Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hunting camp pranks

The biography of William O. Douglas had some good ones in it, perpetrated by the Justice himself.

Like stopping up the flue so the cabin filled with smoke, and saving a few trout heads from the previous evening's dinner to place in the bottom of the coffee mugs of his pals, so that they wouldn't find them until they drained the contents....

I had a good prank pulled on me. Seems the joker in question (who still hasn't come forward) used a cargo strap to lock me in a bathroom. (Wrapped around the knob, and anchored to some shelving.)
But, being that I am a belt and suspender type, (never leave home without knife, fire, and flashlight type) I still had a few screwdriver tips and a 1/4" handle in my pocket. (Never a bad idea to carry).
I disassembled the lock, exited, then reassembled the lock. Left it as I found it, and they never did find out how I got out.
I never said a word about it.

A large zip-tie around your driveshaft with the tag left long, makes for some startled looks. (Ask me how I know)

Some of you are wound a little to tight.

I have this uncle who used the backside of an axe against the trunk of a snow laden jack pine to make for one of the most memorable group photos in camp history. The timer on the old Canon film camera snapped just in time to catch a couple hundred pounds of snow cascading down on 9 smiling guys who were about to hop in the trucks to head home after a 10 day hunt.

The time the lawn chairs were forgotten so logs were chainsawed off at the appropriate height. Except for the one for Francis, he'd been in the hooch after camp was setup and in the interest of his personal safety his chair was cut only about 3 inches tall. It seems that mass quantity of bourbon can affect depth perception and he decided to sit down in his seat. He was still pissed 20 years later.

While hunting deer near Ft Laramie a few years ago, me and a buddy, Mark, were walking up this draw. I was about halfway up the right side and he was going up the left side, but not as high on the his side as I was on mine. I saw something move in a fork in a big Cottonwood tree about 7' from the ground. Mark was closer than I was to it but didn't have the angle to see what I was looking at. What I could see that he couldn't was a pair of coon ears and the top of a scrunched down coon head hiding in a small hollow in that tree.

"Psssst Mark," I got his attention, "Lean your rifle on that tree over there," I pointed to a different tree. And in a just loud enough whisper and hand signals I continued, "Now pick up that stick," pionting," and "Go to that tree and poke around in the fork of it just there above your head". I still can't believe he done each step that I had told him and never asked why, but he did. That coon sure was pissed when he thought he was hid but got poked with a stick. He jumped outa that tree growling and hissing right at Mark who's running backwards till he fell down, but fortunately, the coon didn't eat him, it just run off mad. Mark was kinda mad for a few. "Why did you tell me to do that"? he asked, "I just wanted to see if you were dumb enough to do it without wondering why," I told him, "Guess we both know now". "What was you expecting to happen anyway"? "I never thought about it I guess," he says. "See, that's what I mean". 😁

Later that day, I pointed out a knothole to him and said, "Hey Mark, come put your finger in this here knothole". "[bleep] you, you do it first", I patted him on the back laughing and said, "See you are a lot smarter this afternoon than you were this morning thanks to me".

Oh heck. Too funny.

Man, it woulda been great hunting with you. Hopefully in the happy hunting grounds.

This is my sentiments also. Pranks are for kids until they are mature enough to realize they are not for anyone.

Some people don't like being fooled with. Usually it's people who are real full of themselves.

Or it could be they have actually matured as they got passed junior high school.

This is a shocker.

Did you get past junior high school?

The way my group hunts they're mostly too damn tired to play silly games.
Nobody sits in a stand all day, they hunt some high hard country.
Speaking for myself I'm damn old for that kind of crap.

I know just what to get you for Christmas.


Surprise!

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I passed with flying colors.

When I was a teenager I hunted in a typical Georgia deer camp. you have several types of guys that are in every camp. In our camp you had the brother of the president who had stands in every patch of woods around. He spent the whole season trying to kill the buck others seen by positioning himself in one of his stands closest to where ever a deer was seen. One morning my friend Ralph saw a nice buck running along the ridge above the main creek. As he told the story I see the president's brother paying close attention. I immediately got in my truck and drove down to the creek. Knowing where he would be hunting the next morning, I went in and removed all of the victim's bright eye trail markers that lead to his stand and placed them in a big circle. The next day at lunch the said victim arrives in camp at lunch and says that he got lost going to his stand that morning. Only to find himself 40 yards from his truck come daylight.
The next fellow was the guy that knows every deer on the lease by name and likes giving advice on how to kill each deer. But he rarely ever kills one himself. One evening after an unsuccessful hunt. my partner and I got an idea. Knowing that Natiebumpo was leaving, we strapped a set of rattling antlers to a leather boot and positioned it even with the back door window of my buddies Bronco. When Natiebumpo approached the back end of our vehicle while driving out. We saw him hit his brights, knowing he had seen the back of our "trophy bucks" head. We rolled up the electric rear window ,speed up and away. The next day the President of the club called me and asked me if we had any luck the day before. I said "nope"!
The ever popular making giant buck sign near someones stand to keep them from wandering is always a fun one. It also tells you who will share their finding with the guys who say nothing.
The guys I hunt with all have a light heart and are there to have fun. We hunt hard but it is the laughs that we have on each others expense that make the memories. We all have nick names for each other, usually spun out of a practical joke, If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. Reading some of yall's disdain for practical jokes makes me think. Gee's these guys need to lighten up. You would not last long around my crew.

Hahaha. Most places i hunt dont have booners so things dont bet too serious.

Back when younger in NEPA we used to set up g hogs we shot and make them seem somewhat real..... I know a few folks following behind us shot quite a few. Some would last from week to week and when shot then would vaporize like a pd. Funny stuff.

The first lease I was on was all plumbers and pipe fitters. We had one fitter that had 3 sons. They were like 9,10, 12 years old. Now Gerald liked his Miller beer. He could drink a case of beer from Houston to San Antonio, another to Ozona. When they got there the 12 year old was driving cause he was so drunk.

Gerald always got up that next morning, no matter how hung over he was. Gerald had the best stand on the lease. Three canyons came together, his stand on the middle hill. It was the best because of the windmill-water trough in the bottom. They had two 30 06's, usually one box of shells. Sometimes when I heard them shooting I would go over there in my jeep to see if I needed to haul a deer back to camp. They sometimes would be down there counting bullet strikes in the dirt to see if they possibly hit the deer or not. They didn't shoot real well to say the least.

We cut a deer out of plywood,attached a nice set of antlers to it. We staked it out by the foot trough. We were all waiting on the hill for daylight. Gerald and his sons shot up every shell they had with them. They fired 18 times at that piece of plywood. He was pretty pissed, but one of the guys had another box of shells, so he was ok. There were no holes in the dummy deer. It was about a 200 yard shot.

I had forgotten about that until I read some of the other posts. My son would fall for that for sure. I may have to do that this year.

We called this dog in, Jeff shot him and when we got back to the truck we decided to leave him rather than deal with the hide. The next day we hunted the same area and he was froze solid so we stood him up, got this photo, then left him stood up next to the road.



I'm sure somebody got an adrenalin rush out of it.