Favorite hunting story.

Hi,  we all need a good story to pass the time and maybe a bit of knowledge. So lets hear your favorite story.

My brother in law finally received his bear permit.  So he got a bunch of 5gal buckets with lids and collected the leftover doughnuts from the bakery. He crammed the doughnuts in the buckets with a stick and used them for bear bait.  After getting his bear he went to skin it and the fat smelled like a jelly doughnut. It was a tasty bear.

Too many to share, Pheasant shoots in Britain are armed cocktail parties 😂

Showing off my favorite "hunting trophy". This little kitten (well, teenager at least) found me out hunting and went "PEOPLE!!! I'M SAVED!!!"
She ran right up and climbed inside my coat. Pretty sure someone had dumped her out there, poor thing.

She was my family's kitty for 11 years.

Climbing up steep stairs to a pitch black loft to try and extract or kill a momma racoon that gave birth a week prior and hearing all the hissing and scratching as I poke my exposed head up through the floor.

I took a few shots with a bow but that wasn't the best tool in such a cramped space, didn't hit anything.

Found the momma coon dead a few days later, idk what killed it. We called a local agency to relocate the rest of the racoons.

If I had to do it again, I'd recommend a spear and some thick gloves.

First, I have no idea how true this story is. It could well be an old urban legend, But,  I overhead it in a back woods cafe during deer hunting season in MN from the table behind me in about 1980.  Grandpa and his son were taking the grandson on his first deer hunt.  They were doing a deer drive.  Grandpa got the first shot in.  When he pulled his knife to dress out the deer, the deer got up and dragged grandpa. Grandpa let go of the deer, and brushed himself off as his grandson ran up to him. As grandpa put his knife away, he commented to his wild eyed grandson, “ That does it. I am just too old.  No more using the knife on these hunts. From now on I use the 30/30 like everyone else.”

I have quite a few good ones.

I pulled up to a hunting spot one morning overlooking a beautiful valley. There were two guys there and when I unrolled the window they looked in and saw the guns and went 'oh good your not the popo' and preceded to pull a couple beer from under their coats. This was at 7:30 AM. So we got out and started talking to them, (they were extremely intoxicated at this point) they just got off a night job and were winding down for the day. After a couple minutes of talking one turned around and said oh there's one. After the shot they helped to find it, but were far to gone to help lol.  Not much of a hunt but does come with a story.


I went deer hunting right behind my house and not a couple hundred yards out I see a nice 8 point eating in the field, as I was sneaking in closer a small 6 point walked right up to me and stopped about 20 feet away then looked at me. It continued on right to my yard. As I was watching the 8 point he walked towards a small clump of trees but as he got  closer a bigger buck chased him away. At this point I wanted the bigger one hiding in the trees. I kept trying to stealthy to scare any of them. Finally the 8 point walked past me to follow the small 6 point.

I snuck up to the trees and couldn't see anything but as it was a good vantage point I found a place to sit against the trees with the wind in my face blowing directly into the trees. After about an hour and half I decided to go back home, as I stood up the was a small spike 30 yards behind me. I watched him for a minute in amazement as the wind was blowing directly at him. After he ran off i kept going and when I got to where he was a doe and the bigger 10 point stood up and stared at me not 20 yards away.

This happened about a 1/4 of a mile from my house.

John F Dean wrote:First, I have no idea how true this story is. It could well be an old urban legend, But,  I overhead it in a back woods cafe during deer hunting season in MN from the table behind me in about 1980.  Grandpa and his son were taking the grandson on his first deer hunt.  They were doing a deer drive.  Grandpa got the first shot in.  When he pulled his knife to dress out the deer, the deer got up and dragged grandpa. Grandpa let go of the deer, and brushed himself off as his grandson ran up to him. As grandpa put his knife away, he commented to his wild eyed grandson, “ That does it. I am just too old.  No more using the knife on these hunts. From now on I use the 30/30 like everyone else.”

Either there are a lot of crazy old grandpas in the world, or in various details this is indeed an ancient and venerable rural legend.  As told to me by my father, this was a "no shit, I was there, I was like 11" (which would have dated the story to the early 1950s) tale.  Supposedly he and his father and a couple of his father's brothers and their father were out spotlighting deer (road hunting after dark with a powerful light, illegal but effective) and my great-granddaddy shot a deer between the eyes (which are the only aim point when spotlighting) with his venerable and underpowered 1911 SL .351 semi-automatic.  Deer dropped and they all trouped over to the spot, finding the deer stunned but not dead.  Just as in your version of the tale, gread-grandaddy pulled out his knife to finish the deer by cutting its throat, but while he was bent over it with his arm around it's neck, it stood up and took off, dragging him along.  Supposedly he was yelling and sawing away at the deer's throat until he got the job done.  If the story has any truth at all to it, the guy would have been in his 70s at the time.

My father wasn't entirely given to telling tall tales, but he liked to tell a good story.  So it wouldn't surprise me if he heard a good story in his childhood and placed himself in it in the retelling.  A couple of his uncles were complete bullshitters, so they might very well have told him the legend as true.

Hi Dan,

As I stated in my lead off, I was suspicious.  I overheard it from a table full of hunters in northern MN.  They were swapping yarns.  Each one was speaking a little louder.  Besides the story, I do remember the food was great and there was a large wood burning stove in the middle of the floor that kept the chill out.  Yea, I know, I just described every small town cafe in MN.

Quite so!  Indeed, your caution about the tale was what prompted me to amplify it by sharing the version I heard.  

OTOH, there are a lot of crazy grandpas out there...

I had gotten stationed in Charleston, SC. It's pretty nice for sportsmen who like hunting and fishing.
In the swamps they surround a piece of dirt maybe half a mile square and send in the dogs. They ran the deer out and we shot them.
My land lord invited me to his hunting club one Saturday. They put me on a road and told me to shoot deer, turn the dogs back in.
So, I'm standing on the dirt road freezing my six off when way down this road comes this little white pickup hell bent for leather. Of course, I'm off the road and the truck skids to a stop. The very excited driver tells me to get in, they got one on the run. I jumped into the passenger seat and he takes off slinging dust and gravel behind him.
Up ahead is a couple more hunters for which the driver skidded up to. They jumped in the bed and here we go.
Heckle and Jeckle in the back are sitting on the top of the closed tailgate. They got shotguns at the ready. I should have gotten out!
Suddenly, this little six point breaks cover beside the speeding truck. He makes a couple of bounds and the driver slams on the brakes. The two pinheads in the back are already bringing weapons to bear and their forward momentum has them moving faster than the truck.
They opened fire on the buck who has by this time made a left hand turn in front of the truck so these morons are shooting over the cab. They hit the back of the cab with enough force to completely knock one guys weapon from his hand. They both hit hard, but at least they quit shooting!
I unloaded my weapon, got in my truck and went home. I've never been on another dog drive and I won't do it again.

Jack Durston wrote:Too many to share, Pheasant shoots in Britain are armed cocktail parties 😂

Some of the best times in my life have been around a campfire lying through our teeth about the one that got away 🤣
Every deer season here my family (uncles, cousins, aunts) load up and head for the woods. They normally clear out a spot in the Kiamichi mountains of south eastern Oklahoma.
Most just sleep in tents, but there are a few big camping trailers set up. Good place for the women to pee. They go in herds here in the US, too! Gives them a place to talk about the men while they're waiting their turn.
We have one big campfire around which everybody sits in folding chairs. There is an abundance of marshmallows and chocolate bars to make S'mores for the kids, young and old.
They usually camp within walking distance of a deep stream so we can bathe. You know when someone jumps in the cold water when they come up for air. They're loud when they come up😂
And just like in the UK, booze is involved. Since we have access to high powered weaponry we follow basic safety precautions. No loaded weapons in the camp is the one that keeps us safe and we check each other. One gent dropped a loaded black powder pistol once and it went off. The ball hit him under the chin and lodged behind his left eye. He recovered but lost the eye. Understandably, he's paranoid about loaded weapons.
When we leave there is very little evidence we were there. We take our trash with us, but leave the firepit and any wood we had left over for the next bunch. Sometimes we are the next bunch. Sometimes we have to clean up a site before we set up camp. It's a shame.
We like to have green horns like you (no insult) along to have fun with. I returned to camp once to find 4 or 5 guys sitting around the fire. Each one had a huge hole blown out of the top of hid cap. Not being too stupid, I kept my mouth shut. A young hunter came back from the woods and they told him if he placed his cap over the muzzle of a vertically held black powder pistol the cap would capture the bullet and he would have a souvenir. His did as instructed but when he pulled the trigger his cap suddenly looked like the caps those other goobers wore...a big hole blown out the top. That kid was pissed off!
Anyway, I read your reply and thought I'd enlighten you on how we hunted as a family. We usually stay for a week or so and I look forward to it every year!