Funniest hunting moments?

[Musketeer]

I was wondering if any of you would like to share your "funniest" or "strangest" hunting moments with the rest of us. I'll start: a couple of years ago, I was out in the desert hunting coyotes. I was camouflaged from head to toe and was well hidden in a clump of brush. I blew on my Lohman Circe rabbit distress call for awhile until I spotted a yote about 40 yds away and closing. I switched over to my homemade squeaker (the little squeak reed out of a dog toy pressed into a 2" long piece of vinyl tubing) and gave a few squeaks to lure him in as close as possible. When he was about 15 to 20 yds out, I raised my gun (20ga. fowler) up to take a shot and he spooked and ran before I could shoot. As I was disgustedly lowering my gun and getting ready to start cussing, I glanced over to my right, and low and behold, there was a group of half a dozen cottontail rabbits all standing there staring up at me with confused looks on their faces! :crackup: They were standing about 10 ft. away, and I guess they'd been attracted by my calling.
When I stood up they all tensed up, and when I took a step toward them they all ran. Several of them stopped and turned back to look at me again for several seconds, before running off once and for all. :crackup: Good thing I wasn't rabbit hunting! :shocking:They got lucky! Anyhow, I couldn't help but chuckle as I walked back to my vehicle, picturing all those little rabbit faces looking up at me like, "Mommy, is that you?" :crackup:That's one of the great aspects of hunting: never knowing exactly what you're going to see. :thumbsup:

 

[musketman]

I was out squirrel hinting with my .32 Cherokee once when I spotted two pure white foxes (red fox genders), being the sportsman I am, I didn't shoot them out of season...

When I got home I looked at my hunting law booklet and guess what?

It was the first day of fox season!!!

The man running the trading post said they were worth $150 each (1984 prices), I never did see them again...

 

[Slowpoke]

During turkey season one year I yelping away and I heard a noise behind me a good ways off but getting closer. I was thinking, that old Tom turkey has doubled back on me and now sneaking up on me from behind. All pisted off I'm still doing my thing as it gets closer. I don't dare look around the tree. Then it dawns on me..... this noise isn't gobbling. I peer around the tree and it's a skunk, a scared him and he sprayed. I didn't get any one me because he was 15 yards away.
Since then I've called up 2 opossums and one hunter. The hunter really pisted me off ...... After spend a couple weeks locating this awesome turkey (I later killed him,21 pounds), I'm sitting there "reeling" him in from about 125 yards. And I hear/see this guy sneaking through the woods. I'm thinking of my safety and mentally telling this turkey to hurry up.. hurry up.. run turkey, run over here... hoping to get a shot before he spooks. The turkey turned around a went screaming through the woods and I stood up. The dude is about 50 yards from me, points his gun at me. He said he was "putting a stalk on a turkey". Whatever... he was coming to my call.

SP

 

[Musketeer]

The man running the trading post said they were worth $150 each (1984 prices), I never did see them again...

D'oh!!! :crackup: I was debating whether or not to tell another story of mine, as it's not about hunting per se, but it's "hunting-related" so here goes: a buddy of mine and I were driving back to town after a long day of hunting along a lonely backroad. It was pitch black at the time. As we were driving, we saw a car up ahead parked off to the side of the road at an odd angle. After we passed the car, I said I thought maybe we ought to go back and check it out. I figured maybe there was somebody sitting in there dead, and that we should call the highway patrol and report it. So we turned around and drove back to the vehicle. As we rolled up along side of it, my buddy, who was riding shotgun, stuck the spotlight (one of those million candlepower deals that plugs into the cigarette lighter) out the window and lit that car up like a Christmas tree. Inside was a young couple. They had the front driver's seat reclined all the way back and the windows open and were both naked as the day they were born! You can guesss what they were doing! :shocking: Man, the looks on their faces! :crackup: :crackup: Talk about a deer in the headlights! My buddy, always the diplomat, simply flipped off the spotlight and said, "Sorry, folks!" Needless to say, we hightailed it outta there! Like I said: you never know what you're gonna see when you're out hunting! :shocking: :crackup: :thumbsup:

 

[Slowpoke]

I thought that was you Musketeer..... ::

 

[Musketeer]

I thought that was you Musketeer.....

Sorry, if my buddy and I spoiled yer fun, Slowpoke! :redface: :shocking: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :thumbsup:

 

Last year on Thanksgiving Day I struck out for the woods in an attempt to find more meat for the 20 or so people coming to my house in the form of bunnies and tree rats...also, I was trying to avoid house work, and since my wife was willing to trade table fare for my lousy job of cleaning the bathroom, I was off and running, musket in hand. I was in the woods for about 3 minutes when a big bushy-tail scampered across a pretty high limb of a hickory. I leveled off, unloaded a cloud of #6 Galena dust into the sky, and knocked him right off the branch. He hit the ground, bounced up....and then ran up inside the tree.

I was not happy. I don't like leaving ANYTHING in the woods and up until that point had only lost track of a couple of dirt-beavers (ground hogs) in my life. But, short of cutting down the tree with my tomahawk, I trudged away. I had not walked 30 yards when another gray scootched out onto a limb and started barking.

BOOM! Down the little rodent went...right into the top of a hollow tree stump approximately 10 feet tall.

I went home after that and vacuumed the house. :curse: :curse: :curse: :youcrazy:

 

[Liver eatin’ Johnson]

Years ago I was pheasant hunting in a very hilly Dept of Game site in western Washington. I had covered a lot of ground that afternoon and had not seen one bird! It was getting late so I decided to head back since the car was a good 2 miles away and there would be just enough time to hunt all the way back. As I approached the parking area, realizing it was about 5 minutes past legal hunting time, I started to unload my shot gun when two big roosters flew right over my head from the top of the hill. I threw the gun up but something told me not to shoot... good thing because there was a Dept of Game truck up there just out of sight and they were releasing a bunch of pheasants! :redface:

 

[Maynerd62411]

My bro-in-law used to raise and release pheasant and quail, several years ago.
On Thanksgiving , after stuffing ourselves, we always went rabbit hunting. Sorta walk it off.
Well, we walked all over the neighbors back yard, 100 acres or so , and down near the river , and never saw one single bunny. We got within sight of the house, walking down the railroad rightaway, and up jumps this big ole cock pheasant. He flies straight down the railroad in front of me.I leveled off on him. Pheasant season used to run the same time, then. My bro-in-law starts yelling and hollaring, DON'T SHOOT, NOT 'TIL NEXT YEAR. :curse:
We had agreed to let the pheasant get established for a full year before we would hunt them. Never did get another shot, like that, down there again. :curse:

 

Growing up my father after working for the US federal government went to work for the state of Idaho fish and game as a salmon and steelhead biologist /CO. in those days a CO was on duty all the time and I regularly went with him or was with him while he check hunters.

One day while in the local post office I was getting the mail and there was 3 men talking and on said he had 3 deer in his barn. I went out and told dad, ha them guys in there got to many deer. We were on our way out to dinner and dad was in his dress clothes so we all went back in. while mom and I re check the mail dad stood there while the third guy said

 

[Tyrone]

I was hunting in Indiana with my father-in-law and two of his buddies on Opening Day. We split up with my father-in-law and myself setting up about 150 yards apart and the buddies set up about a half mile away. They wanted to use walkie-talkies (that I didn't want to bring)to keep in touch if we were going to be moving later in the day.

A buck came in range about 15 minutes before the time we could shoot. I waited patiently/impatiently for the time to pass before I could shoot. Just as I brought up my flintlock to fire I heard, "HEY KENNY, WHERE ARE YOU AND HAVE YOU SEEN ANYTHING YET?" My father-in-law had left the volume turned all the way up instead of down. I got a good view of the backside of that deer.

 

[Dave Poss]

Several years ago, My hunting partner and I scouted some new land to deer hunt. I found more sign than he did and we agreed to hunt "my" area. I took him to a bank overlooking a creek and he sat down at the base of a tree to wait and watch. I told him that I'd be about 200 yards to his left on the ridge and we'd meet up on the firebreak about 3 hrs. after sunrise. I turned to leave and didn't make it 50 yds. before I heard his big .58 flinter go off. My first thought was that he had slipped and shot himself . I ran back to where I had left him and he was still sitting in the same spot surrounded by the blue haze of blackpowder smoke. About 2 feet from his leg was a beautiful 8 pt. buck kicking his last. I asked what happened and he said in a shaky voice "It was self defense! You must have spooked him and he toped the ridge at a full run straight at me. I turned and fired without even aiming just to keep from getting trappled!" :: His shot went right through the big bucks neck and when he fell he skidded for about 15 ft. only to land at my partners feet! Quick hunt...quick meat...home before 11 a.m.!

 

This story tells why I don't like to take anybody with me when I head out hunting.

Back in the early 1980's, down in Louisiana, I got talked into taking my step father's rich cousin's son out duck hunting. The kid was city folk, never been in the woods, let alone the swamps. Reluctantly I took the 13 year old brat with me. We were paddling my new aluminum pirogue through the swamp, and it didn't seem it was going to be a bad trip after all. We're in deep when I spotted a water moccasin, a poisonous snake, sunning itself on a tree limb that we needed to pass under. It was a very warm year. I turned around and tell the kid, who shall remain nameless, not to mess with said snake. :nono: I turn back to paddling, when I hear twhack, thud! My pirogue was 14 foot long, about 2 and 1/2 feet wide, tapering to a point at either end, and now it has a five foot poisonous snake, that is born ****** off, in the middle! Whack, I smack it with my paddle, it heads the other way. Whack, the kid hits it with his paddle and it heads back my way. Whack, I hit it again. The kid raises up his 12 gauge full choke semi auto shotgun, yelling "IGOTIT!!!" :youcrazy:

FOOOOM!!! :shake: :curse:

Two shotguns, ammo, two ice chests and boat with a hole in its bottom in the middle of a swamp, up to our waist in water, watching this snake swim off towards where we were heading! Yes, he MISSED the F@#!&%KIN snake! :shake:

But check this out, twenty years later, I now live in Massachusetts. And last year, me and the family were at the Spencer Fair, dedicated to farm life and animals, and here is this guy doing a show with snakes and exotic animals, including an aligator, and he's telling this story about two guys in a boat with a water mocasin! I had to walk over and interduce myself! :crackup: :crackup: :crackup:

 

"I was debating whether or not to tell another story of mine," "a buddy of mine and I were driving back to town after a long day of hunting along a lonely backroad. It was pitch black at the time." "As we rolled up along side of it, my buddy, who was riding shotgun, stuck the spotlight (one of those million candlepower deals that plugs into the cigarette lighter)"

Lonely Back Road, pitch black night, vehicle with guns and a super bright spot light!!! Gee, Musketeer, What ever would a game warden think!!! :: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup:

Sorry, just couldn't pass that one up!

 

[Musketeer]

Lonely Back Road, pitch black night, vehicle with guns and a super bright spot light!!! Gee, Musketeer, What ever would a game warden think!!!

Sorry, just couldn't pass that one up!

I hear ya! I thought about that myself when I was writing it. I should have pointed out that we were NOT using the spotlight to hunt (highly illegal here in AZ)! :shocking:But we always keep one in the vehicle for extra lighting while driving the backroads or for emergency situations! A Wally-World spotlight is a darn sight cheaper that a set of KC's! Uh-oh! I gotta go! There's an AZ Dept. of Game & Fish SWAT team at my door!!! :shocking: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :thumbsup:

:crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :thumbsup:

 

[gordy]

This happened over 50 years ago but it still stands out in My memory.A friend "Vernal" and I were poleing an old wood rowboat along the shore of a small lake that always produced about 50 pair of frog legs each year.I don't know what the law is now,but at the time you could take frogs with a gun,gig.club or spear in daylight hours. We were takeing turns poleing and shooting,had a little single shot Stevens bolt action and were useing shorts.I was poleing the boat and got positioned where Vernal coud see this big old bull frog up under an overhanging bush,anyway he fires and at about that same instant I got a sharp pain right over My heart.I said dam!! :shocking: I think I'm shot.At this He turned around and there was a spot of blood forming above the pocket of my shirt.I believe it scared Him more then me.As it turned out the slug went threw the frog hit a small rock behind it ,came back hit the side of the gun bbl. and hit me in the chest.It had flattend out to the size of a dime and was sharp as a razor,We found the slug in my shirt pocket.He was shakeing so bad, had to give up hunting for the rest of the day. :: :thumbsup: