ORIGINAL: homers brother
WTG,
Before you try speaking for all of us, I'll note that I've hunted WY since 1979. Snowies. Bighorns. Black Hills. T-Basin. T-Basin is the only place I've consistently found the terrain open enough to take shots beyond 300 yards on antelope. But, since I've never had to take an antelope at beyond 150 (the game is where you find them), I've had no need to engage in "long range hunting". I hunt public land exclusively, and while you'll find the rancher's fields in the Black Hills open enough for long shots, I can't say that for the National Forest. The Bighorns and Snowies are absolutely too thick - the last elk I shot in the Snowies was at point-blank range.
First of all, I never claimed I was speaking for anyone other than myself. That's the way these forums work- everything you say is
YOUR opinion. Not anyone elses.
There are literally
hundreds of places in the Snowies and Bighorns where you might have to take a 400 yard shot at elk. Across draws, in meadows, ridge-tops, etc. It's the same way in all of the mountain ranges in WY. Are there a lot of places without openings like this, such as the Savage Run Wilderness? Sure. But if you've never seen a spot where you might have to take a longer shot in the Snowies or Bighorns you must have a whole different way of looking at terrain than I do. I won't even start on how many places you may have to take a 300+ yard shot down off of the mountains. And I'm not claiming to be a long-range hunter. I shot my antelope from 75 yards this year, and my deer from 250. The farthest I've ever shot anything was an elk at 350 yards out in the desert. I'm simply saying that if the shot presents itself and I don't feel like I can get any closer, I'll let 'er fly if its within 500 yards, assuming there isn't an excessive crosswind and I have a good rest.
I can only speak from my own experience. Are there opportunities to hunt at longer ranges out here? Sure there are. Maybe my style of hunting is just incompatible with that method, though? I stalk. I've no opportunity to set up a spotting scope and pick animals up on a hillside that I can't see anyway through the trees. I watched guys in the Snowies sitting in their trucks on the open meadows,drainages and clearcuts. Yeah, I'm sure those guys could engage in some long range hunting if an elk happened their way. I'm not that patient, though. I'd rather look for sign and find the game, rather than let the game come to me.
You're missing the point here. Just because a hunter won't hesitate to shoot at an animal that's 400 yards away doesn't mean their hunting strategy is to find animals that will present long range shots. I'm stricktly a spot and stalk hunter as well, but who's to say that the elk or deer whose tracks you're following won't be out in a big opening when you finally get up on them? They could even be in a small opening across a draw, or in a mulititude of other possible locations, where the only shot you can take is what some may consider to be a long shot. Especially if the animal has spotted you and either you take the shot then and there or you're never going to see that animal again.
I've hunted for 29 years now, and only once lost an animal (a doe in 1980) that I'd hit.Are there seasons I've come up empty? Sure. Sometimes I'vefound myself eyeing an animal in country just too rough for meto pack 400 lbs of elk out by myself and passed up theshot. Sometimes I just don'tfind anygame. But, I can never say that I was so desperate to fill the freezer or an empty space on the wall that I've risked crippling or losing an animal by taking a poor shot again.
Are you implying that people who take long shots are desperate? Sure, some of the shots may be desperation shots, and I think that's wrong, but the same can be said about someone who shoots at a animal that is running only 20 yards away. Just because a shot is long-range doesn't mean it's a desperation shot.
Unfortunately, I've filled my freezer with four animals that someone else DID take a poor shot on. One antelope, two deer, and an elk. The elk was heavy enough that I'm sure someone was pretty disappointed to have lost him, but reading posts like yourskind of makes me wonder what would happen if you took a shot at an elk 700 yards away, not realizing that I was watching the same elk from 150. He breaks toward the stand of timber I'm in after you hit him, and I finish him off. Whogets to tag him?
And how do you know that the poor shots people took at those animals were long-range shots? They very well could have been shot from only 150 yards away.
What would happen if i shot an elk from 700 yards away that you were watching and only wounded it? Who gets to tag him then? That's for the two hunters to decide. The fact that it was shot from 700 yards has nothing at all to do with it. Would there be any difference if it was wounded from a distance of only 50 yards? I don't think so.
Sorry guys, I won't bejoining the long range spotting-shooting club. As I said before, I'm fine punching holes in paper as far out as I can, but I've never been forced to shootbig gameat more than 300 yards and therefore concentrate mypractice at shorter ranges. You can do what you want.
That's your own prerogative. I see nothing wrong with people not wanting to shoot long-range, just the same as I see nothing wrong with people not wanting to shoot at moving animals. But I don't criticize them for it simply because I don't agree with their reasoning.
