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?

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.

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- Change it back -

Lost mine when I soloed a Cherokee 140 way back in 1969.

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Georgia On My Mind

It's a common tradition on our deer lease - first buck/doe gets the shirt tail cut.

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.

Attached Images

N9522F.jpg (52.8 KB, 72 views)

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... a little behind in my work

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?

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Non gratum anus rodentum

Giz, At least three generations I know of. You learned early not to take bad shots or waste ammunition.

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

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Doc Garrett
Dead Man's Doctor

Gents,....

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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Non gratum anus rodentum

Had my shirt tail cut back in September of 1956 when I first soloed a 1946 Piper J3, N3590K.

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G.P. Charlie

Dad, cut my shirt tail when I bagged my first brown bear. I thought he was nuts at the time.

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.

They cut off my shirt tail when I soloed in a Grumman TR-2 in 1975.

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.

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Why duck?? It's a 9mm!

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.

Never has a shirttail cut but have had a couple of neck ties cut and hung from the ceiling!

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Forum consigliere

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...

Had my shirttail cut back in 1981 when I soloed N9922C, a Luscombe 8F.

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Rick, W0FG
CTR2 68-72

First deer I shot, a legal doe, hunting rifle with the same gentleman. He supervised my field dressing but stuck a finger in the -06 hole and made a cross on my forehead with the blood. I know there was a prayer that went with it.
Can't recall.

In Idaho it was "eat a bite of your first elk liver raw or you will never get another one". It isn't as bad as it sounds.

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Front sight and squeeze

CWSPOOK, with me it was a luscombe 8E in I think, 1966. Got to pull out the old log book to be sure. It was a 65 HP in san fernando calif. I belonged to a club. We had a cessna 150, cessna 170 and the luscombe. I think montly dues were $11s a month. The luscombe was $2s a hour wet! 150 was $5s and the 170 was $7s. Now a 172 here is over a $100s!!!

I've eaten whitetail heart raw, good. Elk have been re-introduced and are propigating and migrating. Mid-Upper Center of PA.

Mine was snipped back in 1973 when I soloed N61192...Cessna 150 (not 152). I wasn't expecting it that day. Just practicing take offs and landings and my instructor asked me to pull over after a nice landing. And he got out!

Roger

I've lost a few shirttails myself over the years. It's been years since I hunted with a club, but when we dropped by for a vist the last day of last season, the "Shirttail Boards" were still there, stretching back 20 or more years.

When my wife started to hunt with me at the club, the club president claimed the right to cut any ladies shirttails that needed cutting. Diane made sure to wear something pretty, lacey and pink. She said I want them to KNOW it was mine. They're (two or three) still hanging there today, faded and dusty. No doubt the current members wonder who "Diane" was.

How old is tradition? It goes back at least as far as the days of muzzleloading guns. When I was a kid they told me, and I later read Jack O'Conner telling the same thing, that powder and shot were easy to carry, but material for a patch was not to be wasted. So if you missed, you had to provide your shirttail to replace the patch. True or not, I have no idea, but it does seem believable.

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John 3:16 .

I have lost more shirts than shirt tails!

I soloed N 4274 November, a Cessna 140, in the old 'Oklahoma Airmen' flying club in 1964. I've been flying ever since. I now own two V tail Bonanzas. I have owned over 100 airplanes since I soloed as I have a strip on my place and was buying & selling airplanes until about 8 years ago. Of all the flying I've ever done, only one flight was as memorable as seeing that big empty right seat on my first solo just before they cut my shirt tail.

(I had the pleasure of cutting my youngest son's shirt tail off after his first solo in a Aeronca Champ in 1982. He is an Airline Captian now.)
Last summer, he & his brothers gave me one of the best gifts I have ever received, an hour flying time in Stallion 51 Corp.'s P-51 Mustang 'Crazy Horse' in Kissimmee Fl.. This is a TF-51 with two fully functional cockpits. After about 45 minutes of aerobatics, I was even allowed to land it twice as "The sole manipulator of the controls" (As the FAA puts it), & yes, I have the video to prove it.

This is the first I have heard of shirt tail cutting other than the first solo of an airplane. Art

BTW Feralmerril, do you still have the Citabria?

Yes but it `s a long sad unbeliveable story. Maybe I should e-mail you about it. Oh hell, here it is in a thumbnail. I had a loose "gentilmens" agreement to keep it on a friends (?) strip at no charge. He is a AP etc, and had the permission to teach his kids in it etc. In the past he has done beautifull restoration work on mine and many more planes. Back in about 1999 his daughter ground looped it badly. At that time both he and myself had personnal problems in our lives that was pushing flying in the background anyway. When we left california and moved here I bought new factory metal spar wings for it that set me back 18K. On top of that I wrote him a check for 5K for whatever else thats comeing up. I just got my physical again with much fighting to get it. Several years ago I went to ground school again. He has covered the plane and has a lot more work to do to it. Every time I call the plane has been put on hold for many reasons, his wife is sick etc. We are going back there a month from now. I am totaly at his mercy under the circumstances. Just this morning I was laying awake for hours in the pre dawn thinking about it! He is very good at restoreing airplanes and everything else. Here is a picture of his that he was working on the last time I was there. This one had made a ditching in a lake and he restored it.

Kind of interesting; the same act of cutting a shirt tail is a mark of shame to hunters and a mark of pride for aviators. I wonder how the traditions evolved so differently?

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"... shall not be infringed."

Any of you ever hear about takeing a salt shaker deer hunting? For some reason I could never figure, I heard it a number of times as a boy in the late 40s.

1975, Cessna 172.

The shirt-tail cutting is new to me, but it sounds worthwhile.
You're not likely to forget the reason it happened to you.
I lost my shirt-tail, and a lot more, about 20 years ago. Wonder
what she did with it... TACC1

Never had a shirttail cut, but I have been involved in a cap firing squad after someone ran their first straight at skeet or trap. I never had my cap shot because I don’t wear one.

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"I also cook."

I have been deer hunting every year since 1982. I have shot a lot of deer, but so far, I've never had a miss. I've usually always been able to stalk in close... most shots not more than 40-50 yards. The long ones I've taken have all been one-shot kills. I will say I've always felt sympathy for those who for one reason or another shoot and miss. Sometimes it only takes a little bit of a stick, etc. to turn a bullet. I would imagine a arrow would take even less.

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That tradition's alive and well in northern Ohio.
Saw it done just last year when a fine, fine hunter had a humanity attack and missed his first doe of the season.

Took no time at all, however, to prove that Sonny's rep for being a fine, fine hunter was well deserved.

Never had my shirttail cut but I've had to cut up my t-shirt a few times when I forgot the toilet paper.

Yes, it used to be a tradition here. If you missed you got your shirttail cut. I haven't even thought about this in years, but I think it needs revived. And this is going to be the year for it

Larry, your picture brought back memories from Camp Wolters, TX in 1967 and the "Mattel Meserschmitts". Thanks