What is your Best Hunting Story?

std7mag said:

Unsuccessful, but memorable.

So there i was.
About 5 years ago.
Hunting a gasline in Elk State Forest about 6 miles from Bennezette, PA.
Laying prone tucked into a pine tree looking through an opening in the limbs.
Creek bed about 200 yards downhill to my front, which then led to a fairly steep hill that topped off at 600 yards from me.
The hill not so steep behind me.

So there i am, watching when 2 does and a 4 point buck come out on the gasline by the creek.
PA has a point limit on bucks. Needs to be 3up including the brow tine on one side in the area i was hunting, so the buck was off limits.
I did have a doe permit for that area though, so i thought i'd fill the freezer with one of those.

Buck kept chasing the does. As soon as i'd settle the scope on one, he'd start chasing her.
This went on for several minutes.

Then, i hear noise behind me.

I slowly turn my head and couldn't believe what I was seeing!

A tall, skinny dude dressed up like an orange Keebler Elf!!

Orange material around his shoes.
Orange and white checkered pants.
An orange and white button up shirt.
An orange "dress up" vest.
And an orange Fedora with a white feather.


Of course, by the time I turn around, the deer are gone!!

Still can't get the image of that guy out of my head!!!

Click to expand...

That's funny!

There wouldn't have happened to be some odd looking mushrooms there where you were laying? Just a little snack to tide a guy over???

Had a good laugh! Maybe it was the ghost of Carlos Hathcock, there to give you some shooting tips!

hutchsc said:

Had a good laugh! Maybe it was the ghost of Carlos Hathcock, there to give you some shooting tips!

Click to expand...

From him.
He'd find a rapt audience furiously taking notes!!

Reminiscing of past hunts is like sitting around the old pot bellied stove at the general store and talking about grizzlies, and a good way to spend a winter day.

When I was a kid, we hunted and killed everything with a rifle we already had. I never knew there was any other guns besides a 22, a 25-35, a 30-06 and a 410 single shot. We also never even thought of getting a new gun to hunt something with, we already had 4 choices.

We had grizzly bears around our cabin all summer and grizzly sightings were almost daily in our yard in the evenings. We would show all our visitors the bears when they would come into our trash pit in the evening. We lived as people did in the 1880's all summer with a wood stove for cooking, a well for water and an outhouse for pooping. We had a garbage pit, where we threw all our trash that wouldn't burn and it attracted the bears.

I worked in town at a grocery store and would bring home scraps from the meat shop once in awhile for our hungry bears. My mother told me to stop doing that, as the bears were so frequent, we might lose a kid or a dog to a bear.

I brought the last load of meat scraps and laced it all with enough ExLax to relieve a battalion of men and placed it in the pit. The next morning, all the scraps were gone and my brother and I tracked that bear for over 1/2 mile by the bear **** in the woods. We never found the bear, but people brag about how they have killed grizzlies, but **** few ever killed one with ExLax…

A number of years ago I was bow hunting for whitetails from one of my tree stands. Toward the end of shooting light a nice doe walked within range and I decided to take the shot.

The hit looked good and I thought I heard her crash, so I decided not to wait too long before climbing down. I was feeling sure of my shot and walked in the direction I heard her without looking for blood. It was getting dark now and I could not find her.

I thought I better go back to the stand and look for blood, but there was a problem. I was turned around and somewhat lost. Well, crap!

I was able to see a lighted area through the woods and knew there was a power line not too far from my stand. If I could get to the right of way I could get oriented again.

As I was about to step into the opening I about tripped over the doe. She was half in the woods and half in the opening.

Got the truck, picked her up and told my buddies back at the cabin that it was an easy peasy hunt! Yep, being lucky made me look good.

Glad you got lucky. Luck can win the day sometimes. When light is scant, it is easy to lose track where you are. Has happened to me a couple times and was not a lot of fun. Happy to come out on the good side!!

October,1981, Wyoming! I'm a twenty seven year old from Alabama, never been hunting in Wyoming before, and I'm used to the thick woods around home. We drive out there and arrive just after dark. But I'd gotten to see some of the terrain before it got dark. So! Thirty minutes before daybreak I'm booted out of the trunk and told not to wander to far away. Daylight, I look in every direction, not a bush,tree or rock to cover. But antelope are visible in almost every compass point. I've got my Rem 700 .270, day pack with food and water so I strike out towards the closest group of pronghorn. Naturally they see me and bolt before I'm Five hundred yards. Ok, this isn't going to be as easy as I thought. Five more blown stalks, crap, how do you hunt these things? I'm on private property, a 50,000 acre pasture as they called it. Only six other people on it with me. I see no one else, no help coming to show me what to do. Three hours into this and i figure I've moved about a mile and a half from where I was dropped. Then I see a lone buck chasing does towards me, They are easy thousand yards away, but I see a dried up creek bed that heads towards them and I drop into it. I've gone what I think is couple of hundred yards and stick my head out. Yep, they are still there and I noticed a small tree near them. Back in the creek/ditch. I make it to the tree and crawl out slowly. Look everywhere, no antelope. Poo.I turn back to get in the creek,crap, there they are, I'd gotten turned around in the creek and misjudged the direction,they were behind me. Ok, I'm not spotted and their three hundred yards in my guess, no range finders then.Back in the creek bed. I'm sure as soon as I crawl out they will be close. Pop out of the creek bed on my belly and realize there's another lip to the creek bed thirty yards away. Belly crawl to it and poke my head up. Three does and a what I think is a good buck about150 yards. Laying prone I'm steady and when the cross hair settled I squeeze the trigger. The buck takes off like a race horse, on my knees and fire again, way behind him.He ran in a semi circle and stops, I'm about to shoot again when he falls over. Wow, I walked to him and see my first buck antelope. Coarse hair is amazing. I field dress him,prop my rifle and orange vest on him and go back to the little tree. I'd left my pack there. Retrieve it and make my way back to the buck, I can't find him, sage brush has swallowed up everything. I'm laughing at the absurdity of this when I see a truck driving towards me across the sage brush. It drives up to where I discover my buck is laying. Wyoming Game and Fish, he has been watching me the whole time from mile away with a spotting scope attached to the window. That was a pretty good stalk you made! He checks my license and asked if I knew how to get back to the road we came in on. I had to admit that I didn't. He was nice enough to help me load the buck up and meet up with my friends. 43 years ago this fall, remember it like it was three months ago.

I was up in a tree stand one morning, probably 71 or 72. As it got light out I saw a ruffed grouse about 40 yards from me. This was recurve days so it was beyond my ability so I just watched it doing it's thing. After a few minutes it went into a hazelnut bush and I kind of forgot about it.

About a half hour later I hear the leaves rustle only to see a fox coming down a game trail. He stopped close to that bush and crouched sneaking towards the bush that the grouse was in. The grouse flushed and the fox leaped grabbing the grouse with its paws and mouth simultaneously. Cat like. Will never forget that.

I had some friends from Indiana out coues hunting with me.

One guy was set up on a 115" buck that spooked. Then, an hour later, the 108" buck I had been watching was dead on the ground, and it played out exactly like I thought it would. The only thing that I was off on was his score. He was bigger than I thought he was.

My favorite looking back now is more about my dad than the hunt or the deer. Before hunting season when I wasn't old enough to hunt I went to the Fort Bridger Rendezvous with my family. I wanted to buy a knife so bad. After looking at the lack of quality knives my Dad talked me out of buying one, and instead told me he would give me a knife he built. (Dad is quite the knife smith). So he gave me a beautiful knife with Desert Iton Wood Handle and I loved it. Well deer season arrived a few weeks later and I went hunting with Dad every night after school and work. Never really seeing anything to take. On one of the last evenings of the hunt we saw a small herd of deer with a very small 2x3 crab claw buck. I was super excited and asked Dad to shoot it. I wanted to git a deer with my new knife.

Dad shot that little buck for me. I was so excited to gut and butcher that deer with my knife. Looking back I think about how many big bucks my dad killed before that deer. He wasn't one that shot small bucks like that. So now that buck is a special trophy because it shows how much my dad loved me. Shooting a small buck he most likely didn't want to shoot or process, but he did to make his son happy. I always loved hunting with Dad, but that solidified my love and excitement for hunting. Everytime I think of that hunt I know my dad loves me and wanted to build strong memories for me.

memtb said:

While I had done quite a bit of shooting, usually felt pretty confident with my shooting…..I was petrified at the thought of shooting at and missing the first deer that I'd ever seen! I said "Paw Paw, you shoot him"! Though only 55 steps, later stepped-off by my Dad…..it seemed a long shot!

What I didn't know was, my grandfather couldn't clearly the deer, and would have to shoot between two trees. Later we found that from his his angle, 8 of the 9 lead balls from his "double aught" buckshot cut a nice semi-circle in a tree! The deer was facing East at his shot, the deer jumped straight-up into the air, landed in full alert, but didn't yet run……I guess not certain which way to go.

My grandfather was very slow to pump that old Model 12 Win., as he only had one hand…..having lost his lower arm in a sawmill accident when he was only 16 years old! Knowing this, I made a quick shot with my Stevens 22/410 over/under! With my shot, the deer again jumped up, seemingly turning in mid-air, quickly vanished into the woods!

We went to where the deer was standing and started looking for blood. We looked for a bit and couldn't find any blood. My grandfather told me that I'd missed, and that we'd head home. I argued (probably crying) that I couldn't have missed, so to humor me and likely to shut me up we started following the bucks tracks. I'm guess'n that about in about 20 or 25 yards….he found a single, small drop of blood. He yelled to me, "boy here's blood….you did hit him"!

My grandfather followed him using the blood trail that was getting bigger and better, and by tracks left in the mud and water. At one point, there was a very small elevated spot above the water we were wading through. There was a large Beech tree on this little mound, and beneath the Beech was a large pool of blood with a hoof print in the middle!

We continued to trail the deer though the flooded "flats" until we came to another tree top left by timber cutters. My grandfather trailed the deer right into this top, and said, "there's your deer boy"! I jumped and pointed my gun toward the top….fully expecting the deer to come bust'n out. He didn't '….he was dead!

My grandfather pointed me in the direction of his fence line….he would stay with the deer.

Once at the house, I told everyone that we had a deer down….my Dad went with me back into the woods, yelling back and forth with my grandfather until we got to the him and the deer.

We took him to a local butcher to be cut up. While the deer was being cut up….word got around about the kid that had killed a little buck deer. Before long, there were people from all around the area that showed-up to see the deer and the kid that had killed it!

I lost my grandfather about 10 years later, he passed away in his late '80's …..never having killed a deer! memtb

I warned that it would be long!

Click to expand...

What town in CenLa? Mom is from Cane River, about 15 miles south of Natchitoches. And you're right, there used to be very few deer in a large area of Central La, even though the landscaped "looks" right for deer. Great story!

Tevisv said:

What town in CenLa? Mom is from Cane River, about 15 miles south of Natchitoches. And you're right, there used to be very few deer in a large area of Central La, even though the landscaped "looks" right for deer. Great story!

Click to expand...

Thanks!

I was hunting just a 1/2 mile or so north of my Grandparent's place. It's just a few miles east of Turkey Creek, north of the Chicot -Turkey Creek Rd. About 3 or 4 miles of gravel road, with only 4 families (all kin folk) on the road, their's was at the end of the road.

Lotsa great memories from there! memtb

Every one of them!!