Closest shot on a big game animal?
 

Let's talk guns only. What's your closest shot on a big game animal?

I can't remember mine exactly . I've had a few at just a couple yards.

Last year my wife took this one at 7 feet. I had told her that if she sees one coming towards her, just let it keep coming in closer until it either stops or starts to head away from her. She did just that and let this one almost touch her barrel. A .270 to the white throat patch at 7 feet worked quite well.


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-Jake

yes you do occasionally get rather close shots, I shot a large mule deer buck, in norther California at less than 12 feet,
as it was running full speed ,dead at me , with a group of deer,at full speed, I have too think it never saw me as I was kneeling next to a tree ,
and the deer was running away from some threat at full speed and it had been running strait toward my location from at least 120 yards when I first saw it

I have two kills I can recall one with a gun and one with a bow., and both were at under 6 ft from the end of the barrel /arrow when at full draw!
not very often I would even want to take shots like this, but was young and dumb yet!

I know over the yrs I have had countless animals, walk up and touch /smell me while hunting,. from bears to grouse and many others in between!
one moment I recall very clearly was a black bear climbing the tree I was up in and licking my boot, while staring at me, I think I was about 15 yrs old at the time bow hunting for deer!
bear was just super curious, NO ill intentions I felt, and made a lasting memory on me!

Shot a cow elk with a muzzleloader in CO that was so close I took exactly 4 steps to the first blood. She had a power burn on her shoulder so I doubt she was more than 6-8 feet when the ball hit her. I came around a blown down spruce and there she was. I nearly ran into her and she was just as surprised as I was. I double lunged her as she was beginning to move.

The wife had white and brown hair on her pants when I got up to her. I think it came from the shot. The neck was really tore up with hair everywhere, including on her pants.

-Jake

I shot a doe whitetail at 20-30 feet with a .30-06 180 grain softpoint bullet. I was under a tree with dropping down branches without leaves that sort of hid me. It was dusk. I saw the deer at right angles to my right side. It was looking at me but couldn't figure out what I was. I shifted my rifle to my left shoulder (I am a right handed shooter) and shot her left handed rather than take a few steps to rotate around to shoot right handed, as that would likely have caused alarm and she would have run off. Some would disparage this as reckless, but I could see the cross-hairs very steady on the vitals and took the shot. The bullet went where it was supposed to.

Even though this doe was killed very solidly, she still managed to move 20 yards to where she fell dead. That is pretty astonishing. I picked her up to move her to a more desirable position to gut her, and as I lifted I heard a "slish-sush" as air sucked in the bullet hole on the off-side. There was a quarter sized hole in the side of this deer. How did she move 20 yards? Double lung.

I seen a doe get shot(small one under 70 lbs)
with a 50 bmg, 750 grain soft point, almost 10k in energy, , shot broad sided at about 50 yards standing still ON VIDEO, she ran about 200 yards, when we got to her there was a hole going thru her shoulders you could have thrown a football thru and not hit anything, the blood trails(in snow) was about 4 ft wide like a paint roller made it!
after seeing that I swear some deer will just RUN dead on there feet, call it adrenaline or what ever, but there was NO heart to be found in her when cleaning her out
and at this point I gave up in the HYPE some claim about this caliber or that bullet Dropping everything in there tracks, some things just RUN after being hit and don't care by what caliber rifle or bullet!

I was sitting in my Cherokee Jeep late morning. I was just parked, both doors open, glassing a three sided bowl shaped depression between two ridges planted with Corn.

I was watching where two farm roads crossed maybe a hundred yards from me. I'd seen a bunch of Deer tracks on that road.

A fork Buck pops out of the Corn maybe fifteen feet from me. That Buck looked left, then right then straight ahead, my guess is all he saw was two patches of light (the open doors) between where he was and where he wanted to go. He almost had his head in the door and I was trying to figure out how to protect myself from those hooves when my dog woke up from the back seat and dissuaded that Deer from diving right through my Jeep.

On the ground probably 20 feet as I see no need to let them get closer. From a tree, I shot a buck five feet from the base. Shot through his antlers when he looked up at me. The stories above are great !!

About 3 yards on a black bear in Colorado with a muzzleloader. Was on a bull heard a branch break behind me looked there was a bear. Shot it in the head.