Ever Mistake a Hunter for a Deer/Bear/Elk?

[matt24073]

People that mistake humans for animals have no business in the woods.

 

[nickstone]

I've had people use their scope as a bino or spotter and point it at me on multiple occasions.

 

[HUNT TALK MAN]

IM USULY GOOOD FOR WINGING A COUPL3 LIBS EVERY YEAR!!!

 

[tormenter]

Never and I am more than okay if they charged with crime.

 

[MoDirt]

Honestly the title of this post alone makes me nervous. Obviously it happens to some misguided people who should not be in the woods at all much less with a weapon. My hope is no one on this site would come close to fitting in that category

 

[Don Fischer]

People that mistake humans for animals have no business in the woods.

That's not true. People that don't positively identify their target don't belong there. I've never mistaken a human for a game animal but I have seen a human a few times I couldn't identify. I identify before I shoot. Might have already mentioned this. When I lived in Montana we got a report about a child shot and killed durning hunting season. Seems the hunter mistook the kid for a deer. Kid was getting off a yellow school bus!

 

[gouch]

Had a guy near here shoot his girlfriend off her horse once. Said he thought she was a deer. He went to prison.

I did mistake a hunter for a skunk once. Turned out to be his cover scent. We visited with him and his wife that evening at their camp. She told us that if he was thinking he was sleeping in the trailer that night, he was even crazier than she thought.

 

[roughpasture243]

I'm always amazed whenever I hear of a hunter being mistaken for a turkey or deer and shot by a fellow hunter. I've hunted off and on for 10 years on public land and I've never seen a person strongly resemble a game animal, let alone so convinced I was about to pull the trigger. Obviously, it happens and a lot across the country.

I feel like the nature of spring turkey lends itself to this type of incident but wide-open western hunting seems less likely.

Has anyone ever been straight-up fooled?

I do know a few years back, a family-friend was hunting on my in-laws cattle ranch in CO and he was shot while riding an ATV by a shooter from the public access road that cut through the private property. He survived but almost lost his arm. Hunter wearing orange moving on an ATV, not convinced that was an accident

Scary, only mistake I made was getting lost

 

[bigfoot11]

Never. And thankfully have never been mistaken as one either.

 

[FairWeather]

Not personally.

The drummer in my band passed on a cautionary tale, when I started hunting last fall, about a classmate of his growing up.

The kid survived a school shooting (drummer was there, too), he was shot in the back, but the bullet was stopped by his textbooks in his backpack. Shortly after, the next year or two, he and his younger brother went deer hunting. Guess they lost sight of each other, the younger brother heard a rustling and shot at it. The kid unknowingly shot and killed his own brother.

Two lessons: Be absolutely certain of your target, and make yourself easy to be seen.

I don’t care how dorky I may look, or how many animals may spot me that may not have otherwise, I wear a blaze orange hat and vest every time I’m out there. No game is worth dying over.

 

[Benfromalbuquerque]

I recall a story from years back when I was a kid in Ohio. This woman was shot, killed standing behind her house during deer gun season. That was when shotgun slug was the legal means. Defense countered she was wearing white gloves. Mistaken hunter was acquitted.