Hard to kill critters

[A-con]

Tell us about an animal you've taken that was hardest to put down

Hers my story;

Back in 1972, I was 16, me and a buddy went up deer hunting. We were headed up to the high country, but it started snowing hard and the car wouldn't make it the rest of the way, so we pulled over and got out at about 5000 ft and started walking an old logging road. About an hour later we were board so we stopped to talk, when a deer steped out on to the road about 80 yards down. It was the biggest buck eather of us had ever seen.
I was carring a .300 Savage lever action M-99 with 165 gr hornady handloads and Mike had a .270 with 130 Sierra handloads.
I shot first, and the bullet went right through the first lung, nicked the hart and came to rest just under the hide on the far side. The buck stopped, looked at me like I was stupid, and started running. Mike fired low, breaking his hind leg. My second round was a gut shot, and the buck keep running. Mike shot again, hitting him in the lungs, and then I fired again hitting him in the front shoulder. We both stopped and stared in dis belife as the buck never missed a step ON THREE LEGS ! He disappered into some brush, so we ran down a hill to get a better angle. The buck came out of the other side of the brush at full speed, we both fired again. I missed, and Mike hit him in the rump. He finaly went down, but was still kicking when we got to him. I had to re-load to put a final shot through his neck, it was the only place we hadn't already shot him !!!!
We showed him to a ranger who said the buck was very old, and probably had a real trophy size rack several years before. After hanging three days he weighed almost 200 lbs.
It was far and away the toughest, nastiest tasting thing I every ate.

So what about you, every had one that just didn't want to die ?

 

[lilbiggun]

Mine was a small black bear outside of valdez. When I took the first shot, it was about 80yards up the hill. It was a pretty steep angle. The bullet hit low on the right leg, went through the lungs and put a fist size hole where the spine used to be.
We heard the death moan and thought it was over. I guess not, this thing got mad and crawled down the hill towards us. I was amazed. he came at us basically only using his left paw to pull himself. He was dead but just didnt know it, a shot to the heart ended up stopping it.

 

[Moosie]

WELL, I got many-a-story !!! BUT I'll tell a story of a friend.

We were heading up to get A budys elk last year. It was raining lightly and I had the Video cam with me. The reason was to film my buddies elk he shot the day before. We saw a deer bedded across a canyon. Phil. and me headed over and Warren waited. I sat on a little finger looking at the deer bedded down and phil. went to the ridge just inbetween me and the deer. I started the filming...........

The deer was shot "at" 5 times and the fog rolled in. I have it on Video. Pretty neat. Anyway, I'm not sure how many he hit, or missed but I started running down the hill and up his side. We waited for the fog to clear, and then started looking. THE buck had tried going up hill but it's back leg was broken. He shot his last shot and I handed him my gun. MY scope was wet from the rain and nothing could be seen through it. It was cleared off the best it could, BUT after 3 shots, the deer limped over the next ridge and we were off to track it. I found the blood trail, and we tried to find it. That was the first time I ever traced inthe rain. We saw the buck at the bottom of the canyon. It had fallen down a few times. We took off after it but lost it again... DANG !!!!

Well, we split up and put the pursuit on. I saw it on the right ridge about 40 yards off the bottom of the valley we were walking through. I called Phillip over to shoot it again. I was packing his Empty gun, He had mine. HE shot at the deer and at the time looked like it wacked him in the neck, THE video looks like he missed. We're still not sure... WELL.. It didn't go down, SO he walked up to it. He was like 20 yards away and took off.... 2 more shots were fired.

We lost it again and took about 30 more mins to find it laying in a creek only about 75 yards from were he shot at it last. THE canyon was brushy and was raining...

He had 3 more shells in my gun. He shot it in the vitals. It just layed there looking back at us still... He then walked up and shot it in the neck .

THE deer had 3 legs with shots in it. 2 in the chest area . 2 in the neck area and I'm not even sure we counted all the shots.

I hate telling this story becasue it makes hunters look bad, Let alone letting people watch it on the video. BUT this is a reality. Soemtimes things just goes wrong. We did pursue the deer till we found it and Left Warren stranded on the hill packing 1/2 his elk out by himself. Needless to say Phil anmd me wentthere to help him but then we ditched him. OOPS !!!!

We're taking Phil. out to the range a bit next year before the season though, He still has'nt seen the video yet ....

 

[JB]

a tough animal to kill is the lil sika deer.

i dont know how many times i have been out helping friend's try and track one of these tiny,tough lil bastards!

one year a friend of mine shot one in rifle season.....he droped this one,they drug the deer to the edege of the road,walked to their truck,drove over to get the deer,loaded it up,drove that ten min drive back to deer camp and as they pulled in the drive-way,the deer lifted its head up....it was still alive!....tobey then pulled a revolver from his truck....pulled the deer out by the hind legs and shot it in the head...ok,its dead now,wright?....he gutted the deer..the heart is still beating!...he cut the heart out and had it in the palm of his hand........the heart was still beating,kinda pulsating like in his hand..for a good three or four min's...that was the tuoghest animal i had ever seen......

sad but true story!i was all broke up when witnessing this horrible,herriffic incedent.....sometimes i wake up in a cold sweat having nightmares of the sika-deer from hell......but the hunt must continue!i shall go on!

.......JB

 

[ridgetop]

A snapping turtle. Its amazing how much lead they can soak up!
...no wonder they've been around for millions of years

 

[Calif. Hunter]

I've seen wild boar soak up a lot of lead if they aren't hit well the first time. The one boar on my wall was hit in the shoulder with a .300 Win mag and 180 gr Nosler. I thought he was dead and went running up to him. He wasn't, and he decided he wanted a piece of me. It was 100 yards to the truck and 50 to the nearest tree. I turned him with a shot that grazed him down the length of his body, almost shooting off his "manhood." Then it took two more shots as he took off (one breaking his hips and one finally breaking the spine) to put him down for keeps. The first shot breaking his shoulder had missed the heart and only hit a small part of both lungs. (Lungs are a lot smaller than you would think on a hog.)
This is just my one hog that charged me out of dozens I've shot. There were a lot others that were shot or wounded by other people who convinced me to "kill them good" with the first shot. That is much more important than what you shoot them with, in my opinion.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Pound for pound there's nothing harder to kill than a badger, woodchuck, porcupine or scaled quail.

 

[Big Sky]

House cats and badgers spring to mind.

 

[Silent But Deadly]

Crabs

 

[PotatoWhisperer]

JB-

I can relate to yoour tale of tought Sitkas. My good friend and I were on Kodiak Island this past November. He shot a nice buck with one shot and I got one with one shot. My second buck was not so easy. We were working our way back to the beach and as we came to the egde of a drop off, we spotted a buck below. It was about 300 years straight down. My first shot missed, but shots 2 and 3 were solid, but he was still on his feet, not quite sure what was going on. I had to reload (Weatherby's only hold 3 shots). I asked my buddy to shoot to put him down. He shot him twice and I shot him one more time before he went down. That's 3 180 grain slugs from a .300 Weatherby and 2 from a .280. WE climbed down and I went over to recover my deer...I got to about 10 yards and he jumps up and takes off...I pull my gun up and 2 more shots into him and he's down again...but not out. He laid there gasping his final breaths and I was about to put on more in him and he finally passed. The total shot count was 7 bullets...5 from my .300 and 2 from my buddies 280. All but one were true shots...the one was a gut shot probably from my first shot when he jumped up after we had already put him down once. I'll tell you, we recovered only about 1/3 of the meat cause he looked like swiss cheese. Blood clotting and meat damage...that's the toughtest damn deer we both have ever encountered. Sad, but sometimes that's the way it goes!

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 04-03-2002 08:59: Message edited by: PotatoWhisperer ]</font>

 

[tnctcb]

toughest thing i ever killed was an amadillo.I was a kid and my dad told me to shoot it. Im sure the first shot hit but with all that armor it did little more than give him a good scare.He ran into a hole and his ass was sticking out.I was a kid and didnt know any better so i shot what I could see, 2 shots with 6 shot took off his leg but the rest of him was still intact. we waited a few minutes and he quit kicking so my dad grabbed it by the tail to pull it out and it went to kicking and scatching so he sort of tossed it away from the hole. I shot it two more times and it wouldnt give up finally my dad stepped on its tail and stuck a knife in its throat. They are pretty tasty critters if you can get past cleaning them but this one was so torn up all of the guts were coming out and he was scared they might have poisoned the meat, if youve ever cleaned one you understand.I havent shot many dillas since then but if i do it again i think ill use my 300 winnie mag it will make a much cleaner kill

 

[SPOTTED OWL]

Mtn goat. Pound for pound, I doubt theres
any animal as tough. The sad thing is when
you think you got a great kill shot on one
of these critters, they like to do the ole
suicide leap every time. I say every time
cause its happened to me both times!

 

[The Hedgehog]

grey and mexican wolves... perhaps shot placement is key.. I wouldn't know.

 

[A-con]

Greeny, if ya gut shoot em right, maby the'll lead you back to there pack before they expire. (Try a .223 with hardball)

Weekend, I was going to suggest a pot of boiling water, but I gess it depends on what type of crab your talking about...maby kerosen...oh go ahead and try the boiling water

Big sky, I have found a high veloicty .177 pellet through the lungs does wonder for the obnoctus local tom cats and it's quiet enough that knowone knows what happened, old whiskers just stops making noise, lays down & goes to sleep for the last time.

 

[Michaelr]

a Cogriz is the most obnoxious hard to stop critter you will ever tangle with!!!

 

[danr55]

Toughest Critter? Deer Tick..

 

[Calif. Hunter]

I don't know - every time I've had a tick on me or my dog, none of the tricks that are supposed to work to get them to back out of the skin works. I kill them every time! A hot match - they die. Vaseline so they can't breathe - they die. Oil - they die. My problem with them is that they die too easily! I want to be able to remove them intact, and then kill 'em. Instead, they die and I end up having to dig pieces of dead tick out of the hole.

 

[Casey Richardson]

cats in general, 9 lives ya know. Greeny, wolves are easy to kill, a little parvo goes a long way!! LOL

 

[ELKCHSR]

Hey CH!!!
Maybe it's your blood that is doing it. Or something on your skin!!! Do you shower regular??!!