I've been told that people hunt will with an SKS, but I've never actually come across it.
I agree it remarkable he was able to shoot 5 (presumably) armed people without taking return fire (that we know of).
Remarkable, but not unheard of. If he was in a good well concealed stand, and a good shot, the poor guys didn't have a chance.
My daughter uses an SKS. Provided you use good ammo (e.g., Federal 125-gr JSP), they are decently accurate out to 200 yards and quite effective on whitetails. Ballistically, they're about equivalent to a .30-30, and the gas-operated semi-auto action makes for very mild recoil and very fast follow-up shots.
I hunted deer with an SKS-sister model, a Norinco, when I had one. A bit overpowered in some ways, but I hated skinnin' to pick out shot and I didn't have a shotgun anyway.
This guy was in a stationary tree stand--how did they miss him, assuming they did fire back!?!?
I know a fellow who, because he couldn't afford a rifle the first year he hunted deer, used a borrowed SKS with Winchester soft-point ammunition.
He took his limit of deer that year (six deer, of which two must be antlerless here in NC). He reported that, when shot with the appropriate 7.62x39 factory ammo, the deer lay down and died just like they were supposed to.
The SKS is ballistically similar to the 30-30.
A 154 gr bullet in 7.62x39 is fair enough for hunting. The 123gr standard ammo isn't quite powerful enough but if it's soft point you have a decent chance of a clean kill.