Moose "wakes up"

[Blk Arrow]

A thread regarding black bear hunting reminded me of this incident a few years back.

Three of us walked up to a moose that my partner had shot. I approached cautiously and poked the barrel of my 30-06 in his right eye. The moose didn't move or blink. My buddy straddles his neck, grabs the base of the antlers and turns the head so we can get a better look. This is when Bullwinkle helps him out by lifting his head so it will be easier to turn. It wasn't that we didn't appreciate the help but at this point it was rather unexpected.

Me putting one in his head to keep him down was not going to happen with my partner in the line of fire. What followed was our best recreation of the Monty Python Rabbit Scene. "Run away, Run Away" Mr. Moose at then put his head down for good.


I know we are not the only ones to experience something like this. So what is your method of approaching a "dead" animal?

[BCJunior]

Same thing you do, just poke it in the eye but I have a story to tell you. My dad told me once that his friend actually put his rifle on the bulls rack to take a picture and the big guy got up and ran off with his rifle! He never did get it back! Yeah though I normally keep the animal in my scope for 2-3 minutes, if I see no motion I will approach slow and then grab a stick and touch the eye.

[308Lover]

We approach a dead moose from behind(clear of the legs) and also do the eye reflex with a stick--then shoot them in the back of the head. I shot one between the eyes at 60 yards. After a full 5 minutes he convulsed and kicked wildly. He didn't know he was dead I guess. LOL LOL

[landphil]

eyes open usually indicates dead, eyes closed means it aint - still better to err on the side of caution when in doubt though

[Mr. Dean]

I wait a full 20 minutes before aproaching. Then I hold back and toss a rock or ???. Then (like Gates) I'll give it a kick in the ass, just to be sure.

[gitnadoix]

They all get one extra right in the brain as soon as I am 10 feet away. If they are moving or not, the way I figure it I owe them that to make sure they are not feeling or thinking anything as soon as I can. It cost me a whole $1 in shells to do so, figure its the least I can do for the poor bugger.

[tomahawk]

I wait a full 20 minutes before aproaching. Then I hold back and toss a rock or ???. Then (like Gates) I'll give it a kick in the ass, just to be sure.

I do the same as well. Always approaching from behind the animal when I can see where it is lying and try to approach it from the opposite side that the lags are laying. That way if it does try to get up it is away from me and more time to react.

[brotherjack]

I just shoot 'em straight in the first place, and they're already dead before I get over to em. :mrgreen:


But seriously, like has already been said - I approach carefully, and do the poke in the eye and kick it a few times from a position that would allow me to avoid taking any physical abuse if the critter started thrashing around.

However, I do have a kind of related story. A couple years back The Wife(tm) shot a deer high in both shoulders severing the spine right at the major nerve centre there. The deer went down in his tracks, tongue hanging out, etc. We went over and poked it in the eye. No response. Kicked it a time or two, no response. Yahoo!

About the time we had it opened up stem to stern, and were on the home stretch of getting the guts out of it, the critter started twitching. Not enough to move around or anything, but we could distinctly see/feel the muscles rippling and twitching on their own. It lasted about 10 seconds, and then repeated about 30 seconds later. Now, I'm 100% sure that deer was already dead (the heart/lungs/guts were laying on the ground beside it already, and it had been a good 10 minutes since the wife shot it), but that was a pretty creepy feeling there for a few seconds.

[srupp]

Hers a biology 101 sports fans...it takes MUSCLES and ligaments and tendons and "VOLINTARY OR INVOLINTARY due to the autonamic nervous system to cause an animal to close their eyes or blink..its something that the brain must cause the animal to do ....

sooooo IF the animals eyes are closed..its doing something either volintarily..highly unlikely after being shot...or involintarily..through that autonamic nervous system...the animal is STILL ALIVE..

A dead animal has no volintary or autonamic nervous system so its eyes will be open....

class..any questions ???

Steven:tongue:

[tomahawk]

Hers a biology 101 sports fans...it takes MUSCLES and ligaments and tendons and "VOLINTARY OR INVOLINTARY due to the autonamic nervous system to cause an animal to close their eyes or blink..its something that the brain must cause the animal to do ....

sooooo IF the animals eyes are closed..its doing something either volintarily..highly unlikely after being shot...or involintarily..through that autonamic nervous system...the animal is STILL ALIVE..

A dead animal has no volintary or autonamic nervous system so its eyes will be open....

class..any questions ???

Steven:tongue:


Agree Srupp except that a live animal also can have its eyes open while it lies there feeling the effects of the shot so must be approached with caution and safety.

[hillclimber]

After i shoot an animal i normally wait a couple minutes and then i'll go up to him and poke him in the eye. Then i slit his throat and after that he shoudld'nt be getting up

[CanuckShooter]

A dead animal has no volintary or autonamic nervous system so its eyes will be open....
Steven:tongue:

Follow that rule and it's just a matter of time before you get a reeeaaal big surprise!!!!! DON'T listen to this one class, the teacher is wrong!!

[ryanb]

I don't think it's so much that an animal with its eyes open is dead, rather an animal that has its eyes closed is ALIVE. Of course an animal with its eyes open could be alive, otherwise there must be a lot of zombie animals out there.

[Deerwhacker]

Hmm personally I do the redneck yeeee haaaw when i see him dead then I run over and grab the antlers and straddle the animal confident of any shot ive taken. ive only been doing this for a few years so if i keep it up ill have a hilarious story to tell in no time:biggrin:.

[Sitkaspruce]

A few years ago, while guiding these two oldtimers from Washington, we happened to have a fun thing happen. I was calling in a bull moose when he appeared on a ridge. I asked one guy to range him, he whispers "391 yards".
I whisper to the shooter, "he is 391 yards away"
BOOM!!! off goes his gun.
WTF!!!! I yell as the moose turns A$$ too.
'Do not shoot' I yell as I hear him jack another round.
After about a min, the moose walks off. I start yelling at the shooter that the next time he does something like that, we go home.
We go to where the moose was standing, and find no sign of anything.
I let out another call and hear a bull grunting on the other side of the ridge. I keep looking for about 30 min, all the while the moose is grunting away. When I determine that the first shot is a miss, we move on the the gunting bull.
I spot him about 80 yards away and can only see the top half of the moose and he is moving. I point him out the the shooter and...yup you guessed it....BOOM
The moose drops and I can see one antler thrashing in the tall grass. It takes us about 15 min to reach the moose, when we get there he is still alive and trying to get up. I tell him to shoot him in the neck at the base of the skull...BOOM once more and the moose stiffens and its legs do the thrashing that is the usuall sign of a brain dead animal. We wait a few minutes and when the moose does not move when I kick it, we congrats each other and shake hands. I decide to go get the truck and other client as the shooter is out of ammo and I do not like dealing with an animal in G bear country with out my gun.
When we get back the moose, I notice a moose bedded down at the smae time I see my dog go running up to it. The moose gets up and chases my dog, which starts to run around in a circle. I yell for some one to shoot the moose, a gun goes off the moose falls over. I walk up and poke it eye and determine it is dead.
While dealing with the moose, we see that the first shot hit it in the lower left leg, missing the bone, the second was too hight just bruising the spine, the third missed everthing, but did some serious damage to the neck muscles and such, the fourth was behind the shoulder and was the only one that did the real damage.
Lesson learned, always poke an animal in the eye or do something to ensure that the animal was dead. It also shows how damn tough an animal can be.

[mwj]

one time i had to trackdown a whitetail, when i caught up it was almost done. i put one in it's head which made the horns touch if ya know what i mean. i took my time taking off my pack and jacket ect. i had leaned my rifle(empty chamber) on a handy tree about 20 feet away. i took my knife out and grabbed that deer by the back leg. well you wouldn't believe it that deer kicked and kicked and then kicked some more it finally kicked its way over to my rifle and kicked it over and then you guessed it, he kicked again. dam deer cracked the front lens of my scope. i'm super cautious now!

[Phreddy]

I know we are not the only ones to experience something like this. So what is your method of approaching a "dead" animal?


Verrrrrrrrry carefully.

[358mag]

extra 250gr Nolser between the eyes or behind the ear at 15 ft sure makes it a done deal

[quadrakid]

fellow i know on quadra dropped a nice buck and was none to careful approaching it, he figured it to be dead for sure as it dropped like a sack of you know what. as he straddled it to cut the neck like some folks do it became quickly apparent said buck was very much in the game.that buck had his rack right between big jim and the twins,picked this fellow right up and tossed him this guy is over six feet and well over two hundred lbs. this was an island blacktail,hate to have a moose pull that one.as he told me this story he dropped his drawers to show me the gores in his thighs,could have been a lot worse!

[Blk Arrow]

Lesson learned, always poke an animal in the eye or do something to ensure that the animal was dead. It also shows how damn tough an animal can be.

The moose I poked in the eye had both eyes open when we approached. He didn't track us with his eyes and never blinked as we came in. I've used an extra bullet to head on more than one occasion to make sure an animal was indeed deceased. It was the only time I've had anything like that happen. Apparently he wasn't quite dead enough when we got to him.

[rishu_pepper]

fellow i know on quadra dropped a nice buck and was none to careful approaching it, he figured it to be dead for sure as it dropped like a sack of you know what. as he straddled it to cut the neck like some folks do it became quickly apparent said buck was very much in the game.that buck had his rack right between big jim and the twins,picked this fellow right up and tossed him this guy is over six feet and well over two hundred lbs. this was an island blacktail,hate to have a moose pull that one.as he told me this story he dropped his drawers to show me the gores in his thighs,could have been a lot worse!

Don't know how much worse you can get after seeing this! :eek::lol:

The first/only deer I've bagged so far, after being "finished" off at a few paces by a nice slug in the forehead still kicked his legs hard for a good minute!

[livingston]

Heres one for ya I found on Youtube

http://youtube.com/watch?v=biAfNz2lLAc

[hunter1947]

When you get up to the animal ,just give it a swift kick in the back ,if he moves jump back and be ready http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/images/icons/icon12.gif.

[Stone Sheep Steve]

I heard a good story of a grizzly bear in a taxidermy shop in downtown Calgary:eek:.


SSS

[Blk Arrow]

Heres one for ya I found on Youtube

http://youtube.com/watch?v=biAfNz2lLAc

Insert 1 large moose, 3 guys and you pretty much have it. I don't recall any of city girl scream though.:mrgreen: