It is the dead ones that kill you

Boela

AH enthusiast
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Richards Bay
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South Africa, England, Wales, Austria, Swaziland, US: Idaho, Alaska
A dirty pants moment for sure!
 
That would spike the adrenaline for sure. Holy cow!
Bruce
 
Neither one of them are carrying their rifles correctly for an approach on an downed animal, let alone a DG animal. At least they approached from a decent angle but this situation could have went horribly bad.
 
Neither one of them are carrying their rifles correctly for an approach on an downed animal, let alone a DG animal. At least they approached from a decent angle but this situation could have went horribly bad.
And one of the most experienced PH’s in Africa.
 
I had an engineer in the Navy who would say "Complacency breeds contempt".
After watching this, I had a flashback of him saying this.

Stay frosty.
Ever vigilant.
 
Yep that was going to be a problem!
 
So as a rule, we usually walk up to an downed animal and "test" the eye to see if it is dead. If the animal blinks, we either leave the animal for a few moments allowing the last sings of life dissipate, or we apply a Coup de Grace.

The question is, how many have actually experienced an animal getting right up onto its feet, you standing right next to it, ready to fight when you "test the eye"?

I have seen animals get up after a shock to the spine or a bad head shot, but they are usually a distance away from where the shot was taken.
To this day, I have luckily only experienced it once where an "dead" animal comes back to life to the degree that it stands completely under its own power, requiring another shot, after we started man handeling it. (yes, the eye was not tested...)

It will be interesting to hear who have experienced what out there.
 
So as a rule, we usually walk up to an downed animal and "test" the eye to see if it is dead. If the animal blinks, we either leave the animal for a few moments allowing the last sings of life dissipate, or we apply a Coup de Grace.

The question is, how many have actually experienced an animal getting right up onto its feet, you standing right next to it, ready to fight when you "test the eye"?

I have seen animals get up after a shock to the spine or a bad head shot, but they are usually a distance away from where the shot was taken.
To this day, I have luckily only experienced it once where an "dead" animal comes back to life to the degree that it stands completely under its own power, requiring another shot, after we started man handeling it. (yes, the eye was not tested...)

It will be interesting to hear who have experienced what out there.
Not a buffalo, but with a bushpig this March had a interesting experience. We saw it at long distance and got to 300 yards at last light. It went straight down, when we got up to it, it was clear neck was broken with a shot where the neck met its body, it could only move its head. We decided to finish with a knife to the chest instead of another shot. While we were waiting for it to die, it actually stood up on us and took several steps.
 
Animals can do some amazing things. Never take anything for granted.
 

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