Hunting Stories

[NoMuskie2Big]

One of the past posts I really enjoyed reading was everyone's favorite stories of past deer seasons. I will share a couple of mine and am interested in reading others.

The first is probably 10 years ago when my Dad broke a cold spell and downed his first deer in a while. My Dad gets pretty excited when anyone in our party gets one, but especially so when he bags one. Well after getting the deer home and hanging it in the shed, he decides to back the truck down the hill in his yard to wash out the bed of the truck. In his excitement he forgets to close the driver's side door of his truck. As he is backing up the door catches a tree and ends up bending the truck door way forward. It is great to be able to tease Dad about this every deer season since.

The other story has to do with my brother. We were crossing a small ditch with steep slopes on either side that has water about 2 inches deep and thick black swampy mud that is about 2 feet deep. My brother who is about 6' 5" and 300 lbs tries to cross by walking over 4" diameter tree that had fallen across the ditch. He gets about half way across and he starts to lose his balance. He is able to stay on for a while but the log he is standing on starts shaking back and forth. To see a guy that big trying to balance on a tiny shaking log was priceless. At that point he knew he was going to go in so he decides to step off rather than completely fall in. He ends up with the blackest smelliest mud you can imagine up to his hip on one leg and up to his knee on the other. This might not be that funny to read but part of our hunting tradition is giving each other a hard time when ever we can so this makes great material.

[FOOT]

My uncle use to tell this story about his father-in-law. Both have since passed but I'm sure they won't mind a re-telling.

The father-in-law had hunted deer for many many years and was now 78 years old. He couldn't get around very well but could still get to his stand it just took him a little longer. Jack (my uncle) went with the father-in-law (FIL) to his stand and then left to get to his own.

Noon comes so Jack walks over to FIL and see's him sitting looking dejected on a stump. Jack asks what the matter and FIL replies "my hunting days are over, I had a shot at the biggest buck I've ever seen and missed with every shot."

Jack tried to console him with lets go get some lunch and coffee and told FIL to pick up his shells. FIL said what shells? There are FIL's feet were 7 30/30 unfired shells. Apparently FIL had levered the shells through the Winchester without ever having pulled the trigger. Later that week FIL connected on a smaller buck to keep his string alive.

FIL lived until he was 89 and hunted deer, and connected, every year except the last 2. He always liked to tell the story on himself and never missed an opportunity to talk about BUCK FEVER.

[deeky]

Unfortunately I missed it this year, but my dad, uncle, and cousin were out hunting antelope. Dad had a nice buck in his scope, and just as he squeezed the trigger, a small fawn that was laying in front of the buck jumped up. Killed the fawn clean and the buck ran off. Cousin said it was the smallest fawn she had ever seen out there. Dad was happy he didn't ruin any meat until my cousin reminded him there really wasn't any meat to ruin on an antelope that small. That will be comeback material for years.

[bigbucks]

Hopefully my relative doesn't read this, but if he does I don't think he'll mind. We have a party of around 10 guys, maybe 12 now, basically all family. 15+ years ago we were making a drive. My main stand was a key posting spot for the drive, so I was in my stand. The woods they were driving has a finger that has to be watched so Brad walked past me & around to post this finger of willows & brush. He disappears & isn't in position long & I hear a single shot. A half-hour or so later I see the drivers come out & couple of them walk across this meadow with Brad, they're talking & joking like usual, but it seems to me like he's holding his one arm way down against his leg kind of funny. As they walk by my stand he lets go & they keep walking. There's a fawn laying there, not gutted yet. It's tiny, but no spots, after he gutted it weighed about 25 pounds. We hung it over a high fence post with one hand, with basically no effort. His story is: "I saw this deer bedded down in the grass so I shot it where it lay, & then it fell over..." To this day any really small deer we shoot is just simply called a "Bradley". We have yet to even see another one that small during gun season.