circle on the 18-1. 6 of them were in the middle 4". the flight took about 2 seconds(or less) from release to hit.

with MY set up I still have more than .50 momentum and over 70#'s of KE at 80yds. More than reccomended for any big game in NA.

with my set up, shooting silver flames and keeping all in a 6" max group at 80yds. knowing that the elk won't move before my arrow gets there(because a bugle lasts more than 2 seconds and they almost never move at all when bugleing) and that i have the power to get it done. i "might" consider it if I was feeling very confident with my shooting.........as in not tired or out of breath or no buck fever.

I don't know............that is a hell of a long way off. I would not ever consider it on a deer sized target or if I was not very practiced at that range, or if the animal was not going to remain still.
In the scenario above NO. in real life, probably not. 60yds on an elk, hell yeah............80 is just a bit of a stretch.

[royden]

Here's what I would do having not shot past 60 yards - get to 60 yards. It's your last day - you have nothing to lose. for me the camera is not an option (the guide can take a pic while he bugles!)

Your right skip - they don't move much when bugling except to turn their head... so I would crawl forward each time he bugles. did that on my elk last year - covered 200 yards one bugle at a time. I would run while he was making a bunch of racket screaming while facing away - and I would stop in a heartbeat when he stopped.

So, I would reposition the guide or move myself to get behind him and try and make it work.

That is a really good real life situation BT - it happens all the time to me - and the call I have to make is "am I gonna hunt this critter tomorrow or is this my last chance?"