Shot/Shot at while hunting?

R

rc_racer_007

New member
i have always wondered this, even more so now that im hunting public land.

this may seem like a off the wall question but like i said i have always wondered.

if your setting there huntingand you get shot at or even worst shot and are still able to move and such can you legally shot back to defend yourself? :eek: :confused:

?
 
Better be careful. If you believe you were shot on purpose or fear being shot again you may have to shoot back to defend yourself. Just don't make one big mistake, turn into two.
Yell out that you have been shot and need help.
I would base my decision on their reaction to my yelling.

You should NEVER shoot into a bush!
Know WHAT you are shooting at and your BACKGROUND!

I have heard of cases out were a hunter was shot and killed.
In some cases shot and left for dead.
I believe the shooter (also a hunter) accidently shot the hunter thinking he was an animal.
Then fled when he found out it was a person.
 
I share your "fear" if that is the right word for it. I will be trying out the public land scene this coming deer season. I have bow hunted the area for many years but never been up there during firearm season. I just plan to be elevated, either up on a hill side or in a tree so that a shot into a bush by an uneducated/careless hunter has less of a chance of hitting me. I know the area pretty well back there so I go a lot deeper into the woods than your average weekend warrior so hopefully that gives me a bit of an advantage.
 
For what it's worth, IIRC, the risk of being shot is greatest while turkey hunting. For obvious reasons. The hunter is camouflaged, hidden in the bushes, and making sounds like a turkey. That always seemed like an invitation to get shot, to me.

The second greatest risk of being shot is when hunting in a group, by a member of your group. That should encourage us to be aware of where everyone is.

That aside, I always wear lots of hunter orange.
 
yeah i dont want you all on here think I have a terrible mindset by thinking this but i am being serious. im not out for blood. and i agree with what westphoenix said. its just i wanted opinions on this icnase my safety wa threated one day. you know iwouldnt want to stand idely (sp?) by if something like i mentioned would ever play out. maybe just firing a shot in the air would spook the guy enough.


I agree with turkey season being the most unsafe time. I wear orange all the time i am gun hunting, except when im turkey hutning. i mean when im setting there,,, walking aorund ill put on my orange while turkey hunting.
 
I read a story about a woman who had killed a deer and was walking up hill with the head or something on her back, mind you POINTED DOWN THE HILL, but moving up it, and someone took a shot at her. She shot back. How stupid do you have to be to take a shot a deer with two denim clad legs moving uphill backwards?
 
I have been shot at and returned fire! (LONG)

It was about 6 yrs. ago and I was deer hunting during the MI firearm season. The idiot doing the shooting, was intentionally trying to hit me!

I know it was intentional because he was yelling for me to leave his property, and as the property I was on was at least 800yds. away from his line and owned by my grandfather...I stayed put.

The problem with this is I was in a blind about the size of a portajohn.:(
His first shot peppered the door of the blind with buckshot...thankfully he was about 100 yds. away and the shot only caught in the door.

At this point I ask him as I am outside the blind with the entire blind between his shot and my self,(I hoped) just what in the !@#$ he thought he was doing. When he proceeded to fire again, thus turning my blind into something resembling a wooden strainer. At this point the only cover available was a stand of trees 200yds away, which would place me in a 20-30 proximity to the BG.

Not only am I scared beyond beleif I am good an mad as well, I scream for him to stop shooting and let me go. He instead fires two more times! Now I am not mad, in my mind I must fight for my life. I fire the first slug out of my 12 ga. in his direction and he stops, looks about 5 yds to his left at the dust cloud and fires in my direction for a fifth time.

I don't know how intelligent my next thought was but here it is:
"Your 15 if you want to live to 16 fire back.":o
At this point I unload the remaining 4 shells in my 12ga. semi in his direction missing him completely....much to my releif.

At this point I take off at a deadbolt run, figuring if I'm out of shells so is he. So, I run and reload(Amazing what you can do without thinking isn't it?) I run the 500 or so yards to the grandparents house and in the calmest and cleanest english I can manage explain the situation.

We call the sheriff and he arrives, simultaneously another sheriff arrived at the neighbor/BG's house...Apparently he had called the police stating that I had shot 3 holes into his home!:barf: By this point I've had time to compose myself and stop shaking, and I walk the sheriff out and show him the remnants of the blind I was in and were exactly we were both standing.

Come to find out the BG was on drugs,(Crack) and had been declared criminally insane but was not taking his medication.
As if this new information was supposed to make me feel better.:confused:

Anyhow, the cops ruled my actions justified...and the BG did time in an asylum for 6 months and got probation for shooting at me.:mad:
They told me "He won't receive charges for attempted murder, because he was clinically insane at the time"

The officers told me to be more careful with the choice of background next time!;) I told him at the time...surviving was of a greater concern than some property damage.
 
you shoot gobbles while turkey hunting, not yelps. i guess there are a lot of nitwits out there though. i've turkey hunted for the past two years on public land. heard a few distant gunshots but never even seen anyone else parking at any of my spots. maybe i'm just lucky. but yea, i'd say that's where you'd be most likely to get it accidentally, especially when the gobblers and jakes are being gregarious. you could have two guys set up on the same group on the opposite ends of a field and one could eat some pellets if he's in the wrong place. no way to know 100%. the lucky thing is some 5-shot at 50 or 60 yards is not going to do the damage a shotgun slug would, but it's still a risk.

it does stun me the stuff that happens though. i've never been ready to shoot at anything that i wasn't beyond 100% sure of. someone could lace my breakfast with psychadelics and i'd still be perfectly sure i was shooting the critter my tag indicated. i'm always just awestruck that not everyone is like that.

helluva story by the way anthony.
 
Wear as much blaze orange as possible. If someone shoots at you, you should yell, scream, wave your arms around as much as possible while on your way to seek cover.

If your covered in blaze orange, screaming and waving your arms around and someone is still taking shots at you..... They deserve some return fire.
 
I was sitting on a tailgate once with a logger talking about deer and how they would walk the firelanes. My sixteen year old son, blonde hair and wearing a tan shirt, was approaching from the on a firelane patially hidden from us by the thick myrtle bushes. The logger, older with fading eyesight and I both noticed the movement on the firelane and coloration consistent with a deer. I knew what it was immediately, but the logger did not. "There's one now" he said. It was a shot I felt the logger probably would have made throgh the bushes with just a partial view of the target instead of waiting for the "deer" to reach the clearing. What else could it be but a deer, right? It was Saturday, and the crew was off and we were in the middle of nowhere. Good thing he had a chainsaw in hand and not a gun.
 
HangFire83- Right on the northern border of Lapeer and Sanilac counties. If I can get the scanner fixed and running soon I'll post the headline from the newspaper.:)

casingpoint- That's got to be a rough feeling, especially being the parent of the "deer" Glad it turned out alright.:cool:
 
I brushed on the topic in the Blaze-orange thread, but here's the story. I was about 100 yds below the top of an open saddle leaning against a rock, enjoying the afternoon sun, and snacking on a sandwich. I'd watched a herd of elk cross in that saddle without fail for weeks and knew the pressure of hunters on the other side ought to give me a guarantee of getting my bull. So I'm noticing a white pick-up pull up and stop about 500 yds away at the base of the hill, and two guys get out. Hmm... Must have had the same idea. Next thing I know, they're back by the tailgate and I hear the report of a rifle shot---in MY direction. Two thoughts crossed my mind: A) the elk came into view and I hadn't noticed, and B) I'm between the rifles below and the elk above... Not good. Now, to give you a little detail on the terrain--the entire hillside was bald--not a single tree within 300 yards of where I was. There was fresh snow on the ground. This means my orange vest and cap would have shown up like a pimple on the prom queen against the stark-white hillside. This also means I would have seen the elk (had they been there) before the idiots below me could have---the only thing on that hillside was me, and a few rocks--and though the rocks were great to conceal me from the top of the hill, they did nothing to hide me from below looking up. At the second shot I was moving to find a better rock to get behind (or at least be a moving target)--not sure where it hit. Their third shot skipped off the rocks where I had been eating not more than 30 seconds earlier. There was NOTHING up there for them to be shooting at but ME, and enough was enough. I put my first round through the driver's side door up by the mirror, and the other through the lower corner of the windshield right about where the steering column and guages were. The two idiots were hiding somewhere behind the rear of the bed. After a couple minutes they scrambled into the truck, and left in a big hurry. All desire to wait for my bull spoiled for the afternoon, I hiked back to my own truck and left. On the way out I stopped at a check-station and inquired about a white truck with two guys that might have come out a little ahead of me. No sign of them--go figure. But I informed the Game Warden they'd been taking pot-shots at me, where I'd been, and that he'd probably find what's left of my lunch at the base of a rock with a big lead splatter if he wanted to check it out. An hour later and after explaining the whole thing, I was sent on my way and all the area check-stations were looking for two guys in a white pick-up with "body damage" for questioning.

Never heard anything more from it. All I can say is I'm lucky they couldn't shoot, and they're damned lucky I wasn't vindictive enough to go ahead and drop them before they could get in the truck when they were trying to leave.
 
bow hunting on my parents land shot at by poacher

About 10 years ago I was on my dad's land during bow season about a week before rifle season opened up in South Dakota(he owns 500 acres in all 5 directions of where I was so there was no mistaking I was on his land). In South Dakota you do not have to wear orange when bow hunting, but is encouraged (especially during rifle season when the two overlap). I was in complete camo and was moving slowly through some cedar and scraggly oak trying to cut off a couple of whitetails on the other side of a long draw, all of a sudden I hear a gun shot and the ground about 6 feet in front of me (he shot short) kicks up. I instantly yelled to quit shooting and then I hear a guy yelling he was sorry and I really should be wearing orange. Now, after regaining my composure and making sure I wouldn't whack the guy with my bow I walk over to where he is at and ask him what he's doing. He says he was coyote hunting (noticed he had an old enfield and that ain't no yote gun) and looking for a good spot for deer hunting. I told him this was private property (didn't tell him it was my dads) and he said he had permission to be there (knew he was lying, because I dad onyl let me hunt on his land). I let the subject drop and I said happy hunting and I quickly got back to my truck. I called the game warden (also a reserve deputy) who is a friend of the family and we met the guy at his truck (only 2 places to park and walk into my dads land and since he wasn't where I was parked that left one other place). The guy had his gun confiscated, a 500 fine, lost hunting privleges for a couple of years, and my dad pressed tresspasing charges on the guy.

If the guy would have kept shooting, there is not much I could have done with a bow at almost 75 yards in heavy brush. Best bet would have been to run for cover and make it back to my truck and call the cops and get out of there.
 
#1 - Father & son in the Sierra foothills. They stumbled into a Marijuana garden and were engaged with small arms fire. Son was wounded, pretty seriously as I recall. Father got son out & to medical treatment. Local LE subsequently identified those responsible for the grow. We got involved as he lived in our county.

#2 - Missing person reported after either a hiking or hunting trip. His vehicle was found, his path retraced and his remains found in a marijuana garden. Cause of death was gunsot wounds.
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Yeah but, correct me if I'm wrong, hikers and backpackers etc. cannot carry firearms, even concealed, in national and state parks and forests in CA. I'm thinking of buying smoke grenades to take backpacking.
 
Yeah but, correct me if I'm wrong, hikers and backpackers etc. cannot carry firearms, even concealed, in national and state parks and forests in CA.
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Maybe that's why the growers prefer California ;) .

Seriously "fields o' plenty" are a problem all over the country, and the armed guards aren't the only things to worry about. Growers use booby traps as well, and some of them are pretty sophisticated.

One that we've encountered and reportedly has its roots in CA is a 12 ga. booby trap using a piece of steam pipe, a rat trap for a hammer, and a nail for a firing pin. Fishing line goes across trail to trap's trigger, trap goes off driving nail into 12 ga. round primer that's inserted into pipe. Simple, effective, and very, very nasty.
 
<Best bet would have been to run for cover and make it back to my truck and call the cops and get out of there>

A cell phone is the best line of defense these days. I carry concealed without permit 24/7. Also by calling 911 and making a recorded message to the operator, you start building a credible defense from square one.



<hikers and backpackers etc. cannot carry firearms, even concealed, in national and state parks and forests in CA>

You might get by with a naval flare gun on the pretense of carrying it to signal distress. Put one of those into the center of mass and see what happens.
 
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