I Know This Is LRH... But What Is The Shortest Distance You Have Taken A Live Target?

[Pastor Gun.zales]

Poked a gun barrel through a small cedar and pulled the trigger at 6 inches or so on a doe

I'm loving all of the responses, but this one has to be a record almost!

 

[Chadp82]

I've taken two deer with a truck. I had to get pretty close.

Aside from that 20- 30 yards. A couple deer with a bow and one at about 30 with a muzzleloader.

I had a bull elk come into my calls at 5 yds, but he wasn't legal. It was pretty intense though!

 

[belldar]

Shot raccoons a couple times with the coon in one hand and the pistol in the other while pulling them off dogs or out of combines.
Many coyotes within 10 yards. Not in traps.
Hand to hand combat with a family of skunks when I ran out of ammo.
Some hand to hand or point blank with other critters(porkys, beaver, badgers, rattlers,)
Deer plenty close enough that I didn't have to aim.

Close is easy. You just have to be fast and/or stealthy. Not sure I have much of either of those anymore but I still get critters closer than I need.

 

[Longtine88]

I built this for a grizzly hunt but the Covid pandemic hit and my trip got canceled

****!!!! Balls of steel there jack. Your gonna get a man crush going on with all these guys

That's some crazy **** right there

 

[Recon$$]

9 yards; red fox with a bow.

 

[Jon Bischof]

You guys are amateurs in ESRH. I have killed several critters with clubs and some with bare hands and swung their heads up against tree trunks. Three different creatures with that method. Never killed one with knife or spear but that's only because I didn't want to splash blood on my clothes. But you don't have that problem with a good piece of hickory.

 

[Pastor Gun.zales]

Hand to hand combat with a family of skunks when I ran out of ammo.

@belldar You can't just say "hand to hand combat with a family of skunks" and not finish the story! How many, how long did it take for the stink to wear off? Does skunk cover scent scare off deer? C'mon man, we need the rest of the story hahahaha

 

[338 dude]

Didn't think about it earlier, but I've taken several hogs with a pig sticker. ( knife and dogs)

 

[Panhandlin Pat]

I was out trying to shoot some pigs some years back close to Palo duro. Was wearing my dirty blue jeans and flannel shirt, who knows what I'd done that day! I took a trail that dipped off to the rim of the canyon, then snaked around to a game trail that fell off to a shelf a few feet down. I took a few steps past some cedar, and heard something big down the trail raking a tree. There were four of us that day, the others were 30-50 yards behind me, and I remember one was taking a leak. I took a few more steps and slipped over a bit, rifle at the ready. There I came face to face with a big aoudad! I centered my reticle on what I thought was his throat and snapped a shot off. He collapsed without a quiver! 308 with a 168 grain amax penetrated out from his brisket to his hind quarter. Bullet fell out while I was caping him. I couldn't believe it. We'd seen those things before but they were incredibly wary. Couldn't believe I'd killed one feet away (I'm guessing 10 or 11) wearing dirty farm clothes while my buddy was ****ing.

 

[belldar]

@belldar You can't just say "hand to hand combat with a family of skunks" and not finish the story! How many, how long did it take for the stink to wear off? Does skunk cover scent scare off deer? C'mon man, we need the rest of the story hahahaha

Was working on selling a vehicle we had sitting by the road. Out of the trees a family of 8 skunks emerged. Ran to dads house(closer house) and grabbed a shotgun. Only found two shells but two skunks went down as they crossed the highway. Out came my lucky NAA Black Widow and got another 3 with that at almost point blank range due to the mid thigh high grass. Well by this time I had taken more than enough perfume pummeling so the last 2 I could find got the River dance treatment. Walked home and was forced to strip in front of the garage. I mixed up a batch of my dogs skunk treatment(baking soda, dawn, peroxide) and gave myself a driveway bath before I was allowed in the house to shower. At least the dogs didn't find them. That is the most involved skunk story I have. Unfortunately I have many more where I striped in front of my garage.

 

[Fullbore92]

On a late muzzleloader cow elk hunt, my buddy and I had been trying to chase a small herd all morning in just under two feet of snow but couldn't catch up. (Elk are a lot better at pushing through snow than we were.) My buddy decided to work smarter and not harder by meeting back at the truck and driving around to the opposite side of the long and steep hill they were headed up. We parked and split up. He went right and I went left. It was less than 10 minutes later and all hell broke loose. Just to my right I hear BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Where the hell did these guys come from? No other trucks nearby, no one else had been on this herd. In the distance I hear my buddy giving some kind words to the other guys for shooting directly towards him. He said he heard the bullets scream over his head. During all the chaos, a cow walked right up to me as I was making my way back towards my buddy. She was between 9 to 11 yards away, facing directly at me. I quickly shouldered my rifle and put one on the center of her chest. Once the smoke cleared, she was piled up around 20 yards away. While notching my tag, I heard something moving fast towards me. I thought it was just going to be my friend but it was 2 guys I'd never seen running towards the road. Wearing camo but no rifles? I was confused. I did find some lead bullets in the hind quarters that were smaller than my .45 cal bullet. Maybe those guys used some sort of pistols? Wasn't legal if they did obviously. Bullet pictures for size comparison.

 

[dmj]

Couple elk during calling sessions with my son. Killed a bull at 7 yards. Another one at approximately 4 yards. My son Killed a bull at 6 yards and a cow, I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure the arrow had to hit the cow before it left his bow. I was cow talking and using a hyper hot type call and this elk came right down the trail he was standing on. I was approximately 15 yards behind him on the same trail. He stepped out of the elks way and released the arrow as it went by. Sort of self defense.

 

[HARPERC]

Opposite side of log I was using as a rest for a longer shot, showed up on top of me. Pretty young, very excited. Probably could have poked him with muzzle. Young and stupid tried to use scope (4x Unertl), couldn't figure which end of deer I was looking at. Raised above his back the lowered where I thought I ought to be.

Got splatter on hat, after so many CSI shows I should have looked for powder burns.

 

[LVJ76]

For me, javelina at around 12 or 13 yards. They were running straight at us, when we popped up right in front of them they split, I shot one as he passed by me. I remember just aiming at the head, didn't need to lead him at all, especially with a 140gr Ballistic Tip screaming at over 3,200 fps out of my 7mm Rem Mag.