Tell a hunting or fishing story

[Danuwoa]

We don’t get as much of this on good ol GON as we used to. So tell one of your favorite hunting or fishing stories. This thread isn’t about whether you think trophy hunters or meat hunters are bad or whether you think people should or shouldn’t use decoys or whatever else. Let’s leave all that mess out of here.

This thread is just for telling hunting and fishing stories. Doesn’t have to be a new one or anything major necessarily.

I’ll start. I had something pretty funny happen to me in the woods Saturday morning. I was up against a red oak in a hardwood bottom trying to kill a turkey. I heard something in the leaves behind me. It was obviously not a turkey and didn’t sound like a deer but it was steady heading my way. I turned around slowly and there were two coons coming straight to me. I watched and they just kept coming on a bee line.

I finally stood up and figured they would at least stop but they didn’t. Kept right on coming. Finally when they got about six feet from me I shewed at them but they just stopped and looked at me like I was crazy. I stomped in the leaves and they still just sat there. I finally sat back down and ran off a yelp on my box call and they turned and hot footed it up the hill away from me. Not the most exciting hunting story in the world I know but I got a kick out of it.

 

[Resica]

Bowhunting in the same spot for several days in a row. Get in before light and go up the tree with my climber. After daylight I kept hearing something down the hill, high pitch sound and couldn't see anything but it was fairly close. After a couple of days of hearing it, I walked down over the hill. Turns out it was squirrels knawing on a ripped aluminum can. Not a great story but had me weirded out. I think I brought peanut butter after I figured it out and put it on the can.

 

[Danuwoa]

Bowhunting in the same spot for several days in a row. Get in before light and go up the tree with my climber. After daylight I kept hearing something down the hill, high pitch sound and couldn't see anything but it was fairly close. After a couple of days of hearing it, I walked down over the hill. Turns out it was squirrels knawing on a ripped aluminum can. Not a great story but had me weirded out. I think I brought peanut butter after I figured it out and put it on the can.

It doesn’t have to be a life changing story. Pretty interesting. I would have had to GON and checked that out too.

 

[RamblinWreck88]

I was hitting up a favorite squirrel-hunting spot along the Altamaha River early one morning. What I didn't account for was that the water level was a little higher than it had been last time I was there, so the spot was partially-flooded.

Undaunted and without a backup plan, I found a dry vantage point near a tree and sat down to see if my little hotspot would animate as it had in the past. About the time started to get settled in, I heard a branch breaking above me. Before I knew what was going on, a branch and fat squirrel flopped down into the puddle in front of me with a splash, and the squirrel tore through the puddle and up a tree and made a hasty escape, leaving me too surprised and--carrying a scoped .22--ill-prepared to attempt a running shot.

I muffled my laughs as I imagined how embarrassed the squirrel would be if it were possible. After a little more time passed and with rain starting to fall, I figured that the story I'd witnessed was enough of a harvest for me and called it a day.

 

[Resica]

I remember rifle hunting for deer in the Poconos. My buddy had got a buck earlier that day and was sitting with me, we were on the ground looking downhill. Heard something walking down the hill and turned around to look. A good sized bear was coming down the mountain. It kept comin and we realized it was gonna walk within a few feet of us , John hollered at it. I was cool with it walking right by us. He didn't holler and move until it was probably 30 feet away. Cool experience.

 

[Railroader]

Climbed into a ladder stand early one morning, and found the back half of a good sized rat in my seat...

While waiting on daylight, I was trying to figure out which one of my hunting buddies was to blame.

Just as dawn broke, a large owl flared to land on my shooting rail. His wing span was about 10 feet, and his outstretched claws looked like big grappling hooks two feet in front of my face.

We saw each other at the same time, and both yelled an outraged squawk. It took him a second or two of frantic flapping to change course, and at some point, my hat came off and fell to the ground.

I killed a big old raggedy antlered buck that morning...

 

[Railroader]

Here's the Owl Buck's rack...

 

[Danuwoa]

Here's the Owl Buck's rack...

View attachment 1221884

That’s a cool rack.

 

[Resica]

Used to hunt turkeys alot on State Game Lands near Hawk Mtn. here in Pa. before we built our camp. (Migratory Raptor Viewing place). I went up on the gamelands in June and was walking a game lands road(All gated). Lots of grass fields. At 100 yards I noticed a hen turkey and a glimpse of some poults on the same road I was on(grass was thigh high). When I got up to the spot the hen and poults flew. One poult flew up right in front of me. I reacted by throwing my arms out like catching a ball. It essentially flew into my hands. I petted it and rubbed under it's throat for a few seconds and then let it go. One of my best experiences. It was pretty small but flyable!

 

[Resica]

I was in heaven holding that little turkey, it was amazing! Thanks for the thread Danuwoa!!

 

[Danuwoa]

Me and and my buddy were camping and turkey hunting at Hannahatchee WMA a few years ago. We decided to get an afternoon hunt in not long after we got there and made camp. Inhad a particular spot in mind and we parked at the gate for the dove field up the hill from Hannahatchee Creek. We were getting our gloves and face masks on and loading our guns and talking with the pan being to walk around the edge of the field and enter the woods on the north end of the field and hunt the creek bottom. I looked out in the field along the hedge row on the west side and there were two huge gobblers about a hundred yards from the edge and out in the field. I told my buddy to look and his eyes got as big as pie plates. Instead of going around the field edge the game plan immediately became walking down the dirt road all the way to the bottom of the hill, enetering the woods quietly and approaching the field from the north end just far enough we could see them but staying inside the wood line. The turkeys couldn’t see us as we went down the road because of the hedge row but also because the road makes a steady negative grade and we were on a much lower elevation than them. I checked the field again before we headed on our way and they were still there and in full strut. They hadn’t seen us.

We hustled on down the road, entered the woods slow and quiet, and I crawled up a draw to check the field. They were gone. The field was empty. No idea what happened or where they went. That is why I love turkey hunting.

 

[Danuwoa]

I was in heaven holding that little turkey, it was amazing! Thanks for the thread Danuwoa!!

Thanks for contributing. You’ve done something dang few people have.

 

[bullgator]

Two years ago at my cousin’s place, I drive a 4wheeler across the pasture and up the hill. I park it maybe 70 yards from the fence line along the finger of woods I need to cut through to get to my ground blind. I noticed 7-8 cows circled up between me and the woods and a couple more laying down. I’m running a little late and there’s a bit of daylight starting. I start walking towards them and suddenly 20’ in front of me something moves and stands up. It was a young ‘yote. Not a pup, but not quite full grown. It casually trots off about 20 yards and sits down and scratches behind it’s ear. I’m dumbfounded and I look at it, it looks at me, and the cows look at both of us. The cows were obviously keeping tabs on it when I showed up on the 4 wheeler. A few seconds later it heads over and crosses the fence then lays down again. This time, having a little more daylight, I could detect an obvious limp. Anyway, I just decided to continue on to my blind and chalk it up as a neat experience.
After discussing it with my cousin we decided that young coyote may have had a bad cow experience and survived the lesson.

 

[Redbow]

In September of 1989 Hurricane Hugo hit SC on the 21-22 with strong winds and a tidal surge of 20 feet plus on the coast. The SC DNR closed all coastal fishing after the storm passed until further notice. A friend of mine and I wanted to go salt water fishing bad but we had to obey the law until we could get down to the coast.

Finally in the first few days of October they opened the coastal waters for fishing again. On October 13 that friend of mine and I had the same off days from the Railroad so we loaded up my boat and headed for Georgetown SC. We put the boat in at the South Island Ferry and motored out into Winyah Bay stopping at a favorite Sea Trout hole of mine to see if the trout were biting. Oh man were they ever the first cast I made I caught a big Speck and soon my fishing buddy was into them also. We caught the big cooler about half full of trout before the tide began running hard and the bite fell off.

I suggested that we head on out to the Georgetown jetties and fish for Red Drum. It was about a 15-20 minute run out to where I wanted to fish the north rock jetty and we had plenty of fresh cut Mullet for bait. Several boats were already anchored and fishing the north jetty so I circled around them and motored on down the jetty where we anchored my boat and started to fish. The other boats were steadily hauling in the Red Drum as we baited up our hooks and cast out toward the rocks. I was afraid that the Drum were not as far down the jetty as we were anchored but as soon as our fresh Mullet hit the bottom the battle was on.

We caught the Red Drum as fast as we could reel them in and re-bait our hooks. It didn't take but maybe half an hour to 45 minutes to finish filling my 84 quart cooler with nice Red Drum. The last couple of fish that we caught I could hardly close the lid on the big cooler and I told my partner what say you that we head home and clean some fish. He agreed, it was about a 90 mile drive back to Florence SC and we were sitting on top of the fishing world for the ride home that day. I have never seen fish bite like they did that day but I have had pretty good luck in salt water every time I fished after the passing of a Hurricane but not like we had on the 13th of October, 1989. That day was our lucky day for sure and we gave fish to other friends of ours as well. At least we got something out of Hurricane Hugo that was good.

 

[Railroader]

I'll add a fishing story, and then I'll shut up...

Every fall, the big redfish stack up about a mile off St. Simon's at Goulds inlet.

Me and a couple loose fools decided to take kayaks off the beach, and catch redfish.

We did, but man that water was rough, and the tide was ripping. It took nearly an hour pedaling a Hobie Mirage Revolution to get back to shore. Looking back, it was stupid of us, but man what fishing!!


We caught about 20 or so between the three of us that day, but I won't do that again...

 

[Ruger#3]

Archery Felsenthal NWR, south AR. Hunting buddy came into camp at lunch time talking about seeing an eight and a six point fighting on a gas line clear cut. We decide the three of us would setup for sundown in the area and maybe one of us would see one of the bucks. We left the hunter who had seen the fight on the gas line and headed into a thicket across the gas line. The trail lead to a T of feeder trails. I setup on the south feeder trail and my buddy setup on the north trail.

Sundown started to darken the swamp. I heard the sound of a bow release to my north and a crash in the brush coming towards me. I heard another release and the six point appeared below my tree. He blew and stomped looking north as he started to walk away. I aimed right between and a little back of his shoulder blades. I hit about 6 inches back from my aim. He bolted and I heard him thrashing just out of sight. My buddy joined me telling of his misses as we drug the buck to the ATVs.

The luck of that hunt would have been enough to talk about but it was to continue to be my season. About 3 weeks later gun season opener found me up the same tree. The feds had started backing up the river to flood the timber for geese and ducks. There was now ankle deep water surrounding my tree. About 9 AM I hear a steady splash in the water coming towards me. A nice eight point walked into sight. He turned to head down the trail leading to the gas line. I took the broad side shot. He dropped in place.

I called my hunting buddies and we all felt it was likely the buck my friend had seen fighting a month earlier. Neither buck was anything spectacular. The coincidence and good friends who shared the hunt with me made it memorable.

 

[Railroader]

Hat Tip @Danuwoa, to a dang good thread!!



Watchin' thissun'!

 

[specialk]

i was deer hunting one day when i was in my teens,, early 80s....no cell/internet back then....along about 9am i start hearing a baby crying in the woods across the property line about 75ds...not constant but like every 2 minutes....i didnt want to but i hopped the wire fence that was the boundary line and started down toward the baby.....i went about 50yds and saw where a dead pine tree had broke off above the ground and fell into another tree but was still standing upright leaning into the live pine....the wind blew hard enuff to make them rub together and sounded a baby crying...couldnt do nothing but laugh......

 

[Danuwoa]

Hat Tip @Danuwoa, to a dang good thread!!



Watchin' thissun'!

Thanks, bud. Thanks for participating.

 

[Resica]

Thanks for contributing. You’ve done something dang few people have.

It was amazing to me sir!!