Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Sense Of Direction

Never heard of that happening, interesting. Better check your keyboard while you're at it too, unless that's some kind of higher math.....

I've never been lost but have found that sometimes landmarks are out of place.

John, I've not yet read your article referenced in the OP but do have a couple things to add to the discussions on this thread.

I killed my first elk in 1994, at last light, a couple miles into Idaho's ominously named "River of No Return" Wilderness area. It was pitch dark before I got done field dressing and needed to get back to the truck to meet my buddy to help me pack out. I had played bugling patty-cake with the bull from about 3/4 mile apart to spitting distance, with both of us covering about half the intervening terrain and had gotten a touch turned around in the process.
My compass (GI standard issue) picked that night to crap the bed, but fortunately it was a clear night, and I could see enough stars through the forest canopy to cypher out the general direction to the road, and Dave and I got hooked up. I used flagging tape to trace my way out and we were able to find out way back into my bull and by sunrise had finished the last trip out with the meat (worked all night because it was the rut and flies were everywhere in the daylight). I got a new GI compass to replace the other, but after reading the earlier comments in this thread about a rifle barrel throwing off a compass I wonder if maybe that was the only problem and I needed to just set my rifle down and step away a couple yards to take my bearings.

That was early in my hunting experience, but as the years went by, I became proud of my sense of direction and navigation, but in reality, most of my experience was in country with good visibility and good terrain so it's pretty easy to keep one's way in country like that. I took pride in being able to "nail" the truck at the end of the day. THEN, while hunting with a very experienced friend who was a professional guide on the side, he gave me a great piece of advice:
"Never, repeat, NEVER, try to hit the truck perfectly on the way out at the end of the day/hunt. Because one of these days, you're going to hit the road and the truck will not be there. And you will have no idea which way to turn to find it and may spend a long time doing so. Instead, intentionally plan to hit the road your rig's on at least a quarter mile, or even a half mile, to one side or the other. THEN, when you get to the road you are very confident which way to turn."

I've followed that advice since.

Cheers,
Rex

While hunting in the piney woods in MN.i learned at an early age that it was real hard for me to get lost.

Played in the swamps and lost a few shoes there.

When hunting in the rolling hills and washes you just have to pay attention.

I know folks that can't get out very far in thick woods without being lost,no matter what state,or if they have been there before.

That's a good one!


Bob
www.bigbores.ca

Have always had a good sense of direction in the Northern Hemisphere, the four times I’ve hunted in Botswana and SA I didn’t have a clue where North was. Have had to use my phone and google maps to get out of the creek bottom at night looking for wounded hogs where I hunt.

CRJ1960,

Africa can be especially interesting when you're basically right along the equator, where the sun is pretty much always overhead! As mentioned in the article, I hunted in Tanzania about a decade ago, and after a failed midday tracking hunt after an eland (the wind switched) a younger tracker took off toward where he thought the Land Cruiser was parked, but an older tracker had a GPS and gently tried to persuade the younger guy that he was heading the wrong direction.

The younger guy didn't pay any attention--but I did, going with the guy with the GPS. The younger guy finally realized he was out-voted by two people and technology, and finally decided all three of us were probably right. We found the Toyota not long afterward--and it hadn't moved!

I have an uncle that will pretty much come out at the wrong spot on the same drives every year.

Don't know how he does it.

Can't say I have ever been lost but I have done some exploring I hadn't planned on. Yes I always carry two compases.Trieda GPS. Went back to the compares and. 7 minute maps.

I took a group of high school buddies grouse hunting back where I grew up in central South Dakota when we were in college. I’d been hunting the area since I was old enough to keep up with dad and my sense of direction is quite good. This was before GPS was common and long before smart phones. We were making a big five mile loop through some cover I wanted to hit and ended up with a bunch of grouse. As I was leading them back to the Suburban and almost there, but it was out of sight, the guy with the dog said, “Let’s give Chili a drink.” I put my pack down to get water and Troy whispered as he leaned over “Where are we? Are we lost?” I looked at him, quite surprised because this guy is no idiot. “No. The suburban is over that hill a couple hundred yards away.” “Are you sure? I think we’re still a few miles from the suburban.” I told him to trust me and he just shook his head when we came over the hill. He was rightly worried about his black lab because it was sunny and in the 80s and everyone was overheated.

I once was following some deer tracks at the bottom of a very small "valley". When I reached the end of the valley and came up out of it, I was more than just somewhat startled to see the sun setting in the east. I quickly got my bearings realigned, but the initial feeling of panic is not one that I wish to relive.

That's pretty much the system I ended up suggesting in the article...after some "exploring" over the decades.

Growing up on the ranch we'd be out in some high meadow helping dad however we could when he'd abruptly stop us all to ask "which way back to the house?" and he'd get the four boys all pointing in different directions. We were probably 6 - 7 years old at the time. He kept at it over the years until we learned the sun and the wind and a sense of direction and after which he introduced us to reading the stars at night.

It got to a point where my dad wouldn't think twice about telling me at 14 or 15 to load up a pack horse, head out to the high meadows, and find the sheep herders. I'd get them resupplied and then head on back. If it got beyond 4 -5 days and still no sight of me then he'd head out looking for me.

It was only much later that I was introduced to map and compass, compliments of Uncle Sam and it seemed simple. It just made sense to me.

The times I’ve done some extra walking 😁 involved an overcast day, no compass and large tracts of timber.

Yep. I discovered my camp had moved one time when I stumbled into it 180 degrees and a mile away....

I carry at least 2, sometimes 3 compasses. One can take the best 2 out of three, or just average them. .

The country I moose hunted in in the past was heavy timber, deadfall, undergrowth. - especially the mile long, half-mile ridgetop we called The Black Hole (re: first line!). Just for the heck of it, I imbedded an inch diameter compass in the grip of the Ruger 77, where the medallion goes. Works, too. The rifle barrel doesn't seem to throw it off. I think I paid $1.50 for the compass.

"Don't Panic!" advise is easier said than done when that hard knot in the pit of the stomach starts working it's way upward. After a few times, tho, being "lost" becomes a more familiar phenomenon, darned near a comfort zone. Don't ask.

I took my brother Bob, and a friend, Dave, into the Black Hole (a mile and a half from the road) one over-cast afternoon, the plan being to spread out 100 yards apart and slip-hunt the length of the ridge. Separately, but together, so to speak, all to key in on anyone shooting. Getting dark, I checked my bearings (small, recognized pond,) and wasn't where I thought I was, so just headed for the road on a compass bearing.

1/4 of a mile from the road, I came out on the edge of another known small lake, only to hear crashing brush a few yards away. Bob broke out, wild eyed, looked at me and said, "Your'e lost too, anitcha?"

"No, I am not. I've been lost here before - I know right where I am. Now."

We found the road about a mile from the truck. Dave, a Nevada cowboy, was leaning against the truck, to which he'd walked to directly at beginning dusk, without a compass. He said, before leaving the truck he had an infallible sensed of direction and refused a compass. I had my doubts about that.

Bob and I of course kidded him about walking directly back to the truck after we parted, on the trail we took in.

He did relate that he got lost once - the only time- in a fog so thick he could barely see his horse's ears. The horse wasn't lost tho.

I used the same technique in Idaho's FC Wilderness Area, on one of Dave's horses a couple years later. It was pitch dark when I found the horse as a light blur in the darkness where I'd left him (I wasn't lost- just left starting back too late). I climbed aboard, looped the reins around the horn and let Badger take me the 5 miles back to camp. I could barely make out his ears, it was so dark that night.

I don't know squat about horses, but I know that much!

I had a very close friend, who was also a "Bob", that could get lost in his back yard! He went on a few moose hunting trips with us and we had to insist that if he headed for a known spot on his own he must flag his trail with orange tape every ten feet or so!

If it gets dark, and that might be anticipated, I always have a pocket flashlite along with my compass. But if the stars are shining, I dont bother with the compass. Same for daylight if the sun is shining. Still, it's easy to get turned around in thick bush that should be familiar even if there are familiar land marks. I never go into familiar places with thick bush or rugged terrain without a compass. But it never gets used if the sun is shining and I know where the road should be.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

I have, more often than I like to admit, come to streams which were flowing the wrong direction. I have gotten back to the truck at 2 AM; instead of the 4PM I had intended. Not lost though. GD

I think some of you guys are holding back on the REALLY LOST STORY'S. Hell I am !!!

[quote=oldwoody2]I think some of you guys are holding back on the REALLY LOST STORY'S. Hell I am !!![/quotel

lol....that's probably true....