Ever had your shirt tail cut?

rimfired

rimfired

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Learning to hunt in the early 60's in PA if you missed a shot
at game an elder would cut a patch out of your shirt tail for humiliation. Made me a better hunter.

Worst was with bow, I knew it was beyond my 40 yd. shooting zone but I threw one at a big Doe. Mr. Keith
Schuyler who was my bow mentor and wrote a monthly article "Straight from the bowstring" in the PA Game News
saw the dirt on the broadhead and said "missed one huh? Turn around"

I was wearing my favorite and only LLBean red flannel shirt.

Anybody else have a shirt tail cut?
 
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Never for hunting. I did have my shirt tail cut when I soloed for the first time in an airplane. When I landed my instructor and a few well wishers cut the back of my shirt out and tacked it to the hanger wall and they marked my name and date on it.
 
It's a common tradition on our deer lease - first buck/doe gets the shirt tail cut.
 
Shirttail?

I've got mine around here somewhere. It was cut off when I soloed a Hughes 269B in 1979. That was several thousand hours and a lot of sore butt time ago.

An interesting aside, after the KCPD sold this helicopter in about 1986, it was wadded up in Braceville, IL w/ two fatalities. See:ASN Aircraft accident 02-AUG-1988 McDonnell Douglas 269B N9522F

The B models were severely underpowered and, in the words of my FAA checkpilot it "would not pull a sick hooker off an army cot". There is a term in helicopterdom known as settling with power--I think this is what happened.
 

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I grew up in south Texas and had never heard of such.

Years later, I was stationed in Mobile, Alabama, and invited on a deer hunt and after the hunt was informed that the local custom was cutting off the shirttail if you missed a shot at a deer.

Lesson to self: don't wear a favorite Pendleton wool shirt deer hunting!
 
Randy,

How far back in time, does that tradition go...in your neck of the woods?
 
Giz, At least three generations I know of. You learned early not to take bad shots or waste ammunition.:D
 
Never heard of "Shirt Cutting" in Texas, New Mexico or Colorado. Although we do have the tradition of "you shoot it, you skin it."

Rule 303
 
In good old South Carolina, I got my first one cut some 60 years ago when, as a very nervous 11 year old, I missed my first buck. Since then, I have lost several others. Most hang in the same old lodge, the walls of which are covered with shirt tails.

As someone commented, don't were fancy shirts to deer drives, no matter how important you think that your status in life is!

medxam
 
:DGents,....

I love chasing down old ways Anyone having family history or folklore on this subject...please share.

Some of us pursue written documents about these stories, and track them back in time. l
 
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Hunted deer in Texas with a rifle once, and with a bow in Ohio once, but didn't shoot at a deer either time. I got "blooded" by a couple of buddies with whom I was rabbit hunting though, as after I finally downed one, they took some of its blood and rubbed it on my forehead.:D
 
It was a tradition back in Carolina on just about every deer hunt. As luck would have it, I never even saw a deer on the few hunts I went on. My hunting buddy missed so many shots on one trip that about all he had left was the collar of his shirt.
 
Yes I did. First time I tryed handgun hunting a deer.
I heard a shot and turned to see and nice six point come running right at me full blast. I shot at it twice, never hit it, it ran over the ridge and I heard more shots.
As far as I know, no one got that lucky buck, and there were a few shirt tails being cut that evening.
 
Lost a few shirt tails in my time (sleeves too). Just for the record, always carry a little toilet paper with you when hunting.
 
We always threatened to cut the shirt tail if one of us missed a shot, but never followed thru. Times were just too lean to destroy a perfectly serviceable shirt - especially in fall/winter. Of course, good natured berating over a missed shot cost nothing...
 
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