Blunders we've made

[contender]

I didn't want to derail Robb's thread about a blunder their friend made,, so I figured to start a different one.

We've all made blunders when hunting. Let's share a few. I'll start;

I got out of the Army in Nov. 1979. Deer season was just around the corner. I had an old VW bug that was a chopped woods buggy. Great for woods bumming. Deer season opened,, and since I hadn't been home to do some serious scouting,, I was cruising old logging roads looking for sign or maybe a chance to jump a deer. My 6mm bolt gun was beside me. I puttered around a hill, and across the ravine, at about 150-160 yds,, I saw (2) nice, big bucks. They seemed calm & not spooky.

Ever seen a guy get out of a VW, it still rolling,, and make it to a prone position all in one move? I did it.

As I quickly sized up the bucks,, I picked the larger racked 10 pt, and settled the crosshairs. I squeezed the trigger on what I knew was an easy shot. Loudest darn click I've ever heard happened. I had not chambered a round. (Safety first,, not riding with a round in the chamber.) And I had failed to chamber one in my excitement. I quickly & as quietly as possible,, chambered a round as the 2 bucks started walking into a tree line. I didn't want to try a walking shot,, and figured they'd step back out of this little spit of timber.
Never saw them again.

Loudest click I've ever heard.

[seminolewind]

Good one Contender.

Thanksgiving morning in 1986, I thought I could deer hunt a short time before I was due for Thanksgiving lunch at my inlaws. My regular hunting partner, who always took his pickup truck on our hunting trips, couldn't go, so I went alone in my Honda Civic. I guess I didn't really think things through about what I would do if I killed a deer.

As luck would have it, I killed the heaviest buck of my life that morning and had to stuff a 245 lb deer into the back of a hatchback Honda. A bleeding, stinking buck loaded into my tiny family car.

My wife reminded me of that blunder everytime she got in the car after that.

[bigbrowndog]

I’m guilty of several, here is one.
I was 15 or 16, had just received a nice second hand custom mauser in 25-06 for my birthday a couple of months earlier. This was pre-home gun safes and I was allowed to keep my rifles in my room in a gun rack unloaded. A long planned deer hunt up to Kerrville Texas was coming up, and the anticipation was almost unbearable. I also had my Savage 99, 300sav. but only had 4 rounds for it and none were able to be found at gun shops. Besides the 25-06 was sighted and 3/4’s of a box of 120gr. CoreLokts was available, no need for concern.

We drove up so as to be there in time for the morning hunt. I pulled my 25-06 from the case only to realize I’d forgotten to replace the bolt, which I’d kept separate from the gun when it was in my room. The bolt was safe and sound 90 miles away tucked into a sock in my sock drawer.

I do not recall getting a deer that trip but I may have, all that remains of the trip was that lesson...........keep your gear all together, you never know when you’ll need to grab and go, or simply just overlook the somewhat obvious!!!
Trapr

[clintsfolly]

Bought my son a REM 700 stainless steel factory engraved for a gift for getting his Eagle Scout. It was the bolt lock gun so I gave him a very nice case and WE found a heavy nylon cord a tied the bolt key to the case. We talked and I told him to never lock the thing. First deer hunt we travel 4 hours to the car ferry,a 45 minute ferry ride and that afternoon the guys in camp decided to shoot a few rounds to check gun. Joe comes out with one of my old cases. Where your nice one? I didn’t want to get it dirty so I left it home….. yep the bolt was locked! I thought I told you to never lock it? I was showing my buddy how it worked! Luck would have it the ferry Captain was able to take the gun to the local gun store and they ahead the key to a new one and unlocked it!

[jeffh]

Thanksgiving day, waiting while the turkey cooked, I watched out the kitchen door window as a couple does and a very impressive buck meandered and foraged along a tree-lined ditch 200 yards east.

My wife, being very keen to reading the male mind, even at that age, suggested that I "go get one, since the turkey will be a while yet."

Didn't take five minutes to don the Carhartts, boots and grab my dad's crossbow, which he'd dropped off at my house as he headed out of state to see my brother for the long weekend. "Take it out and try it," he said." I'd intended to shoot it, but hadn't had time. I assumed that the cross-bow, like all our rifles, would be zeroed the same for either of us. Id never used a cross-bow, but it was BOW season, and not GUN season.

I low-crawled a good 200 yards in corn stubble, angling north, toward the deer, who were all in plain sight, very excruciatingly - moving only when all their heads were down. At 200 yards (according to Pythagorus, about 70% of the way there), they started moving south - another hundred yards.

I changed my sloth-like vector and went another good 200 yards, on my belly, slowly, but steadily.

When I finally got within 30 yards, I stood up. SLOWLY, freezing, mid-stand every time one of the looked up. Eventually, I was standing straight up but couldn't see the buck. I figured for all this work, I at least deserved some meat and decided to take the largest doe. I loosed the bolt and watched it traverse the stubble and sail neatly through the tuft of hair on the bottom of her chest, which must have tickled JUST enough to set them all into a flat-out run SOUTH. No point in even reloading the cross-bow.

I watched and saw another hunter stand up in the grass 400 yards south and the deer all veered east.

It was a good HUNT - the best I'd ever had. If I'd had my OM Super Blackhawk or my muzzle-loader, I'd have made meat, but it was BOW season. I didn't feel too badly.

Until a week later, during gun season when I came out of another woods and a neighbor happened by. He stopped his truck at the side of the road and we chatted. Eventually, he mentioned having "seen the darndest thing last week...."

"There was this fella sprung up outta nowhere in the middle of the corn-field!" "No idea how he got all the way out there or WHY, but he just APPEARED - like a ghost!" He went on to explain that this "fella had the stalking skills of an invisible cat, but couldn't shoot for BEANS! "That _________ MISSED a deer at THIRTY YARDS!!!!"

I stood there with my muzzle-loader over my shoulder, listening and trying to determine if he actually knew that particular ________ was ME. I was pretty sure he didn't put that together, and the only thing I could think to say was "ain't that the darndest thing! I better get home and eat lunch so I can get back out here this afternoon!" And, I left.

Turns out the hunter who popped up south of me was his boy, and this neighbor was watching his boy through a spotting scope from the back porch. This was long before there was a camera in every pocket and on every lamp-post, but I got busted just the same.

STILL, THAT hunt was the BEST hunt I ever made. I missed the deer, but dang near got close enough to count coupe on a buck that folks had been trying to bag for at least two seasons. Nobody got him that year either, not during bow season, nor in gun season, so as dumb as it was for me to miss, I wasn't the only dumb-______ out there that year. The terrain is dead-flat. There was no concealment between the deer and me. I figured if I could do it once, I could do it again, but never had to. The muzzle-loader tipped the scales in my favor, as I only had to get within 125 yards without being seen. Took two with it in subsequent years and felt like cheating."

Somewhere, the neighbor is probably still telling the same story as viewed fro HIS perspective - about "the idiot, who popped up out of thin air and MISSED a doe at 30 yards!"

[squawberryman]

Waking up to watch horns bounce by at thirty yards. Twice.

[seminolewind]

They probably heard you snoring. Been there.

[contender]

Good ones,, keep them coming!

[contender]

Here's another little blunder about me again. I was reminded of it yesterday.

Just a few years ago,, our State moved around opening day of various hunting season's for a few things. For deer,, it involved archery & muzzleloading seasons. I had seen the changes,, but after a few decades of it being one way,, and the fact I was busy (work) that season,, I missed our "normal" 2 week muzzleloading season. Normally, it had been in the middle of October.
Well,,,,, Early November,, I was able to slip out for a little archery hunting,, with my crossbow. I had a dandy fat doe I wanted to take,, but she was a bit too far for a quality ethical shot. She walked.
A few days later,, discussing things with my helper,, he asked why I didn't shoot her with a muzzleloader. I replied; "It wasn't muzzleloading season." to which he replied; "You dummy,, it is muzzleloading season,, they moved it,, remember?"

I had forgotten that the State had indeed moved it around,, and I was using my crossbow,, which was also still legal,, but missed the chance at a nice fat doe. Duhh!

As old Flatgate used to say; "Read the manual!"

My helper & I were talking yesterday,, and I was "reminded" that our muzzleloading season opens this Saturday. He doesn't let me forget blunders,,!

[bigbrowndog]

Another read the manual moment!!!
I was putting in for Wyoming deer and antelope and got lazy thinking,....why would they use different unit numbers for different species, they’re all the same. I put in for deer and antelope in the same unit, using the same number. I hadn’t realized my blunder until the tags came in, the two unit were not close but at least both along IH25, I was able to scout the unknown unit during a trip to visit relatives, hunted it for two days and then got out before some heavy weather came in, drove to my normal area and met my friends. Saw antelope, but never got a shot, beautiful deer and elk country though.
Lesson learned!!!

Trapr

[cas]

Nov 1, 2021 18:21:32 GMT -5 seminolewind said:

They probably heard you snoring. Been there.

That's how I learned I snored. Sitting against a tree one season, dozed off and I woke myself up with the noise... scared the crap out of me!! "Oh my God, a bear!!?" lmao It happened a 2nd then 3rd time and I realized it was me!

[jeffh]

Probably the last year in Ohio, before the "straight-wall cartridge in a rifle rile, I made it out to the woods during gun season. I took my muzzle-loader, because I could shoot well with it to 125 yards - while not so much with the shotgun.

I added a layer of clothing I hadn't used in the past - a GI rain jacket, which was a bit large on me. Over that, the obligatory orange vest, and over that, my shooting bag. At some point after sunrise, the rain jacket started getting a bit warm, so I leaned my rifle on a tree, very close to me, so I could grab it I needed to.

In the process of removing my shooting pouch, it hung up on the vest, which snagged the jacket, and as I struggled to free myself of the pouch, I ended up with the rain jacket pulled up over my head as well.

I heard a "HUFF" and stopped moving. I shifted my rain jacket and my gaze to peek out between the buttons of the rain jacket and through an arm-hole of the vest, only to see a fat doe, head lowered, staring directly back at me at about ten feet. I froze and watched. She sniffed a few times, raised her head, turned and trotted off rather leisurely.

By the time I untangled myself and could see - and use my arms again, she was long gone.