Ok, so we have a guy on our lease who consistently seems to injure a couple of deer every season(usually found by buzzards). I'm personally getting tired of this guy because I seem to be his clean up crew. I had to burn a buck tag on a "nasty shooter" spike that he injured in November. I then ended up shooting a young buck that someone else injured with an arrow in mid December(who knows who shot at it). It was a great buck but I shot it because of the infected injury. This guy is well liked by everyone and is a terrific individual, yet he cant shoot. how do I approach him with out offending this old timer?

We have the same place on the pecking order at the lease because we joined the same year. I've been hunting this property my entire life as a guest(paid for three years now) and have a serious interest in heard management.

This is like deja vu all over again... we had the EXACT same problem on a lease I was on. Greatest guy in the world but just couldn't shoot. We spent more time tracking wounded deer (and many times for naught as we would find em dead or wandering around wounded)for him than it should have been.

We finally just brought him the facts, that he obviously had issues when shooting deer because of all the wounded and "lost" animals. When he shoots on paper, he is pretty consistent 2 to 3 inch groups at a hundered yards. Where he hunts most of the time, he could shoot no more than 140 yards...so we figured it was nerves.

We simply encouraged him to take more time before shooting...hold the crosshairs on the deer for longer....take a deep breath and then begin squeezing the trigger instead of pulling it or jerking it.

He decided to spend more time at the range working on holding the shot for longer periods. The following year it seemed to work as he started dropping the deer with good shots. Luckily for us this was a good guy and knew there was a problem...

I feel your pain. I know some well liked terrific individuals who have terrible hunting ethics. I obviously have no answer.

Does he lack skills? Can he see? Or does he just not care? You say old timer, how many hunting years does he have left? Take all these things into consideration before you make the decision to approach him. We have several older hunters on our place in their 70s. Ones 79. Ones terminal with cancer. I do not agree with these guys but I would NEVER step on their toes. If I have a problem with the way they hunt its my problem.

He is in his early seventies....I'm twenty six. I understand my place in the seniority/respect position and respect it ALWAYS.

Every time this happens he says it must be his gun. I cant exactly grab his gun and shoot it for my own satisfaction. Three years and six-seven deer later with one confirmed kill under his belt is excessive.

I will probably keep quiet and let someone else break the silence who is closer to his age. many old timers do not want to be lectured by anyone my age.

I have two that I am on a lease with that we are always tracking something.

Your are paying for the lease so you have some decisions to make. I chose to keep my place. Enjoy their company and knowledge. And make their last hunting years enjoyable for them if I can.

I'm 38 your 26. Barring castastrophe we have time. They dont. We had one older guy get mad and leave the lease because of an opinion of a younger member. He is done. Probably for life. And he was wrong. But im still glad I am not the one who brought it to an end for him.

As a group maybe one thing you all do together before the season is ensuring everyone is hunting with a properly sighted gun. Before my brother comes out hunting I allways check out his rife lol.

Don't tip toe around the issue you're both grown men, tell him he can't shoot worth a flip and offer to go to the range with him an see if you can help him out.

Anytime an issue comes up at our lease, all the other hunters sit around and whine about it. I'm always the one that just steps up and puts the issue out in the open. Maybe I'm just rude, but it always gets resolved.

If he's in his 70s I wouldn't say a word.

could you possibly hunt with him? i always enjoy stories from the "old timers" wheather they were true or not... maybe just sitting with him early during the season and if given the opportunity try to help him through the first couple moments of the shot. if anything maybe you can see what he is doing and casually make a suggestion?

[quote=RICK O'SHAY) Maybe I'm just rude, but it always gets resolved. [/quote]

if i could just get my wife to understand that.....

Ya that would be a good idea to have everyone bring their weapon of choice down during work weekend. That way I wouldn't have to single him out. My Dad and I are the only serious bow hunters down there so I know the grazed ten point I shot this year must have been shot at by a neighbor.

We are all friends down there and everything is communal.

Have you ever checked his bow weight?

He may be trying to pull more than he is capable which is a problem a lot of younger bowhunters have.

They can shoot all day hitting paper, but after sitting a long while you get stiff and with the excitment of the shot on a live animal you can't quite get that arrow back.

Have him practice with you and maybe suggest letting up on his draw weight.

You can check that by having him draw and see how long he can hold the weight before he has to shoot, and if he can't hold it back for a full minute it is too heavy.

I taught an older gentleman in his late 70's to shoot a bow and be successful, so I'm talking from some experience!

If he's not accurate with the rifle you need to do the same thing and check it out for him to make sure it's zeroed and he knows how to shoot the rifle.

Maybe nobody ever took the time to show him the proper way, and he may appreciate your concern and help!

Just buy him a 10ga @ box of buck and dont go anywhere near his stand. With out calling first.

Unfortunately, some Sr. citizens cannot accept that their eyesight is going bad or that their reflexes aren't what they used to be or that they can't hold Ol' Betsy steady as they once did. Just as some Sr.'s cannot accept the fact that they no longer need to drive. Problem is-I could never personally say anything to him. Does he have a close friend or relative on the club? Seems like he would to have gotten on it at that age. I would approach them and see if they would bring it up to him. Good luck.

Pull him to the side and do it man to man. Dont do it in front of anyone, dont want to embarass him.

I went through it in my early 20's. as a kid and a teenager, i could shoot a nats arse off at 200, but then i lost it. Dont know what happened, but i started missing and wounding deer. At that age though, i felt worse about it than anyone, so i fixed it myself. Got a gun i liked, was confident in, and shot more at the range. Now i feel like i can shoot like i used too.

I just dont know if the elderly gentleman would take it like that, but i bet he would work on it if you just spoke to him man to man.

If the man wounds a deer, it should
Count as one of his tags.

It's a deer. He's an old man who has given to society all his life. Let him hunt and learn how to track better.

I would offer to help him. A brother of a good friend of mine just started hunting last year at the age of 51. He went hunting with his brother for the first time and dropped a doe in her tracks with his first shot, thirty minutes after getting into the stand. After that, he shot and missed or wounded three or four deer before recovering another. His brother kept trying to help him but it did not improve.


This year, he started out the same way. He shot a buck on opening morning. I told him to stay in his stand and my son and I would help him track the deer. When we got there, he had already gotten down and jumped the deer and could not tell us where it went. We tried tracking, but never found a drop of blood after he jumped it from it's bed. I gave him a hard time about it but dropped it.

The next morning he shot at two does and I convinced him to stay in his stand. When I got there, he had taken shots at deer at 250 and 300 yards. He gave me terrible information on where the deer had been standing and where the deer had gone after the shot. My son did eventually find some blood fifty yards away from where he had said the first deer had been standing and we eventually recovered it. The other we had to assume was a loss, because he did not take into account the drop of his bullet at 300 yards, since he was zeroed for 100 yards. Knowing that sooner or later some of the other lease members would get pissed, I let him have it. I explained to him that normally he would be a teenager and the yelling would come from his dad, but that he would have to listen to me. I was really tough on him and did a lot of cursing at him, and told him he was shooting entirely too far for his experience level. I offered him some shooting tips, the most important being that if his crosshairs were moving on the deer, don't pull the trigger. We both left the conversation as friends and the last two deer he shot he dropped in their tracks. He was simply a new hunter that was getting buck fever no matter what size deer it was. I feel like me giving him a hard time was the best thing I ever did for him. I suggest maybe taking a little more tact in dealing with this older fellow on your lease, but offer to help him or maybe even sit with him.

+1 like we all havent wounded deer. it happens

True BUT even a 150 year old man is repsonsible for his own actions, as long as he is mentally competent. The tag should still come from him and he should be responsible for tracking it.

If nobody wants to talk to the guy about it or if he flat out refuses to listen then maybe next year, the land owner can institute a new policy regarding it so the problem is guaranteed not to persist. It would not be an unfair policy to say if you don't bring back more than, say, half the animals you shoot at, you can't renew your lease next year. That's not the exact answer for you, just an idea for a compromise. I'm sure you'll be able to create something that suites your specific situation.

Incompetence is incompetence at any age. Wounded nonrecovered deer are a wasted resource that deserve better than to suffer. You have to speak to him or have someone else on your lease speak with him. Be respectful of your elder and use tact but take care of the problem.

I wounded one deer ever, felt awful when we couldn't find it.

Thanks for all the support and advice. I got way more response than I thought I would from this question. Thank God the old man is not a bow hunter or we would be in serious trouble. The lease is one of those places where a new spot only opens up if someone dies or falls off the face of the Earth.

I am blessed with the fortunate ability to hunt with my Dad on such a beautiful piece of the Junction hill country.

Believe it or not, three years ago we had a man named "Mr. Frank" shoot his last deer at the ripe old age of 99. He died shortly after and we still leave a seat for him at the table and left his favorite stand up to honor him. We even mounted his deer and put it above the fireplace. So needless to say......respect is given where needed.

I will propose to the ranch manager that everyone bring down their weapon of choice for a pre-season gun check during work weekend.

"Incompetence is incompetence" --Sirrah243

You say Hill Country?? Hell, that's the problem... The target animals are too small... LOL



Just kidding of course.. I lost the first deer of my life last Saturday.... I'm still torn up over it. And will be searching for him again tomorrow morning.