Not a story of danger, but definitely dumb and unethical:
On my very first big game hunt, I had a new rifle. I had spent a lot of time shooting and was satisfied with my zero. On the day of the hunt I got my rifle out and noticed the scope was loose enough to rotate. I never tightened the scope since purchasing it. I looked through it to make it level and tightened it. I know it wasn't going to be sited in but I didn't want to stall the hunt, so talked myself into believing that it would be close. I shot at a walking antelope buck at ~200 yards, aiming a few feet in front of him. I was told I hit him but I couldn't really tell. I just know he wasn't running away very quickly. I took another couple of wild shots at him as he ran away. My friend's dad leaned over and asked me how many rounds I had left. I had one. He sent me back to the truck to get more ammo (half mile) while he watched the goat through his bino. He showed me where the goat went and I went with my friend's brother to get him (another half mile or so). When I found him, I noticed he had 3 legs. I had shot off a front leg on my first shot. I lay prone ~125 yards away, aimed for the boiler room, and pulled the trigger. I hit him in the hip. That's how far off my scope was. Fortunately, the bullet got his femoral artery and he died quickly.
If that isn't enough bone headed jackassery to elicit a gasp of incredulity, we left him in the hot sun, carcass unmarked & tag unpunched, to walk uphill about a mile to the truck in order to drive to a spot about a mile downhill from the antelope. When we got back to the area where we left the carcass, we couldn’t find it. Every sagebrush looked the same. It took us at least an hour of wandering around to find it, at least 2 hours after I finished dressing it (which took me 2 hours). We dragged it back to the truck, in the hot sun, dust and bugs. We had no cooler and one more tag to fill. We spent several more hours driving around in the heat and dust looking for more antelope before heading home, another 2 hour drive. We didn’t skin the buck until the next day. I don't think I notched my tag until the next day as well.
If you’re familiar with proper antelope meat care, you know I did EVERYTHING I wasn’t supposed to do. The meat was horrible. No one but me would eat it.
That was a less than stellar first hunt, but it set me up for much wiser and ethical choices on every subsequent hunt. Every animal since then has been phenomenal eating and has died quickly. If I was with another hunter who did what I did, I’d probably not hunt with them ever again.
