Tell us your hunting stories

[Just Jim]

Most of you guys that have hunted a while probably have some interesting adventures to tell us about.

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[Just Jim]

Eastern Oregun mule deer hunt some years ago. Brother lived near Harper back then and invited all the family to come over and hunt. We all got here a day early to swap lies and rest up before the hunt. One brother was whining that all the way from Portland he never seen one deer so didn't expect to see one here. After all it was mostly dessert and didn't see much driving through. He continued his whine until we all went to bed with a concentration about how much it cost him.

Morning was cold with frost on the ground and clear skies. Loaded all six of us into the front and back of the old 58 Chevy pickup. Ones in the front were making fun of us cold ones in the back. We headed for a place to make a drive by a farmers corn field he was going to turn to silage to feed his cattle. He wanted the deer killed as they ate too much of his crop. In the past the state gave him a permit to kill a bunch and leave them lay.

Just pulled up to the field and there at about 250 yards was a nice 5x5 buck. It was so cold in the back of the truck I couldn't see with my eyes watering. All I could see was a couple of deer and no definition to their form. The whiner stepped out of the front of the truck, pulled up and hit the buck in the spine behind the shoulders first shot. Deer dropped in the tall grass so him and another jumped the fence and ran out to finish the buck.

Whiner took a 22mag pistol with him but forgot his knife. Other hunter didn't take anything cause he got excited and pretty much fell apart. Whiner fires pistol at bucks head as buck tries to drag itself away with its front legs. Deer quits and lays still. They drag it back to the pickup and throw it in the back with me. Whiner and driver in the front and me in the back for a 3 mile ride to farm.

As we start to pull out I see the deer is still breathing I yell up front but they just picked up speed to get back to brothers place. Got out on Hwy 20 and he really picked up speed and the deer started coming alive and moving. Crap it raised its head and that big rack was pointed at me 3 feet away. I drew out my 9mm browning high power and pointed it at the deer but we were still moving so I held back on the shot.

Just as we started to make the turn into the drive as the brakes came on the deer raised up and slid toward me due to momentum. I cranked a shot in the brain and killed it in the back of the truck doing about 35mph. I was fricking pissed that they were such poor hunters and didn't finish the deer in the field. Let them know right off what I thought. They just threw the deer out at the garage and whiner was left there to take care of his deer. Driver looked for hole in truck and gave me crap about shooting. No holes.

Rest of us hunted all day with some success and when we got back whiner started in again. He complained that he spent all that money and drove all that way to only get 10 minutes of hunting

 

[Just Jim]

So the next year my brother had a new ranch to hunt on that ran both side of a good creek for miles. He scouted it out and said he couldn't count all the deer in the field around the hay and silage piles. Did say there were some really big bucks in the herd.

So we got out to the ranchers house, very nice fellow, and we all six came up with a plan to sneak up on the herd and try to get a big buck out of the bunch. Rolling hills on both side of the valley and a huge rock that a hundred people could lay down on for a good steady shot. So while it was still dark we moved into position and waited.

Clear beautiful sky as the sun rose and everyone wide awake in anticipation. Kept getting lighter and lighter to reveal 3 does down in the field. Boy talk about a big build up to a let down.

So it's back to the ranch to saddle up horses and go hunting far down the creek. Brother and I were walking and I was giving him crap about needing glasses so he can count. All of a sudden there was a lot of gunfire about a mile off and over a ridge. Then over the ridge comes a stampede of so many deer there was no way to estimate their number.

Oh crap I saw a big buck break off and head more our way but two small hills over. Not in the greatest shape but run up and down the hills till I thought I had a shot. When I got there I was breathing heavy so set down to take a shot. Just too out of breath and the gun rose and fell while seeing the biggest deer I ever seen.

He wasn't running but as my brother come up behind me the deer was getting nervous. I tried a shot and saw my round hit about three feet low. Brother who is better shot than me but breathing much harder from running took a shot and missed low by 10 feet. I started laughing so hard I couldn't shoot again and told my brother I was a better shot cause I only missed by three feet and he missed by 10.

We were 30 minutes into the hunt, to be continued.

 

[IronMonster]

I'll tell you my hunting story, I am sure more than one of you will make fun of me for it but what ever, its my story.

So this story takes place about the third or forth year I had been deer hunting. Where I grew up getting your deer was usually not a big production. We often would drive out for a few hours and scout and then head home. Our normal area was less than an hour drive. This particular trip though was more like a three hour drive, out around Malta Idaho. An area called Sublett. It was a weekend day, there was about 3 feet of snow on the ground but the main roads had been plowed. We got back in maybe 10 or 15 miles off the "real" road and things started looking a little iffy.

We made the call to head back the other way and about the time we got headed back we saw a herd of deer about 1500 yards off up on top of this hill. We were in the valley, The whole place is hill after hill on and on for what seems like forever. We got out of the truck and started to make our way up the hill, which is probably a thousand feet tall. Remember there is 3 feet of snow. Its hard going and takes us probably half an hour to get up to where I think we can take a reasonable shot. We each pick out a deer and on the count of three take our shots. I got mine, Shane missed his. I stash my rifle and some of my gear in a tree well thinking I am going to have plenty to carry back and we head over to gather it up We are probably 250 yards from the deer, still only 1500 yards or so from the truck.

We get over and its a clean kill, we start to do our thing when Shane sees the deer who have moved to the next hill, they are maybe 400 yards away. They spook as Shane is getting ready to take his shot, He pops one off anyway and damn if one does not go down. We make the call that since we are closer to the truck now than what that deer is that Shane will stay and deal with mine and I'll head over and asses the situation with his. It takes me maybe a half hour to get down the hill and up the next one to get to where his was. When I am about 50 yards away it gets up and runs. There is quite a lot of blood, I figure I'll just have to give chase and deal with it.

So I walk, and I walk through 3 feet of snow. After maybe a 1/4 of a mile I can see it running up the next hill over. Its maybe 200 yards away. I pull out my Colt 45 side arm and try and hit it as its making its way up the hill through the snow. 7 shots- no hit. I have two extra mags so I pop one in and start walking again. After maybe a half mile I get to where I am maybe 100 yards away. We are both on the same hill. I stop, fire 7 more times- no hit. Swap to my last mag and start off again. I try and make a push and get as close as I can, maybe 2000 yards from where I took the last shot. Now I am withing 50-60 yards of the thing. 7 shots-no hit. Out of ammo. At this point I have been giving chase for maybe 2 hours. I am exhausted and a mile at least from the truck. A mile through 3 feet of snow is a long damn ways.

The deer is showing obvious signs its not long for this world, I figure I just have to push on and sooner or later I'll win out. I trudge along for maybe another 1/4 mile and on a uphill stretch which is kind of in some trees so there is far less snow the deer stumbles and falls back maybe 50 feet, I rush up and grab it around the neck. For the first time I really get a sense of just how small this thing is. Its a yearling doe. Probably doesn't weigh more than me. Its on its last legs, I can see in its eyes its scared but she does not fight much. I have her in a headlock with my face right up along hers. I pull out my dull Gerber pocket knife with a 3" blade and try my best to dig it through her hide to slit her jugular. I held her there as she bled out and died, talking to her the whole time telling her it was almost over.

On the trek to get her I crossed a road which tied to the road where we left the truck. The hour or so it took to walk back to the truck all I could think about was. "this was suppose to be fun" It was not fun, matter of fact it was awful. The whole experience. That was 20 years ago and the last time I shot an animal. It will be the last time unless I am forced into taking one for food.


Probably not what you had in mind for "Huntin stories" But there's mine.

 

[jbett98]

I was invited to hunt mule deer with a large family some years ago.
The standing tradition was that the person who bagged the largest antlered buck would have everybody else pay to have it mounted. Splitting the cost equally amongst themselves.
On the first day of hunting, one of the sons nailed a rather impressive buck and I thought that it was going to be the trophy winner as deer were rather scarce.

On the last day, I was hunting with the other brother when he spied the largest set of antlers that I have ever seen, but they were attached to the oldest mule deer in the county.
This guy was huge, all white around his face, had a bad limp and come to find out had what looked like cataracts in his eyes because he couldn't have missed us standing there 60' away unless he was half blind.
My hunting partner shot him and personally, I thought that the buck wanted to be put out of his misery from his lack of teeth and the festering old leg wound.
I doubt he would have lasted through the winter.

The meat was so tough even the sausage chewed like bubble gum.
Everybody paid up for the taxidermist to mount the head, but the brother with the really nice buck who lost out
on the bet, had the rear end of the old guy mounted and presented it to the winning brother during their annual family get together. Saying that the winner didn't specify which end to be mounted at the time of the bet.
Later on, they did give him the head mount.
Great family and I had a blast hunting with them.

 

[Just Jim]

So,we get back to the ranch and go with our second plan to spread out and make a drive of the creek valley. Women took one side along with the horses, I and a young boy that was the son of a friend took the creek and two others took the other bank.

We are pushing along when gunfire comes from both sides and they are yelling they hit one. One of the new guys claimed it. Me and the kid work our way through the trees, kid was spooked so he stayed close. Came over a small rise and there was a nice three point, wounded but not dead. He was really close so the finish shot was easy. The new hunter came up and asked if it was alive and did I kill it. I said yes but nobody has to slow one down for me to kill so go ahead and take the deer.

Still a couple days left to hunt.

 

[SHPD_Retired]

I can tell you why I no longer hunt. One day a friend and I were out walking a power line when we heard a shot nearby. Thinking that this just might spook a deer our way we took up position on a couple of stumps. After a few minutes we heard some tromping coming towards up. It was obviously not a deer as they don't make that much noise. A man came out into the clearing and was looking around. I yelled at him and got his attention. I asked him if he was the one who got a shot off a few minutes earlier. He said that we was, that he got a good sound shot off. Knowing that a sound shot is just that, he shot at a sound, I looked to my friend and said That's it, I am done. We got down off our stumps, walked to the car. When I got back to town I called a friend and asked him if he still wanted to buy my rifle. He said yes and I sold it to him. That was about 40 years ago and I have not been hunting since.

 

[Just Jim]

I can tell you why I no longer hunt. One day a friend and I were out walking a power line when we heard a shot nearby. Thinking that this just might spook a deer our way we took up position on a couple of stumps. After a few minutes we heard some tromping coming towards up. It was obviously not a deer as they don't make that much noise. A man came out into the clearing and was looking around. I yelled at him and got his attention. I asked him if he was the one who got a shot off a few minutes earlier. He said that we was, that he got a good sound shot off. Knowing that a sound shot is just that, he shot at a sound, I looked to my friend and said That's it, I am done. We got down off our stumps, walked to the car. When I got back to town I called a friend and asked him if he still wanted to buy my rifle. He said yes and I sold it to him. That was about 40 years ago and I have not been hunting since.

Talked to a lot of old timers that used to use that psychology to keep people they met out of their hunting area. Scare them out of the woods. Used to hear about elk camps when too many people camped near by they would act drunk and shoot up into the trees. Next morning they had the area to themselves.

 

[RVTECH]

Several years ago bowhunting (on the last day) my friend and I see a deer about 60+ yards out just standing broadside looking at us. Well at he time both of us had been shooting a lot and were comfortable with shots this distance so I take aim, adjust for elevation and release - arrow hits the ground below the deer who just jumps aside. My friend shoots (and overshoots) and again the deer just steps aside. I am nocked up and this time adjust my elevation and release and a couple seconds later the 'thump' of the arrow hitting the deer and it jumps in the air (obviously hit) and runs off. My friends looks at me in disbelief and says "You hit it". So we wait a few minutes before starting out to let it settle down. We walked to where it was, saw blood and tracks - but these were buck tracks and it was an antlerless hunt! about 50 yards into the track we find it dead and sure enough - it was an odd non-typical buck with a deformed antler growing down along it's head in front of it's mouth and the other small and stunted. Well long story short. We dressed it out and drove to the State cop shop to report it. The game officer let me keep it but cut the head off and took it. He said it was an understandable mistake as we could not see the deformed antler. Problem is I wanted to have the head mounted - probably on someones wall in Bend somewhere.

 

[Just Jim]

Was paving part of the Davis lake cutoff between 58 and 97 during hunting season some years back. Because traffic was held up from time to time I would see in the back of pickups what they had killed. Saw what I call a cactus buck and I have never seen another, so many points I couldn't count them. Nature has some interesting animals, and tasty too.

 

[2beaucoup]

I was duck hunting on Smith Bros. farm in Kent Valley (back when it was allowed). About noon, blue bird weather, everybody else had gone home.
I was standing next to the creek that splits the property when 3 donkeys...2 juveniles and the mom, I assume, burst thru the adjacent hedgerow chased my a couple of Great Dane sized dogs.
I didn't really pay much attention at first til they singled out the mom and were attempting to rip her throat out. Panicking, she ran my direction and attempted to jump the creek about 30 yards downstream from me. They started taking turns alternately attacking her in the creek and resting on the bank. She was bleeding pretty good from the neck and her left ear was hanging by a thread.
As soon as I had a clear shot, I shot the dog on the bank. He let out a high shreik, went down, and then got up and headed for the hills. This got the attention of the second dog and he scurried up on the muddy bank and was greeted with the same treatment. I was loaded up with 4 shot in my 12 Ga 2 3/4 inch magnum, so the immediate effect wasn't lethal. They probably bled to death or died of infection eventually, but I don't know for certain.
I walked over to the donkey and realized she was never going to get out of there on her own. I made the long walk over to the farm office and told them what happened. I told them I would walk back to the area and flag down the guys they would send to help. About 10 minutes later, three guys rolled up in a CJ-5 with a winch.
They were able to ease the animal out of the creek and they led her back to the barn area under her own power. She was a mess.
The farmhands told me that these animals were Ben Smith's pets and that he had raised them since birth. The dogs were part of a pack of feral dogs that had been dumped by various owners over the years. They had been losing many calves and full grown cows to these packs.
I never heard what happened to the donkeys....never really even got a thank you from anyone. I continued to hunt that property until they closed it down the next year. After that encounter, I never went duck hunting again without a few 00# buck in my pocket.

 

[Just Jim]

So next day we start out early in the same area cause we know there is a big herd, we seen them running over a hill the day before. We spread out again across the canyon and this time I have the high side on the west. It's about 150 feet to the bottom and I have a good view through openings in the trees ahead of the guys driving the canyon.

About a half a mile away I see about six deer come out of the canyon on my side. I work my way around a small ridge to get a better view as to what might be a buck. It's all sagebrush up where I am and about three to 4 feet high. As I get around the ridge line I see the whole herd and they stretch to a mile away. Never seen so many deer in my life and at that point I was all alone.

so I started my belly crawl to get close enough to make out a good size buck that I can get a shot at. Took some time to move my big a $$ close enough and in that time two of the guys followed some deer out of the canyon and saw the heard too. I didnt know they were up on my side as I laid my 308 on my hat for a rested shot at the closest big buck, a nice three point.

Desert is really hard to judge distance so all I had was my cross hairs and the size of an average animal to calculate distance. I was sighted in for 100 yards so by the size in the cross hairs I needed some hold over. I put the cross hairs on its back then took my well aimed rested shot. Just then the other two guys fired from about 300 yard from my left. They had followed a nice buck up the bank and took a shot.

Their buck was wounded and ran in front and across from me so all there was to shoot at was a quartering shot plus not knowing where everyone was I couldn't take a chance shooting. It was wounded bad enough that they got close enough to finish it off. I walked toward the place the deer was standing when I took my shot. Got up to it and four inches up from the chest was my hole and he was bleeding out. I finished him with my handgun.

What was funny to me as I was crawling I would see rigs on the road on the other side of the herd. Just the tops of them and the drivers had no idea how many deer they were driving by. When the shooting started the dust was just like you would imagine from a cattle stampede.

 

[Just Jim]

So I traveled alot with my work and not able to drive home on the weekends so it opened up hunting opportunities in all the different Eastern Oregon areas. Common hunting was sage rats or jack rabbits. I love handguns so I tend to hunt more with those than a rifle.

I was in the Wallowa area some years ago and they had billions of sage rats. Signs on farmers fields asking you to hunt them. So the weekend came and one of the other crew members decided he could get away from this towns girlfriend long enough to go shoot some sage rats with me. We set up a bet as to who could kill the most, him with his 1022 and scope or me with my four inch 22 diamondback colt.

Area was a small draw with a creek in it and as we got there it was just full of sage rats. We were loading guns and getting reading when I noticed rats running down off the hill then crossing the road headed for the creek. Jerry just walked on out by the creek and started shooting but as he walked he spooked them down in their holes.

I grabbed my donuts and coffee and got up on the tool box and sat there leaning against his back window. Just waited patiently. As the rats came down I would let them get just to the edge of the road then kill them. One after another until the hour of hunting was over. Jerry came back with a claim of killing 35 in an hour but damn few bodies to prove it. We went back to where I hunted and counted 26 on the road. I had to buy breakfast. On the positive side Jerry was all tired from walking and I was well rested for the rest of the days adventures.

When we drove off it was like we didn't even make a dent in the population of sage rats, it was a huge infestation that ate the grass and ruined fields.

 

[Just Jim]

So the usual hunting trip was to go to Eastern Oregon and hunt the units that were close to my brothers place way out in the country, 40 miles from the nearest big town. We started hunting in a Rimrock area that was really rough and just wore the rigs out getting there. Monster bucks but every time I saw one it was way to far away to kill it. Them old boys were sharp too, they would hide behind the does.

So four great days of hunting but no buck, beautiful country and just a great time but hey not every time do you get something. That night as we sat around the dinner table my brothers wife was laughing at what poor hunters we were. Her being full Indian and raised to be a hunter made the laughter cut like a sharp knife. Then she turned to me and said if I wanted a nice buck before I headed home she would take me where I could kill one.

I really liked her and if we did kill something it would really get to my older brother so next morning we went hunting. Not ten minutes from the house and she had me in a field that I killed a really nice fork. As I was gutting it out she went to get the rig and get it closer to the buck. All of a sudden I hear a gunshot real close and not fifty feet from me she dropped a three point that was watching me gut my deer.

Not only did she out hunt us all but killed the biggest buck. She was one of a kind.