Maybe its just me, or maybe its because I'm a hunting/archery education instructor and we get a news letter every year about hunting accidents. But to IMHO its always better safe than sorry. Being a bowhunter mostly, I don't have to worry about a loaded gun and partners. But accidents can still happen with broadheads. I know of one incident that occured back in the mid 80's. Two bowhunters spottted some deer up above them, but the wind was wrong, so they decided to hot foot it in a big half circle around the deer to get the wind in their favor. Before this, they were both still hunting and had arrows nocked on their strings. As they were running with the arrows still nock on their bows, the hunter in front stoped, his partner behind him was looking away and not realizing it, ran into his friend/partner with his broadhead/arrow. It punchured one lung and because of where they were couldn't get to medical help on time this hunter died. I as well of all of you have heard many such stories. I for one would rather hear anyday about a story of an animal getting away becaues the gun was not loaded than to hear a story about a hunting accident. I do have to laugh at myself from time to time too, for not always being prepared when the moment of truth presents itself. In 1990 when I was 16 years old, my friend and I couldn't sleep the night before opening of rifle season. We decided that instead of laying in bed that we would get a vary early start on our hunt. To my dad's disaproval we left camp at 1:30 in the morning and started our 3 mile hike to a medow where we had seen and spotted elk many of times before. I don't remember what what time it was when we reached the meadow, but I think it was somewhere around 3 in the moring. Well being the middle of October the sun didn't come up until afer 7:00, so we had some time on our hands. We both were now tired and were ready for sleep. The next thing I remember was my friend yelling Jason, Jason, A BULL, ITS A BULL, shoot it, shoot it. I was half out of it and scrambled to my feet grabed my rifle and looked through the scope to see a 5x5 bull elk. He was just staring at us about 80 yards away, and the sunlight was sparkling off the frost on his antlers. I worked the bolt as fast as I could, put the cross hairs on his front shoulder and squeezed the trigger on my .300WBY ....... CLICK...... oh crap!!! Just then I remembered that all my ammo was still in my pack that I was using for a pillow. I yelled at my friend to shoot the bull, I knew that he put shells in the Magazine of his gun (30-06) when we were still in camp. I looked at my friend and he was just frozen looking through his scope and I didn't know what was wrong. So I quickly set down my rifle and tore through my pack to find my shells. I remember glancing up at the bull who was still just standing there, and thinking man oh man if we shoot him he has to be the stupidist bull elk in the whole state of Idaho. I did find my ammo about the same time that the elk decided that watching us two idots was enought excitment for the day and in a flash he quickly bolted away. The first thing I asked my friend (besides what time it was) was why the heck didn't you shoot. He was pulling a loaded round back out of the chamber at the time. He looked at me with a mad but stupid look and just said here you try to look through this scope. He then thrusted the rifle into my hands. I tried to look but the heavy frost on the scope made it inpossible. His rifle fell off the stump it was resting on and into some very long wet snowy grass, when we were sleeping. He then told me he heard elk walking and that it woke him up. He said he saw a couple of cows that ran off, but he could hear more elk that were in the timber and comming towards us. He said he didn't want to make any noise waking me up and the fact that I had shot elk before and he hadn't. So he grabed his rifle and chambered a round. When the bull steeped into our little medow he could clearly see with his eyes that it was a bull, but he couldn't see through his scope at all and he was trying to sight down/around the barrel for a shot. But he didn't want to miss and scare the bull away. Anyway at the time neither one of us thought it was a funney story, but all of our friends and family back at camp were on the ground rolling around with laughter over our story. I am glad to say that I have learned many many things since I was 16. And that I can still look back at all the memories and smile and laugh with no regrets saying dang I wish I would't have had a loaded gun and it didn't go off just then. Like I said before its better safe than sorry!
Thanks Jason