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Ok, I am going kind of stir crazy. So tell me...

D

drahthaar

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Sep 26, 2006
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Kalispell/Helena, MT
What is the dumbest or most unpredictable thing to happen to you to ruin or really make a hunt miserable.

Here is mine. Archery season. Walked up over a mountain, headed down into a great basin for an overnighter, bushwacking, when a stick runs right into my ear canal and ruptures my tympanic membrane(my eardrum). Instant cussing, pain, and can't hear for crap out of that ear. I was NOT a happy camper. I am sure there are more, but just thought I would throw that one out there.

I am sure you guys have some good stories.
 
2009 - first day of the hunt, I get to my treestand late, so I sit at the base of the tree to rattle a little, a big buck comes within 150 yards across the small river but won't come any closer and runs off. Thinking to myself " I have to get in my treestand" I climb the tree, get over the one large branch to get on my stand and strap myself off and the treestand collapses, hurling me 24' to the ground HEAD FIRST! $75,000 later I'm 99% back to normal. Now I have a metal left side of my face, but amazingly I'm alive and walking, no broken neck or wheelchair and now hunting from the ground a lot more.
 
I was sitting in a climber years ago when all the timber company land was open to hunt. It's is a nice early Gun season day, not real cold, just right and I see a flash of orange back towards the road I came in on. After a few minutes here comes an older gentleman walking along carrying a 5 gallon bucket in one hand, his shotgun in the other. He walks up about 10 yards from my tree and he still doesn't see this Pumkin up in the tree, puts his bucket down, sits down, he is ready!
Well, now what ya gonna do? I clear my throat, he can't hear either! I whistle, nothing. Finally I pitch a small branch down and he looks at it and I whistle again, he looks up and I ask him "You think we're gonna get one?" He was so embarrassed! He found another place and I just chuckled to myself over it.
No biggie, just an old gentleman wanting to still hunt, nothing wrong about that! John
 
Hiking uphill close to five miles by GPS to a park only to smell cigarette smoke....was coming from an ex hunting partner whose heart doc had forbade him smoking.
 
no not funny at all, just really unpredictable. Hunted harder and had more fun than I have in years this year than any other, due to missing the whole fall of 2009.
 
Ditto on the tags - I made 2 trips to MT but the first trip was an archery elk hunt last fall. I made it 4 hours outside Reno and had been going through the mental checklist of everything over and over and over again until I realized...where the hell are my tags. I pulled over and couldn't find them anywhere. I called the missus...sure enough, she checks where I think they are and she finds them. So I beg and plead with her to load the kids into the car at MIDNIGHT and drive east until she meets me about halfway so I don't have to come all the way back to town. She did it but I paid the price. :D
 
Went hunting with a group of friends to Colorado and 2 of them flew in to Denver and we picked them up. That afternoon, we all shot our rifles to make sure they were still ok and the 2 who flew in could not zero rifles. After about 6 rounds being all over the paper, one of them checked the the scope rings and bases only to find it was cracked. Both rifles had broken scopes. It looked like the cases were opened by someone and either stepped on or pulled until they broke. Almost ruined the hunt for those guys.
 
What ruins the hunt the hunt for me, is dodging deer all morning with the jeep, only to have one dart over to the lane you dodged too. Then you try and dodge back in the other lane, hitting the deer and rolling the jeep forward and over at the same time, only to come to rest in the road, on your side, facing the direction you came from. Then your hunting partner argues with you on hiking down the road to get help, but goes the up the road instead. Then in the dark, you walk by the back of the jeep and see the deer laying pined under you jeep. You lay the boots to it, only to find out with a flashlight that it was your Cat quiver with all your goodies in it. Then a old boy that hears the crash gets up, and winches your jeep up on its wheels. He called Hwy patrol, so you wait 2 1/2 hrs for the Patrolman to show up so he can write you for expired drivers licence. (That 12 year licence can sneak up on you).
 
A couple come to mind for me.
The first was when I was probably 13. My dad and I went for an all day hike, and about a mile from the truck I realized I had forgotten all my ammo in the truck. I didn't have a single round on me. I didn't have the gall at the time to tell him, so we hiked all day and I passed on 3 or 4 bucks, he couldn't figure out why.

The second happened this archery season. It was the last day I could hunt of the season, and I had permission to hunt a big ranch that I had seen a really nice bull on earlier in the year. I get about a mile from the ranch turnoff on the highway, and the front U-joint on my drive shaft explodes, dropping the shaft while I'm cruising at 65. Spent the rest of the day working on the truck. Looking back I should've just taken the shaft off and drove up in front wheel drive. Oh well.
 
wingman1 said:
Forget to bring my tags.
Click to expand...


My cousin has you beat...he forgot his gun!


Probably the most annoying thing to happen to me is when my uncle walked past me right when it was getting to be shooting light (and knew where I was sitting) after I had been sitting there 3 hours so as not to spook game out by walking in close to light. Because I was sitting out in the middle of the field it was only likely for me to see something that was already in the field...
 
Early this fall I was bowhunting from a treestand behind my house. A doe and two fawns enter the scene and one of the fawns becomes suspicious and blows, snorts and stomps for about 20 minutes. They eventually spook and leave the area as it is nearing dark, I think I may as well leave after the production they put on but decide to stay for the last 20 minutes. About 10 minutes of light left and I see a nice buck heading up a trail straight for me. At about 10 yards the buck is walking right at me at a good pace and as soon as he gets broadside I will have him in the frying pan. At about that moment, an owl swoops right at the bucks rack, flys right by me and then lites in a tree about 10 yards on the other side of me. The buck spins around like a wild bull and runs over near where the owl lit. During the commotion I jumped back causing my arrow fall off the rest and to the ground. I was so focused on the buck through the peep site that I am unsure what just happened but the buck is still standing about 10 yards on the other side of me looking up at the owl. I let off the bow and get another arrow nocked without the deer noticing me but when I draw back the buck bolts off. I sat in the treestand for another 30 minutes in the dark shaking my head trying to figure out what just happened.
 
About 6 years ago on opener of WA. state rifle deer season. Was back in a coulee a good couple hour hike, killed a nice mulie buck for WA. and decided to walk him out on my shoulders whole as opposed to heading back to the truck to get my pack frame. Had done it many times before and thought it would save quite a bit of time as it was going to be 70 degrees that day. Was about a third of the way back to the truck when I was walking across a rockslide and it decided to teach me the true definition of "rockslide".
Left knee went out from underneath me, deer went down, gun went down, I went down. Dislocated my patella and felt a real solid "pop" inside the knee. Had to reduce the patellar dislocation and hobble my way out, which took around 6 hours and felt like 6 years. Got in the truck, drove till I had cell service, called the wife and had her bring me a bottle of Ibu's, and stop at Walgreens and buy a knee brace. Drove back and went in and got my deer the next morning, this time dragging it in halves, could not get weight in a pack frame and have my knee hold. MRI two days later showed I ruptured my ACL, MCL, and tore the medial meniscus. Put surgery off till February and killed my best bull 3 weeks after the injury.
 
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