Elk - A Tough Animla Cont'd

[MaxPower]

I was scrolling through the forum recently and found this gem:

http://www.eastmans.com/forum/showth...A-tough-animal

It's a great collection of stories/pics of harvested elk (and other big game) which were discovered to have previous injuries. Not only does it show how tough these animals are, but for me it was a good reminder on shot placement. I know the perfect shot is hard to come by, but we owe the animal the best shot we're capable of.

I wanted to add my story too (hope the original poster gon4elk won't mind). A few years back we were hunting elk in the Bridger-Tetons. My buddy killed a nice 5x5 and when we cleaned it found that it'd been previously shot by an archery hunter. There was no broadhead or fletchings, just about 6-8 inches of shaft stuck right underneath his spine. It was completely healed over and encased with a touch callous, which makes me think he'd been shot the previous year or even earlier. Luckily we had the presence of mind to snap a quick photo despite being in stormy weather and on a nasty hillside.