finnbear

I see nothing in washingtons laws and regs that prohibits shooting a animal in the water.....as for the ethical side, that would be a personal issue... U would not beleave how many old timers around here think it's unethical to shoot a doe deer or cow elk!!! me I hunt for the meat, so if I come across a leagal animal it will be shot!!

Jeff Ovington

Let's face bullets can skip and riccochet off of virtually anything in it's flight path and the person pulling the trigger is totaly responsible for everywhere that bullet goes and every destructive thing that bullet does until it stops.I personally wouldn't shoot an big game animal swimming across a lake or swamp but at the same time if I saw a legal big game animal standing at the far edge of a swamp I wouldn't think twice about weather or not it just crossed or even how far it travelled to cross.If gave myself the ok to kill that animal, I'd point my rifle in the direction of the target aim at the vitals and pull the trigger. I do it in a heart beat.With no regretts as where that animal just came from or how far it travelled.
I consider myself an ethical hunter for the most part
but if I worried about steep climbs valleys water these animals endure on a daily basis and took that into consideration I wouldn't have killed
a single animal by now.
And every hunter would think Im a PETA supporter.

skb2706

Nope not at all. If you haven't been then you couldn't have known. In the few days I spent chasing moose around we didn't ever see them 'not in the water'.

Getting a dead beast out of the water can be a much more difficult proposition than simply killing one standing in the water though.

rather_be_huntin

True but with a shallow angle water ricochet the bullet will retain 100% of it's weight and nearly all of it's velocity making it a very unique kind of ricochet. Ricochet's off other objects generally slow a bullet way down and break it up into smaller pieces.

Water ricochets are not just dangerous because of what is on the other side of the body of water they are also very dangerous because of how far they can potentially travel.