What Would You Do? Shot Placement.

[3Js]

Just came back from Montana. Hunted for four very hard days all day long. After making the decision to only to shoot a wall hanger and 27 bucks later I finally came across him. I was coming around a bottom of a butte and there he was up 300 yards at the top of a butte. Looking and facing me offering the only shot through the chest. I could have taken the shot but I was thinking he would turn. He made one junp and over the top and gone offing a one last shot that I never got a good fix on. Good, bad or ethical decision?

 

[DallanC]

Hesitating and NOT shooting when in doubt is NEVER unethical IMO. Its surely something you will replay forever in your mind though: "if I woulda... if I coulda... if I just..."

Keeps you fired up for next season though.


-DallanC

 

[forkhunter]

Shoot when it is safe and you are confident. Safe should mean the same thing to all of us, but confidence in a shot is a lot of different things to those who are more practiced and skilled than those of us who are not.

Sounds like you made the right call.

 

[FamilyMan]

If you had time to set up a solid shot square in the front of the chest, as it sounds, then you probably would have been justified in taking it. You waited for a broadside shot that never came. Only you can decide if you have any regrets.

If I were you I would head back to the area you saw him and spend a few days trying to find him again. Rut hasn't really started yet in Montana so no reason to believe he went very far.

Mark