Hunting stories

[Walkin Horse]

I hear guy's at work telling stories about all the deer they've killed. I personally have never had much luck hunting.
40 years ago when I was 20 I shot and the guy next to me shot. This was on the Little river in Louisa Va.We weren't sure which one knocked it down but I got to claim it. Through the years when I was young I hunted a lot in Giles and Bland Va bagging only a turkey.I hunted with a friend in a club and on private land with no luck. Later on in life after buying a farm in southern Chesterfield Va. l joined a club. I hunted every Saturday, still hunted during the week and hunted my place. Still never getting a kill. The last year that I hunted was 2016, the year of my separation.
I must say I was never an avid hunter where I lived and breathed hunting. I did put some effort in to it but not like some guys. Has anyone else been skunked like this?
Are deer tales like fish tales?

 

[30-30remchester]

Good lord where do I start. Shot my first deer at 12, fed my family for 45 years exclusively with wild game, mainly elk, deer and antelope. Guided elk hunters for 9 years. Have manually extracted over 100 elk from the mountains and the number of deer extractions can't be counted. I have either done or seen about everything imaginable. My grandsons keep badgering me to start writing things down. I have 3 animals that are record book entry qualified should I choose to enter them. Have shot elk with everything from a 22 handgun to a 45-90. What an amazing ride it has been.

 

[pawngal]

One has to dedicate themselves to be a successful hunter of anything. I was in that mindset for a few years and was successful on the Iowa whitetails, 4 in 5 years.
My late hubby was was dedicated hunter of the giant Canadian geese, chased them from Canada thru Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri to Arkansas. And was very successful.
It truly takes the heart of a hunter to be successful.

 

[Alpo]

We was quail hunting. Me and my younger brother and my older brother, who was home on Christmas leave from the Marine Corps, and he owned the dog.

We're in this soybean field. The wind is blowing from the north so we started at the south and went north, and by the time we got to the other end we had maybe eight quail between us. Now we're headed back down to the south end again, so we can work our way back up against the wind.

There were three or four depressions in the soybean field. And they had never been cut off. They just plowed around them. They still had woods and underbrush and water in the bottom. And "experienced hunter older brother" tells us that if there happened to be any deer around they would be lying up in these - I'll call them water holes. So here's what we will do. He will quietly go down to the south end of the water hole, and wait. When he's ready me and younger brother will start up the sides of the water hole, being noisy. This will flush any deer that are down in the hole out, and they will run south towards him, and he will shoot him. This was the plan. You always need to have a plan. So he unloads his 1100 and reloads it with slugs. Younger brother has a five pack of number one buck, and sticks three in his 37, giving me the other two which I put in my Stevens double. And we proceed with the plan.

Once older brother is in position me and younger brother start up the sides of the water hole. I am on the west side. I get maybe 10 or 15 feet along when I hear a noise behind me, and I turn around and there is a doe runnin' hell for breakfast towards the west fence. The land on the other side of the west fence is posted, and if you don't think deer know where the no hunting areas are, you ain't never been deer hunting.

So I just stand there looking. First live deer I have ever seen. Cool. Then here comes a buck chasing her. And I swing up and give him both barrels as he goes by in front of me.

Younger brother had heard the noise of the two deer busting out of the bushes, and thinking that I had fallen down was coming back around the north side of the water hole to see if I had hurt myself. And he sees the butt of the buck. Gave it all three shots he had in that Ithaca.

Older brother comes down wanting to know what the hell we were shooting at. Did not believe the story about the deer, because they were not supposed to go out the back. They were supposed to flush toward him. Stupid damn deer. But we showed him the tracks, and we started following the tracks towards the fence. I told him I shot it, and he didn't believe me - you a lousy shot boy - but we tracked it to the fence anyhow. And we found one spot of blood.

Well heck. I hit it. Or at least one of us hit it. It is wounded. You do not leave wounded game. So leaving the shotguns in the soybean field, because we did not want to be found with shotguns in the no hunting area, we climb the fence.

Maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty yards back in the woods we come upon this pretty little eight point laying on the ground.

At first me and younger brother are going to do the Tarzan thing. Tie the front legs together, tie the back legs together, stick a pole between the tied up legs and the two of us tote it out of the woods on our shoulder. That lasted about three steps. Every step we took the deer bounced, and the pole bent, and when the pole straightened back out it jumped up off our shoulder and fell back down - - that hurt. So older brother told us to put it down, and then he picked it up on his back and toted it out of the woods.

Once we got back to the soybean field we laid it on the ground and dragged it by its antlers up to the road, but he toted that damn thing out of the woods on his back.

There were nine pellets in the heart lung area, and one in the butt. Since I was shooting as it was crossing, and little brother was shooting as it was going away, I am absolutely certain that I killed that deer. He also laid claim to it, but I know better.

But there were 10 pieces of buckshot in that deer, and he ran about a hundred yards across the soybean field with 10 pieces of buckshot in him, and there was one drop of blood. And if we had not spotted that one drop of blood, he would have laid there until the critters ate him on the other side of the fence.

I never again used buckshot. It did not impress me.

 

[somorris]

I have been a hunter (bow and gun) since about 9 years old when my Dad started taking me with him. I have put a fair amount of game in the freezer, but my favorite part has always been the hunting. I love being in the woods and fields, but mostly the woods.

 

[LoboGunLeather]

Hunting trips with a group of good guys are wonderful excuses for great evenings in camp, cooking, eating, playing poker, adult beverages (in moderation, of course), telling stories and jokes.

Photos of teenage sons and grandchildren posing with their first deer, wild turkey, bag limit of pheasants or quail become priceless memories.

A freezer filled with good eating makes a nice bonus.

 

[twodog max]

I decided at a young age to try and be a good deer hunter. I want to think I achieved that goal. We eat very little red meat other than venison. I have never shot any book animals but really never was to interested in that stuff. For me the hunt and the shot is the thing. I will be 70 this year and like it as much or more than ever. If I were to go to the happy hunting ground while in the woods hunting it would be a perfect ending.

 

[Onomea]

30-30remchester, you should write your hunting stories down here for us to enjoy, and then print 'em out for the grandkids. (I like your story of shooting the crow, I think it was, out of the sky with one shot from your Woodsman. Or the one about inadvertently dropping a knife into your thigh while guiding elk hunters and not noticing initially.)

Alpo, that's a great story. Thanks!

I am not a hunter, and never have been, regrettably, but I love the stories.

 

[30-30remchester]

I will toss out a few. Was standing on a cliff ledge barely a foot wide and shot a bull elk so directly below me that I actually shot between my feet. On the shot the rest of the herd blew up and hastily disappeared. When dragging the bull down the cliff face, a young yearling calf elk had not departed with the remainder of the herd. It was alone in the wilderness with only my dead bull as company. As I finally positioned the bull to remove his innards, I thought for sure this would frighten the yearling. Nope, it actually got closer. All the time cow calling, looking for a friend to answer. It followed me down the mountain to the edge of a county road. I left to go get my truck and on returning a half hour later the yearling was still there, mere feet from my bull. All the clatter of the truck approaching and me loading the bull into the truck bed did nothing to scare off the yearling. At no point was it more than a few yards away and I could have easily killed it with my Colt Woodsman. It was still standing next to the county road as I drove away. It was going to have to wait alone for a day or two till the herd reappeared.

 

[raljr1]

I have hunted for over 50 years. Not very successfully, I might add....I love being in the woods, and I love hunting. I have been to Idaho for elk a few times, Africa for plains game once, and I hun
t deer, pheasants, and turkey each year....in all those years, I've killed maybe 10 deer. Being a successful hunter who harvests regularly, you have to make a serious time commitment. My work and family situation made that difficult. I still love it, even if I'm lousy at it.

Robert

 

[moosedog]

My friends and I used to hunt the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan during deer and bear season. Great times whether you filled your tag or not. One year, on the long trip up, my friend Gary realized that he had forgot to pack his hunting boots. Back then there were not a lot of places to buy boots in the UP. We lucked out when we noticed a highway sign advertising a new sporting goods store before we hit the bridge to cross into the UP. My friend Gary and I went in and found the boot racks. Gary wore size tens which is a pretty common size, so he was rummaging thru the racks for a while. Aha he says and he found two size tens and we headed back out. We got to camp and while setting up for opening morning I hear some cussing going on from Gary. In his haste to get out of that store he had grabbed two left boots.
That season we always could tell Gary by his unique tracks.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

My Buddy Russ invited several of us to join him in a Deer Hunt up in that Michigan Upper Peninsula.
His Dad and Uncle had a remote cabin near Escanaba on 40 Acres.
In the middle of big woods they had permission to hunt.
We drove up, got that after dark and walked in a mile or so from the County Road.
I wore the warmest coat I had which was my USAF Parka.
When Dad and Uncle saw that fur around the hood, they went ballistic!
No Way Jose could I wear that fur thingy!
So instead I wore one of their old school Wool Jackets.
No, didn't get a Deer.

 

[30-30remchester]

OK another one for ONOMEA. As I have mentioned before, my prewar Colt Woodman travels everywhere with me. It has little bluing left, and the checkering on the wood grips is worn flat. It was the main gun I carried while escorting guest on a private ranch. Colorado has a late season cow elk hunt to try to reduce the number of elk. The ranch owner agreed to basically open his ranch for local during this season to let locals fill their freezers. The one condition was that myself and another guide be consulted and be present during the one weekend he allowed the hunts to take place. Needless to say, it was a circus. About 20 guests, unfamiliar with the ranch, driving all over the ranch. Gunfire abounded and with fresh snow on the ground, blood trails were a common sight. Coming down a ranch road, we encountered a blood trail crossing the road and looking in a distant grove of oak brush we saw a downed cow elk, still alive and active, at the end of the blood trail. Someone had apparently shot at the cow and not recovered it. A few other hunters were riding with me, so we went over to finish off the cow and let one of them claim it. With all the hoopla going on when we got to the elk it was just lying there with its head up looking around. Seems nobody including myself brought a gun. So, as I walked back and got my Woodsman, the other hunters just milled around the elk. I returned, shot the cow and we proceeded to clean her out. This where it gets weird. She was completely uninjured except for a 22-caliber bullet hole I had just administered. Rolling her over, the blood trail went under where she was laying, then continued up and over the hill to a gut pile in the next field. Since the cow was what we call a long cow, basically a teenager in human terms, we assumed that the blood trail was from some elk in her herd, and she was alone and confused so she just laid down on the blood. One of the hunters claimed the cow and this elk is one of 2 unwounded elk my Colt Woodsman had taken.

 

[30-30remchester]

ALPO, I have limited experience with buckshot, but I am not impressed either. The only number 1 buckshot on game I ever used was a coyote I called in from my bedroom window in the middle of the night. Called a 25# song dog to within 12 yards when I let loose with a 20-gauge Ithica 37 loaded with number 1's. Dead dog but on skinning him out, 4 of the pellets failed to exit his lung cavity. That is poor performance in anyone's book.

 

[Nevada Ed]

I hear guy's at work telling stories about all the deer they've killed. I personally have never had much luck hunting.
40 years ago when I was 20 I shot and the guy next to me shot. This was on the Little river in Louisa Va.We weren't sure which one knocked it down but I got to claim it. Through the years when I was young I hunted a lot in Giles and Bland Va bagging only a turkey.I hunted with a friend in a club and on private land with no luck. Later on in life after buying a farm in southern Chesterfield Va. l joined a club. I hunted every Saturday, still hunted during the week and hunted my place. Still never getting a kill. The last year that I hunted was 2016, the year of my separation.
I must say I was never an avid hunter where I lived and breathed hunting. I did put some effort in to it but not like some guys. Has anyone else been skunked like this?
Are deer tales like fish tales?

Did you, drink booze, smoke , eat garlic and hunt, down wind?

That is some really bad luck, there.

 

[crazyphil]

Many years ago I was in Commercial Real Estate. I had an investor type
coming into town, hopefully I could sell him something. I had a Chesapeake
Bay Retriever, not much more than a pup. I ask the invester
if he would like to go duck hunting. He excitedly agreed. Well, he showed
up the appointed morning all decked out in new hunting cloths, from the
hat down to the boots and everything in between. When we were sitting
in the duck blind I could hear a chomp, chomp, noise. My guest had taken
off his new gloves, and my dog was eating them, or trying hard. PS I
didn't get to sell the guy anything.

 

[InTheWoods]

Hunted lots of small game from the age of 11 or 12. I didn't hunt deer until out of college and married. I grew up on the outer edge of suburbia, but my wife and I have chosen to always live on various Missouri acreages since marriage.

I don't hunt much on my place (prefer to just watch the creatures), but I only have to drive a few minutes to superb deer hunting on farms that suffer severe crop damage due to deer. The main farm we hunt on lost $20,000 worth of soybeans a couple of years ago due to deer. I think we killed 16 deer off that place that year.

Never could travel to hunt in the fall much because of my occupation as a teacher and administrator, so most of my hunting has been local. I did manage two Wyoming trips for antelope after retirement. My records show I have bagged 117 deer and three antelope. 40 or so of the deer were taken with a bow. I am 73 years old.

Until a couple of years ago we housed multiple birds dogs and my buddy and I avidly hunted wild local quail for close to 45 years. We would usually bag 100 to 180 quail a year. We still hunt dove. My love for "bird" hunting always exceeded my passion for hunting deer. My kids grew up eating quail, venison, and garden veggies. For a while, my daughter didn't like good beef because she thought it was too 'Juicy' compared to deer meat!

Anyway, I have slowed down some. Still bag two or three deer a year, all of which gets eaten by us or others. Much of my time now is spent on my backyard range banging away with my Smith and Wessons and managing my property. Things could be worse.

 

[crazyphil]

A bear story

When I was in college, back in the last century, my Dad had a
friend who owned a little ranch. He had his cattle on a summer
range up in the hills. A bear had torn the bag off of one cow and
killed another one. He offered me a case of beer to go kill the
bear.
I had a friend who wanted to join me, and I let him because he
had a bear hunting dog named Mabel. On the appointed morning,
I awoke and wiped the dew off the inside of my windshield.
I could see the bear working on the body of the cow he had killed,
scooping up maggots and eating them with both hands.
I slipped out of the car. I had a Model 70 Winchester with a
Weaver K4 scope on it. It was loaded with Winchester Silver
Tips 180 Grain.
As soon as I stepped out of the car the bear stood up on hind leggs
and sniffed the air. Then he took off like a rocket. Just
as he was about to go over a little hill, I squeezed off a shot.
I hit him just and inch from his xxxhole. The friend and I both
ran to the little hill, and there was the bear on the other side,
dragging himself along with his front paws. Apparantly paralyzed
in his lower half.
My friend wanted to give the bear the coup de grace, so I allowed
him to do so. When I poked my knife into his big fat belly, the
maggots shot up about 3 feet in the air.
The location was an old homestead, so we found an old little
red wagon in the junk pile. We draped the bear over the wagon
and pulled him back to the car.
After we got him loaded, we checked on Mabel. She was sound
asleep in the back seat. Slept through the whole thing.
The rendering plant estimated the live weight of the black bear
at over 500 lbs.
I had a friend who was studying to be a taxidermist and he
begged me to let him take the skin off. I allowed him to do
so, and when he skinned the bear all the fir fell off.

 

[arjay]

I spent quite a bit of the season trying to arrow a nice 4 point mule deer in a canyon 30 minutes from home,but he just kept outsmarting me lol.The final day a friend and I went plinking in another spot for hours making all kinds of noise. As we it was getting dark and we were driving out the jeep road a doe crossed our path and paused on the hillside. I stopped,grabbed my bow,took a shot and missed wide,then I did it again! The 3rd shot thumped and she raced off to the right just as it got dark. Paul and I searched and searched and couldn't find her. It was pitch dark and my flashlight was weak. Early the next morning I went back up there and walked right to her just following the line she had run.

 

[GypsmJim]

My Dad was an avid hunter as a boy. Many old pics of him with Grandpa with his yearly trophy.

After the war he didn't hunt at all. Partly because one of his hunting buddies moved away, and the other never came back. Looking back now, I understand oh too well what PTSD is.

When I turned 16 I wanted to go. So, Dad dusted out his old gun and I bought one from my Summer job's earnings.

We did crappy. Didn't get a deer in 10 years. One issue was we didn't have a place to go. The old farm where dad went 20 years earlier had been sold and the new owners didn't allow anyone on the property. Our hunts were relegated to state land, with wall-to-wall idiots.

One year Dad was sick, and a coworker invited me to hunt on his own property. Got my first deer that year. The next year we found a little parcel of our own. Got a deer that year.

The parcel was to be a hunting camp, but the wife likes it so much it's now our family retreat.

Fast forward, two sons of my own, we all have our stands, many deer to be had.

This year was my 56th year hunting. I take my camera to my stand. If its a doe or a small buck, I shoot him with my camera.

My Dad hunting until he was 75. But he stopped because of bad health. I don't have to walk up the hill anymore. As long as I can make it the 50 yards our from the cabin, I guess I'll still go and accompany the boys. It's not the harvesting that counts, it's the endless family memories.