Yes......by gawd they do!!!

In my camp, I am known as the big pumpkin for all the orange I wear.

Boys, we are novices but you don't have to hit us over the head with a wet mop to get our attention. I hunted a little meadow we found this year while doing some ridge running early first season. My brother and his father-in-law hunted that same meadow later that day. There are some desert big horns in this area that we have had the privilege of seeing on a couple of occasions and now several of them came bounding out into the meadow and then dissappeared. Then they saw a couple guys step out of the trees and into the meadow (about 500 yds away). Guessing that the two fellows saw them too, as they then moved off into the edge of the trees they come out of. But a few minutes later, they heard boom! boom! and saw the guys scrambling further up the valley in the edge of the trees. They were moving around frantically. Then a few minutes later they saw the guys quickly walking back down to where they first appeared.

Now this being public land, happens all the time I suppose. When I met up with them after dark and excitedly asked if that was them shooting, they said no and relayed their story. We thought either they jumped elk up in the trees or they just shot them so sheep! A no-no and as ethical hunters we would pass this info along to those that deal with such.

Jump to the next morning. My brother kills a bull in that same little valley. I walk from about 2 miles away just to get in on the soiree!!! As I cross a 4wd road between us, I see a blood trail. Bleeding pretty good and fairly fresh. After the kill is taken care of, several of us focus on this blood trail. We track it to it's source and our curiosity is only aroused further. We find where whatever it is has been shot. Looks to be a big animal and there is blood everywhere. Ground is tore up. But then some things are not right. No gut pile. No nothing. Blook is splattered 4 or 5 foot up the sides of aspen trees. No down here a tough old Whitetail shot in the wrong place has been known to lay down for a few hours, then up and run again for a long ways with a massive amount of blood loss. But this was confusing to say the least. Our concern that an animal was suffering somewhere was lessened by the fact that we found horse tracks and dog tracks all along the blood trail. Horse crap was fresh too. So as the trail of blood became too spotty to follow, we were sure that whoever was on this horse was on it! Dog was doing his part as every time we found blood, we found dog tracks and horse prints.

Long story with unbelievable ending.................damn fools had shot a man's horse!!!! Horse! Tied to a tree!!!! Assume that the man wasn't on it at the time, but then never dealt with horse shooters before. I am not the biggest fan of the horse and on occasion would have shot one if I would have had gun in hand, but that another story altogether!!!!
DOW man came by the next day and ran into one of our hunting partners. Told him the horse belong to a doctor and he was able to patch up the horse and walk him back down to the valley and the vet. Said they thought the horse would make it. Solved our mystery and created sudden awareness among hunters like us......grew up hunting since we were kids and took for granted that some things just couldn't happen!

Now some would call what happened an "accident"! Not me brother. That was a mistake.....pure and simple. Accident can't be helped. Mistake can and that mistake made believers of the rest of our camp. All orange all the time! Someone shoots me it is murder.......no other explanation for it. But then I can't find one for shooting a horse either???? If you have an excuse for this type of "mistake", please chime in. I would love to hear it. On second thought, don't respond. I already assume that if you are on this website, you have more sense than that. Please don't prove me wrong!

These were locals (Co). We gave the DOW descriptions and they already had the vehicle identified as well. I know these types only constitute a very small number of hunters, but please don't take anything for granted. We can all opine on the calibers and such (see other threads), but this is something we can all agree on, better safe than sorry. Be safe. Don't take anything for granted, even your fellow hunters!