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Woman shot in Wisconsin...

unfortunate that this happened. I have a friend who is a sheriff officer. At the time he was working homicide. They got a call 1 early morning a hunter had been shot. Turns out 2 hunters seen a deer on a pipeline. The “ shooter “ said he had no idea the other guy was on the pipeline with him. The victim was hit with a 30-06 round and lived. My friend said “ he will never hunt public lands”.
Y’all stay safe and look what’s behind your target
 
Almost exactly the same happened in Finland few years ago. Buy those damn binoculars and use them. Never even point the gun at anything you haven't identified 100% first. It's a good idea to wear bright colors, but not being shot accidentally should never be the responsibility of anyone but the person holding the firearm.
 
Yes, the story seems poorly written and so the details are not exactly clear. After watching a few of Dan Infalt's videos on Wisconsin gun season I would not be out there without full body florescent orange and level 4 body armor with a trauma plate front and back.

Around here, on the ground in the woods (public or private) I have on orange. I hate wearing orange with a passion. We have obscenely long firearms seasons and since it is the easiest weapon to master and has the longest reach of course it appeals to the lowest common denominator of deer hunter. There are some very skilled rifle hunters, don't get me wrong, but for every one that is good there are likely hundreds that probably should not be operating an electric can opener, much less a rifle.

We had an old fella on that club i used to be in. He hunted out of his truck (pretty sure highly illegal). He would ride the roads and park in a bend, roll down the window and put the barrel of his rifle out. He'd sit there and chain smoke until he got tired. He shot anything that crossed the road, fawn, doe, spike, buck, you name it. I asked my friend about him since he lived out there. I wanted to know about the guy. Apparently, he had not reverted to this in old age. My buddy said he had been hunting like this since he started driving, probably at about 12 or 13. He was in his mid to late 70's at this point.

This guy was definitely in the piled high club.
 
I think anyone who shoots or shoots at another person should absolutely never own another hunting lic. or firearm in this country. As someone already stated, binos are not that pricey, Use them. If you are caught checking out another person through your rifle scope, I'm sorry but you should be on the other end of a good beating...JMO.
 
Statistically speaking things like this are going to happen. I think I heard or read, and I may be wrong, that there are 1 million gun hunters in Wisconsin alone. One million people going morning and evening for ever how many days, that's a lot of rolls of the dice. As Sureshotscott mentioned, it happens every year.

The shooter probably had vision issues, add to that low light, dark and brushy woods and something moving around out there, he probably thought it was a deer and shot at movement. There is also a possibility that the shooter was suffering from some sort of age-related cognitive decline and took a shot he would never have dreamed of taking ten years prior.

It's a sad situation for sure but no surprise. Like I said, any activity that involves me being on the ground in the woods during rifle season has me wearing that awful orange.
 
I got shot at on public land.
I was coming up out of the creek bottom. Had on full orange vest and hat, my hand warmer is orange, my backpack cover is orange.
I was coming through the bamboo, I see the bark fly off a tree about 10 yards in from of me. I ran out in to the field so someone would have clear sight of me. When I came out I seen the man on the other side of the field. He had shot his 30-30 about 350 yards across the field. I was pretty upset. When I walked up on him he was trembling telling me how sorry he was that he thought he seen a deer. He was older probably in his seventies. If he would have been younger I’m sure it would have been a physical altercation. I tore in to him pretty bad verbally. I reckon I called him everything but a sewing machine! After I calmed down I felt pretty bad for dog cussing him. Anyways. Now days I don’t brush beat much on public land.


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ImThere said:
I got shot at on public land.
I was coming up out of the creek bottom. Had on full orange vest and hat, my hand warmer is orange, my backpack cover is orange.
I was coming through the bamboo, I see the bark fly off a tree about 10 yards in from of me. I ran out in to the field so someone would have clear sight of me. When I came out I seen the man on the other side of the field. He had shot his 30-30 about 350 yards across the field. I was pretty upset. When I walked up on him he was trembling telling me how sorry he was that he thought he seen a deer. He was older probably in his seventies. If he would have been younger I’m sure it would have been a physical altercation. I tore in to him pretty bad verbally. I reckon I called him everything but a sewing machine! After I calmed down I felt pretty bad for dog cussing him. Anyways. Now days I don’t brush beat much on public land.


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This scares the heck out of me and is why I don’t spend a ton of time during gun season on public here in Michigan. Too many hunters and not enough public.

It’s not you, it’s me
 
MIPublic said:
This scares the heck out of me and is why I don’t spend a ton of time during gun season on public here in Michigan. Too many hunters and not enough public.

It’s not you, it’s me
Click to expand...

It scared me. I think that’s why I got so mad!


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ImThere said:
I got shot at on public land.
I was coming up out of the creek bottom. Had on full orange vest and hat, my hand warmer is orange, my backpack cover is orange.
I was coming through the bamboo, I see the bark fly off a tree about 10 yards in from of me. I ran out in to the field so someone would have clear sight of me. When I came out I seen the man on the other side of the field. He had shot his 30-30 about 350 yards across the field. I was pretty upset. When I walked up on him he was trembling telling me how sorry he was that he thought he seen a deer. He was older probably in his seventies. If he would have been younger I’m sure it would have been a physical altercation. I tore in to him pretty bad verbally. I reckon I called him everything but a sewing machine! After I calmed down I felt pretty bad for dog cussing him. Anyways. Now days I don’t brush beat much on public land.


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Click to expand...
That is so frightening. Wonder how many close calls happen every year.
 
instances like this always blow my mind...its basic hunting safety of ''know your target''. Its scary to think about how many people are out there just shooting at stuff they cant identify. ''i thought it was a deer'' isnt going to bring anyone comfort from you killing their loved one.
 
Man, there’s zero excuse for this kind of stuff. ZERO! No one should even have to wear orange in the woods. I get it, orange helps you see people across long distances where you couldn’t see them otherwise and that you aren’t specifically targeting, but might be behind the target in the further on line of fire….part of that clear your target, then clear the background behind the target. But for someone to purposefully aim their gun at you and shoot you….ZERO excuses!
 
MattMan81 said:
That is so frightening. Wonder how many close calls happen every year.
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I think close calls happen way more than we'd like to think about. It's one of the reasons that I'm not a really active rifle season hunter anymore.

Now I've been hunting a really long time so I expect that I've statistically had more opportunities but I've definitely had some scary encounters. I've directly witnessed myself being scoped on two separate occasions while on stand and wearing very visible hunter orange clothing. Goodness knows how many times its happened that I didn't see it. Both times I, like @ImThere , screamed obscenities while trying to find some cover.

I've had rifles discharged in my direction on two occasions as well. The first someone from my family hunting camp (I don't know who, they never fessed up) was shooting at a running deer on the opposite side of a ravine I was hunting on and their bullets whizzed through the trees above my head. Again I screamed obscenities and ducked. That was the last year I hunted on the family property.

The second time I was set up in a stick built ground blind on a saddle in a small valley and had a guy hurry down through the valley about 20 minutes after legal shooting light noisily dragging a 5 gallon bucket. He walked just out of my sight and I heard him sit down about 75 yds away basically looking at the same ground I was. In the stillness I could hear him chambering and rechambering his rifle several times. Best I could figure he was trying to figure how to have a round chambered and still maintain a full magazine. I decided I was going to wait until he finished screwing with his gun before having an interaction about sitting so close to me. It was a good thing I did. Suddenly I heard a bullet strike the tree 15 yds in front of me and then heard the rifle report. Again, as you can imagine I filled the air with a string of obscenities that would make any sailor proud. I was so mad I all but stomped over to him ready to kick his butt. He looked at me very sheepishly and I said something to the effect of "There's a lot of woods out here and I was here first. Do you think you could find some where else to sit?" (Edited for @redsquirrel). He apologized profusely and started packing his stuff back in his bucket. As I turned to walk away he said "Did you hear that shot from over the hill?" Again I about lost it, there's no way anyone but him fired that round that hit the tree directly in front of me. I told him at that point that the next time he decides to go hunting he should learn how the rifle he's using works before going out. I'm sure that he was finally happy with his loading and decided to check his safety and the accidental discharge almost got me.

While we're here, I have one more close call story to relay that didn't involve me but was told to me by a fellow co-worker when he explained why he didn't rifle hunt anymore. He said he was set up well before legal shooting light and while sitting there he saw a buck on the opposite ridge walk in and bed down. He was using his binoculars and was absolutely sure it was a legal buck against the snowy backdrop regardless of the dim light. He picked up his rifle and sighted the buck in. He says he considered shooting it early but decided to wait for the legal hour. While he had the scope on it the "buck" lit a cigarette. He said the incident scared him so bad he never rifle hunted again. I'm not defending the guy but sometimes our eyes see what they want to see and not what's really there.

For this reason, when I am afield during gun season I always and wearing orange and have a bright headlamp on. It's not time to worry about scaring deer. The season brings too many opportunities for long range mistakes.

One more while I'm working on this novel . . . A few years back I was hunting the late Michigan bow season on public land. As public was only open to archery at the time I was not wearing orange. However, there is a late season private land antlerless season that runs during that time. I was walking in for the afternoon hunt and my outer walking layer was a brown sweatshirt. I came across a young dude carrying a rifle. I asked him if he was coyote hunting and he replied "No, I'm hunting the late season antlerless rifle season." It turned out he didn't know that it was private land only. I could just as easily have been brown and down as talking to the young man. That scarred me enough that I wear orange anytime I'm afield during any open rifle season now even though its not required by law.
 
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