What is the dumbest thing that someone has ever asked/said while you were hunting?

A close second for me...

"Do you want to go to Pint Night?"
I'm all down for grabbing some beers if we have to run into town for ice because we got something down. Other than that I'm not trying to have to roll out of my sleeping bag in the freezing cold to piss anymore than I need to, or having bubble gut as the suns coming up.
 
Two days ago my cousins husband sends me a text that says “hey man, can I shoot these .300 bullets out of my rifle?” (He has a .300 win mag)

Picture comes through of him holding some goofy little bullet but I don’t have any reference to tell what it is. I respond with “send me a picture of the box.”

A couple seconds later I get a pic of the box that says “300 blackout.”

I said “no bud, that will be a really poor choice. You can only shoot .300 win mag bullets.”

His response was “thanks man…these ones were cheaper so I bought a box.” 😳
Where did he get his hunters ed certificate? Crackerjacks box? Scary stupid!
 
Growing up we deer hunted in a large public area in the Northern MN big woods. My dad and his brothers and friends had hunted the area since college. They had a story they'd always tell at deer camp about the "Whistlin' Qu**rs."

Apparently there were two brother that would still hunt the area and would whistle back and forth with each other to let the other know where they were. They'd walk all day and whistle the entire time. Everyone knew who they were and disliked them for obvious reasons. One day they wandered in to my dad and uncle eating lunch under one of their stands. They had heard them whistling so they knew who they were dealing with. Turns out they both had a stutter as well. The one brother goes "You g-g-g-guys seen any d-d-d-deer?" and my dad replied with "Haven't seen any deer, but we've each taken a few sound shots this morning." Both brothers look at each other and their eyes bug out and the other one goes, "S-s-s-sound shots? W-w-what's a s-s-s-sound shot?" and my uncle says tells them it's when you hear something but you can't see what it is so you shoot into the brush to see if you can get it to move and see if it's a deer. The brothers proceeded to tell them they were c-c-c-crazy and they can't be d-d-doing that because it's r-r-r-really d-d-dangerous. They told them that everyone in their family takes sound shots and it works pretty well! The Whistlers went back where they came from and after that, they never saw (or heard) of the Whistlin' Qu**rs again.

I'd imagine if those guys probably never let out another wh-wh-wh-whistle again while deer hunting.
 
Not when hunting, but countless times just outside TR National Park where a captive herd of elk are held, I got asked, “Are those elk real?”

The first time I quickly answered “Yes”, trying to be polite.

Every time after that though, it was “No. They are robots.”

You’d think maybe just ONE of these tourists would be skeptical of elk robots. Nope. They were just very impressed with how life-like the robots were.

Every once in a while someone would say, “Are those deer real?” (pointing to the elk). I would love to say I held it together to give the robot answer, but I never did. I’d just start snorting in stifled laughter and try and cover it up with a fake coughing fit.
 
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Once while hunting with 2 friends of mine, we encountered 2 other hunters headed into an area as we were heading out. We were only a few hundred yards from the parking lot and there was about 15 minutes left of legal shooting light as these guys were walking in so we stopped and chatted for a minute. These guys were both wearing blue jeans and basketball sneakers and had no other equipment or backpacks, just one rifle. It was a heavily patrolled Colorado State Park that allowed day use only and hunting by special permit only so we had a pretty good feeling that one way or another this was unlikely to end successfully for them.

We asked what they were hunting and they said deer and then asked us if we had seen any. We said no and returned the question, asking them if they had seen any deer. They also said no, but that they had just seen some "fresh urine". Then they said something weird about the moon that I can't really remember and we basically told them good luck and bailed on that conversation. About 10 or 15 minutes later while standing at the truck we heard a single rifle shot. It was dang near too dark to see anymore and their vehicle was the only other vehicle in the parking lot so we knew it was them. To this day, I would wager every cent I own that whatever they shot at was not a deer.
 
As an interpretive park ranger I answered many seemingly "stupid" questions about the flora and fauna. It never occurred to me to answer rudely or ridicule the visitors. I learned better at teachers college ... and Sunday school. Also, I would have been fired.

August 6, 1987 I was working the visitor center at Olympic Park. Most staff hated it but I loved the VC because I could be answering questions all day and interacting with visitors personally. Giving programs is one-sided interaction. Anyway, I noticed from her backside what appeared to be an eighth grade girl standing at the botanical display for an inordinately long time. Very tiny but appeared very well built too. I strolled over to see if I could help. She was no kid but rather a cute young gal of twenty-six. The section on invasive garden flowers interested her and she had some question I don't recall. Then she pointed to the large molded relief map: "I'm a cartographer and interested in that kind of work. Who makes those maps for the Park Service?" I didn't know but let me ask. About that time a bunch of greenie demonstrators showed up to protest the Elwa dam and I had to go deal with them. While I was gone to lunch she showed up again and left a map for me of the BC Parks on Vancouver Island. Shy and embarrassed she left without leaving her name. Through a process of elimination and the guest book I determined who she was and knew from our brief conversation that she worked at a park on the Island. I found the name of the architectural model company that made the map and sent it in a note with an Olympic Park brochure to the Island head office and they forwarded it to her. A week later she called to thank me. Three months later we were married. It pays to be polite and helpful.

Years later at the conclusion of my "Salmonchanted Evening" program at Katmai National Park I told that story while my late wife and late son were both sitting in the very small audience. Then I flashed a picture of the Elwa dam up on the wall and informed everyone I had just learned it was going to be removed to restore the largest king salmon run in the Lower 48. "That damn dam nearly cost me my marriage to the most wonderful woman in the world. Glad to see it go!" She broke down and cried. And a couple of other gals got teary too.
 
This story isn't a story about something dumb someone said but more an "out of the mouth of babes" story related to me by a co-worker.

There was this guy who was right out of college and had just started work for The Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife at a fish hatchery in Sweet Home Oregon. Sweet Home is a lovely town and I apologies in advance to anyone from Sweet Home who I may offend. The local middle school had a field trip to the hatchery, and he was appointed as the guide. He was talking to the kids about how the salmon return to the steam they were born in too spawn. He told them that a few salmon will swim back to a different steam than the one they were born in, and this was a good thing. He asked why they thought this was a good thing. Of course, all he got was that typical middle school blank stare of boredom. He continued to give them hints to the answer hoping for some kind of response but soon gave up and started explaining a little about genetic diversity and how and why it was so important. Finally, a sign of life as a little blond girl raised her hand. He called on her and she offered a very profound observation "You aint from Sweet Home are you?"
 
My buddies and I will ask and say all kinds of wacky things while hunting and at the bar in the evening. It is entertaining. The objective is to say things that are maybe believable, but certainly very odd. Mislabeling animals, claiming we eat gopher nuts, (I like ‘em jerkeyd), wasting a day stalking cattle are examples. The tracks going around both sides of the tree is fitting.

So, be careful. Probably over 80% of the quotes on this thread could be us. If you take us seriously, the joke is on you.
 
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The one I hear far too often is some version of "I thought this is public land." Just about every trespasser I catch tries to use public land as an excuse. I hate it. For starters in the past, 9 out of 10 were lying and in the days of OnX you can bump that up to 100%. The real damage done is this helps to change the attitude of the landowner against public land and the public land hunter. Just like the landowners that try to run hunters off of public land changes sportsman attitudes toward landowners.
 
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