ORIGINAL: djs06dc5
centaur 1.....very good point!!! i was typing to fast to really give every aspect of the situation. i'm very safe andcautiouswhen i hunt, even back then.that day was on private land(15yrs ago)that only i had permission to hunt. even with that being said, i wasn't in a firing position, just started to bring the gun up.man, what happened to the dude that shot your buddy. no more hunting for him?
Like I said before, I'm not picking on you personally and I have no doubt that you're a safe hunter, most people are. Since the accident hunting hasn't been the same for me and I hope that no one else ever has to go through what we did that day. As far as the shooter goes, nothing ever happened to him, it was ruled an accident. I'll try and keep this as short as possible and still give the full story. There were 5 of us hunting that day and we were hunting on land where 2 of them lived. It happened in New Jersey where you're limited to shotguns.After lunch we were heading out to hunt on the final day of the season. I went one direction and the other four went off together toward a cut corn field. When they reached the field my buddy Vinnysat at the edge near one end not really expecting to see anything but it was late and he was tired. From where he sat the field was about 150 yards across and it extended several hundred yards to the left. The other 3 crossed the field widthwise. When they got to the other corner one of the guys went into the woods and the other two made a left toward the other end of the field. That's when things got bad. The guy who went into the woods kicked up a doe and it ran across the field lengthwise. At that point in time the two guys on the other side of the field and Vinny were 137 yards apart, the deer was about 35 yards from him and over 100 yards from the guys who shot him. My buddy didn't even think about shooting because there were 3 people in front of him. The other two jerks started shooting at the running doe with their shotguns, one was using slugs and the other used only buckshot. The slug hit him in the penis almost cutting it completely off, shattered his right testicle and entered his groin and exited his buttocks. The surgeon served in the armed forces in Vietnam and he said that the slug passed within 1/4 inch of his femoral artery, he saidif the slug was still traveling above the speed of sound the shockwave would have taken out the artery and killed him within minutes.
I'm sorry for the long post. I wish that my worst memory was a missed opportunity at a large buck. Since that day I no longer measure success by what I shot, spending the day in the woods and making memories and coming home safe is what is most important. Thanks for listening to my rant.........Mike