Nightmare hunting trips?

[AZBridger]

i glassed a nice coues buck a long way from anywhere in some very steep , bluffed up country in AZ. I was playing college football at the time and had had so many concussions, a butterfly landing on my head could trigger one. anyways, during the stalk i started sliding down a loose hill and ended up falling head first off about an 8' bluff and landed straight on my head rather than dropping my rifle and trying to catch myself. it split my ear in 2 from the edge, nearly all the way to my head. as some of you know, usually when you get in concussion, the effects are not immediate. i ended up getting down the mountain and killing the buck. right after pulling the trigger, the concussion set in and i forgot my name, where i was, what the hell i was doing, why my ear was messed up and why i was covered in blood. luckily my brother was a couple miles away with a radio and was able to explain to me what had happened and eventually talk sense into me. i got up to the buck and dressed him and threw him over my shoulders (i was pretty damn stout playing college ball and all) about that time, the nausea and vomiting started, and it was dark...real dark. i ended up wandering around in circles, half lost, half confused for what seemed like an eternity trying to find my way up the hill and eventually to the road. it was about 2:00 am when i finally made my way out of there. pretty scary deal and i am not sure how i would have ended up if i was alone.

 

[RobG]

I was told a story about a couple of guys hunting Black Butte in the Gravelies. If you don't know the area it is grassy up on top and you go down in elevation to hunt the forested drainages. Anyway, after walking toward the drainages these guys realized they forgot to mark the truck. They decided to mark where they were at since the truck was within sight.

When the decided to return to the car a whiteout had moved in. They could get to their mark, but finding the car was like a blind man finding a needle in a haystack. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one of them was wearing jeans. Well, they stumbled out there for hours. The battery in their GPS went dead. They tried to start a fire but the sagebrush didn't burn well enough to keep them warm in the wind. The guy in the jeans was so weak he told his partner to leave him; he was ready to die. His partner stuck with him.

The only thing that saved the life of the guy in the jeans was that the storm broke. It was well after dark, but once the storm cleared they could see the headlights of their friend's car.

That story always sticks in my mind. Another one was when I shot an elk late in the day on the last day of the season in the Madison range. The weather was beautiful in the mountains, but when I got close to the car it was was dark and it was blizzard conditions. This is very common in the Madison. The trail was easy to follow in the morning, but now it was drifted in. It wasn't long before I lost the trail entirely. I had the gps coordinates for the truck, but the trail went around some obstacles that were obvious in the day and all I had was a beeline to the truck. I was busting through thigh high drifts, occasionally doing the post-holing thing where you fall into deep snow when you break through the wind crust. Once out in the open I wouldn't have a chance for shelter, like the guys in the first story.

Luckily, I was dressed properly and I knew I'd eventually get there as long as I took it easy busting trail and didn't exhaust myself. Not losing my head and slow and steady was the key. Eventually I got back to the car. This wasn't a nightmare like the other guys' experience, but it did remind me that we are one unexpected event or mistake from serious trouble.

 

[Big Tex]

Let me see...

There was the time I was duck hunting off an island on the Potomac when the wind pics up and all the ice upstream breaks loose and I had to paddle back in my kayak to shore in rollers bouncing off large sheet flows of ice in a kayak overloaded with decoys and my way too energetic lab. That paddle still give me chills.

Or the time elk hunting the backcountry when my buddy's young horse gets spooked by some brush and decides to roll over him tearing up his knee and ending his hunt. Same horse, same guy before our hunt two years ago gets bucked breaking his pelvis.

Or the time when I shot my largest bull to date right before dark. We get back to camp and call our spouses with the news on the satellite phone because we are 8 miles back into the wilderness and learned that my brothers father in law had unexpectedly passed away that day from a heart attack. That made the 24hrs it took us to pack out a get home to family excruciating

Learned something about myself and the fleeting nature of life and health through each of these experiences!

 

[RobG]

Just remembered a story from 36 years ago. I was 13, and never worried about what happened until years later. I was at our place on the west shore of Swan lake in NW MT for the deer opener. There was an island several miles south that I wanted to sit on and target any deer that came to the shoreline to drink. On the opener I jumped in the boat and headed there. Back then there were only a couple places south of us, and nobody there in late October. However, when I got to my island someone had boated from across the lake to do the same thing I was thinking of.

Discouraged, I headed farther south and hunted and saw nothing so I started back home. On Swan it is always windy in the morning and on the way back I was going with the waves. The boat was one of those "glass bottom" boats that you could see through. I was going faster than the waves and I came up over one and smacked hard onto the backside of the next one. The impact blew a frick'n 3' diameter hole in the plastic bottom! I remember looking down and seeing grandpa's 30'06 making its way towards the hole and grabbing it so I wouldn't lose it. I still use that gun.

The boat had flotation so I didn't sink, but it was flush with the water and the motor didn't run. So I just started rowing towards the guys on the island. I had long-johns on and didn't feel cold even though I was up to my waist in the cold water.

According to the guys on the island they were minding their own business when they looked up and saw the upper half of me rowing. The boat was flush with the surface so they couldn't see it, just the upper half of me. They figured that was weird enough that they drove out to see what was going on and rescued me. They were amazed I was treating this like it was just another day with a slight hiccup.

They gave me a ride to their place across the lake and then drove me to my dads. We didn't have electricity, much less a phone at our place. I doubt if I could have rowed across the lake pulling the weight of a submerged boat. Maybe I could have made it to shore and walked home... it would have been an adventure that would rival the time I fell through the ice and walked home... misadventures make for better stories when you live to tell them.

 

[deer_shooter]

Back in 2010 or thereabouts, I took my father in law, Ed, out to Colorado unit 55 for his first elk hunt. The first evening after setting up camp we hiked in about 3 miles to a couple meadows that I wanted to watch for the last hour. I put him on the lower one and I went about a half mile up to the other one. I let him know that once shooting light was over, I'd come get him and there was a small trail not far that we could walk out on. At the time, he was in his late 50's, not in the best of shape and had a heart condition.. and had left his radio in the tent.. After an uneventful evening and it got time to go, I walked down to where I had left him and no Ed. After a few whistles with nothing progressing to yelling till I was hoarse followed by a frantic search of the brush with my headlamp, I resigned myself to hiking out and calling for help to organize a search party. Thinking the worst, I double-timed it towards camp. About a half mile from camp here comes a pickup. They pulled up and it was the area game warden who asked if I was John. I think my stomach tied itself in a knot. He proceeds to tells me that he found my FIL, tired, wet and not far from camp. Turns out that when it started getting dark, he panicked and made a beeline for camp and plowed through everything to get there, brush, streams, etc. Lots of learning lessons.