Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Lasting words heard on hunts

We have all heard comments while hunting that stay with us. I'll start with a few.
From a sheep guide in the Northwest Territories "I can tell how much a man has hunted by the size of the knife on his belt, the bigger the knife the less he has hunted."
From a camp cook in British Columbia "If dinner doesn't taste good you need another drink."
From a guide in Nevada "I'm a little concerned when a hunter shows up with. 243 or a 300 magnum."

From an old-timer in deer camp when an ass-hole was giving one of the guys a load of crap for missing a deer:

"If you ain't missed, you haven't hunted much or ain't trying hard enough."

From the same old-timer, who got his buck every year, usually the biggest taken in camp. This was the story of how he took that year's buck:

"So I whipped out mah pecker, took a piss in the scrape, and this buck started gruntin' and came right in."




But my all-time favorite is this, said after any unsuccessful hunt: "That's why they call it huntin' and not killin."

"You can't hit anything if you don't shoot at it."

From my brother to my son, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

Buddy: Come check out my elk.

Me: Nice! Where’d you get him?

Buddy: Right in the shoulder.

"Where is the best place to shoot an elk?"

"Right next to the road."

"Not THAT one!!"

Never found the elk, probably bullet failure or.I dug this bullet out of a dead elk I shot. Look at how this bullet failed.

Elk are tough and hard to kill.

I hunted many years with the most successful whitetail hunter I've ever heard about. His advice to those who asked was, "You have to be ready to kill a deer." Which dove-tails with what a famous, now deceased, New Mexico outfitter whom I was lucky to hunt with several times told me: "Most hunters are too slow at the controls."

RS

Laughin' my @$$ off at that one!

While goat hunting "the top is just over the next rise" right..........

My 14 year old daughter before her first mule deer hunt told me she wanted a nice buck. One evening we were looking at a probably 140-150" 4x4 buck. She asked if she should shoot him. I told her 90% of people who had never shot a mule deer before would shoot him. She thought for a second then said, "I'm the other 10%."

“He ain't killed enough little deer to be ready for a big one.”

Said by a grizzled hunter friend regarding a yuppie acquaintance who had just missed an easy shot at a big mule deer. The new hunter never hunted till he was 40, bought expensive gear and decided not to shoot anything but a “trophy”.

Now that is priceless.

Yes! She's a winner for sure!

The meat dont fry if the arrows dont fly.

On why a hunter missed, "He was shakin like a dog chittin peach seeds".

Not a hunting thing, but a successful charter boat captain in Kodiak once told me, when I showed an interest in his chart plotter;
" there's a lot of things out here to hit" referring to various rocks, reefs, and shoals in Chiniak Bay.

My Dad a family friend and I used to all hunt together. There was only two bads in the camper so dad and i shared one and George got the other one to himself.

I was bitching to George about my dads knee in my back the night before, my dad says "Thats funny, you thought that was my knee aye"

How is it luck? That's what I was aiming at. Luck would be not hitting it.

"Honey, we had a great hunt, jumped three big chuckar covys, had a lot of shooting, and we don't have to clean any birds."

That is a dierct quote from me to my wife on Thursday after my 73 y/o boyhood friend and I went to a great chuckar spot.

My lead black skinner in the camp in South Africa, Telling the landowner the skinning shed drain was backed up:

"When Jim is here our drains are always clogged with blood."

John Peyton's quote in my personal tag line is still my favorite!

When I mentioned that I didn't take a shot, one of the other guys in camp said "You gotta put some lead in the air."

KC

I'm not Mathman, but isn't that sort of like dividing by zero.

"My dogs retrieve/mind/have never messed with a skunk and won't chase deer".

Many years ago on my first elk hunting trip one of the old fellows gave me the best advice ever: "You can forget your gun, forget your compass, forget your water, but NEVER forget your toilet paper."

Between my mom and dad on dad coming home from huntin camp.

Mom: Did you shoot anything

Dad: Never fired my gun

Mom: No wonder, your gun is over there in corner.

just got in from a whitetail hunt. first time i have hunted with my son. we didn't see anything, but he said, "that ok, we had some good conversation"

ROFL! good one!

I started deer hunting over 30 years ago at the age of 14 and had never seen a deer gutted out since dad didn't hunt deer. I asked our youth pastor who was from the sticks how to gut a deer. Without missing a beat he said in his southern drawl "just open him up and take everything out". To this day that is the best and most succinct deer field dressing instructions I have ever come across.

"Eat like pigs, drink like fish, lie like lawyers, and don't admit to nuthin'"

While hunting in a very hard to draw area on a really cold day, I was approached by the game deputy while I was right in the middle
of taking a dump. Deputy says he needed to see my license. I told him if he would wait a minute, I'd get him the paperwork.

A guy I know was sitting on the lake shore holding a fishing pole when the fish warden showed up and asked to see his license. The guy says he doesn't need a license because he wasn't fishing he was just holding the pole for a friend till he got back

The warden asked him if that was a line attached to the pole running out into the water? He answered yes.

Then the warden asked if there is a hook on that line? The guy says of course.

And then the warden asked if there is any bait on that hook? The guy says I think so.

And the warden says "around here we call that fishing".,,,

Sounds like what I told my friend 30 years ago when he killed his first deer, he called and wanted to know what to do. I said " Take all the stuff on the inside, and put it on the outside"

KC

Got checked by a warden in the parking area of a state park while pheasant hunting. As he was looking at our licenses the dog takes a dump in the middle of the parking lot.

Warden: “Are you gonna pick that up?”

Dog’s owner: “No, you can have it”

Those were the days! LOL

“Open the action on your rifle so I can see where I'm going,” said by a grouchy old friend of mine to a new hunter who was careless where his rifle pointed.

Posted some time in the past but I like it and our family repeats it when anyone gets careless.

Hey! That's one of my favorites sayings!

A friend's grandfather who was from the Deep South, poor Mississippi delta farmer. Guy was full of it, funny as hell and tougher than nails. He would always say: "When it's too tough for you, it's just right for me."

Not specifically hunting oriented, but said it in any situation when someone started bitchin.

You are dumber than duck $hit on an iced pond
-coach

I grew up in the "pheasanty" part of ND during the late 80's and 90's. Dad and a couple of his buddies were prolific bird hunters. About the time I hit Jr High dad always brought me with. The worst label you could earn among the crew we ran with was "Leg-Shooter". Happens a lot cause people swing to the middle of the bird, which on a pheasant is about even with his thighs and his arse. You'll blow a lotta feathers off, drop one or both legs, but the 'old ditch-parrot is gonna keep right on flying. Do that once or twice and you'll be blamed for every BB in every leg/thigh for a very long time.

We’d called it a day after hauling in some meat and trophies our hunters had taken. Enjoying a beverage in the tent with 3 other guides

One of the hunters had stayed out with another guide and another hunter hopin to score. But he soon gave it up and headed back to camp. There’s a lil river or creek you have to ford to get to camp right by camp.

The client shouts “ hallo the camp, where do I cross the river?”

One of the smartazzes I worked with never missed a beat “ where it’s shallow”


Still cracks me up

Moose hunting fall of 13 in AB. We get to a small stream that usually they jump across, but, it's too wide, so, I do out my brand new Wiggys. Guide use them, gets across, tosses them back, I come across and he's quite happy with this new option. Throughout the week we use them a few times. Last day, I'm crossing the same creek as the first. I find a softer-deeper mud bottom than I'd found before and find myself floundering about. I did finally wallow my way outta the muck, but I got wet. NEver one to take myself too seriously, we have the whole camp just about in tears as The guide and I describe wallowing about, nearly losing a wiggy, etc, etc, etc. so, at the end, we decided the new "code words" for someone who gets into situations in which he's neither experienced nor useful would be, "He's in over his Wiggys". That pretty much brought the house down, at which point I presented the guide with my now dry wiggys as a gift.

"That's why they call it hunting."

That's the best piece of meat I've ever put in my mouth... He's never have lived that one down.

This wasn't hunting related but ...

USFS trail crew camp. One of the guys described his recent date something like this: "She is divorced and said her ex was a real pervert. He must have been, because she wouldn't do anything strange with me."

I ran into Brian a few months ago and reminded him of those 42 year old words.... I'm bad.....

My #2 son, Mooseboy, was 9 when I took him out for his first yute hunt. He had been out with me before and watched me take deer. However, he was still growing into the sport, and the hard part was keeping him awake in the blind. In the spring, I'd let him come out with me turkey hunting. It wasn't the sleeping that was a problem, it was the snoring. However, he did manage to call in two hens with it. They came up and stuck their heads over the blind.

Now it was deer season. I'd recently acquired a new Marlin 336. It was a warm afternoon in mid-October. I had a spot picked out in one of the pastures to put up a hasty blind and wait for the deer to show up. We came early and Mooseboy, instead of his usual snoring, stayed awake and fidgetted. He insisted there were no deer coming, and it was hopeless, and I'd dragged him off into the middle of a god-forsaken field. I kept reminding him that the deer generally didn't show up until sundown or shortly thereafter. That wasn't good enough. He was in the middle of a real 9 year old snit when a loud noise came from over his shoulder. His hands froze on the rifle.

"Wh--what's that?"

"That, oh best-beloved fruit of my loins," I replied, "Is the deer you said were not coming, arriving."

He turned quickly, and may have seen the three white tails sailing through the oaks as the deer departed.

i shot a deer once while hunting with a buddy. he was watching the deer on the side of a real steep ridge at 300yds with his binoculars . when i shot he said 'he's running straight down the mountain,no its [bleep] and elbows,he's flippin' i'll never forget him screaming that.

Had a family member that used to say, "you know, theres a lot of air around them sons-a-bitches" any time he'd miss anything.

Posting at our club a couple of years ago we started talking about sporting good stores. One of the guys says "I like to shop at Academy, I really don't care for Dicks". One of the older guys says "ooooooo I love Dicks". We all about fell off the proch.

Where’d I hit?

A true story, my wife’s first elk ( around 1972 or so and she was very inexperienced), hunting near Jackson Wy. The party went separate directions. She shot a cow (elk.....smart a$$e$), which was witnessed by someone not hunting, who came over to talk to her. She knew that she needed to field-dress the kill, but had never done it. She asked the man for help, his response...” I’ve can’t do it, but, I’ve read about it, I’ll talk you thru it”! memtb

The huntin' was great, but the shootin' not so good!

"I missed because I suck."

About 20 years ago, the State of Maryland raised our bag limits for deer to 6 bucks and 30 does. So me and a guy that works for me had a contest to see who could kill the most deer.

Our favorite saying was, "If it's brown, it's down."

More like multiplying by zero.

2 yrs ago my oldest son shot a buck (his 5th deer) and got me to help. Buck dropped close by and I told him since I did the first deer he shot, showed him everything again on the second, and his grandfather had done the others it was time for him to do this one. He informed me that he had watched a YouTube video on it last night, no problem. So I'm holding a leg and waiting. He looks at me and asked how to start. My reply was you watched the video, what'd they do? He said I missed that part. I told him to grab the pecker and start there but cutting it off. His reply, with my hands? I said, you can use your teeth but I use a knife. It was an entertaining event to say the least.

A friend that had me and High Brass to his camp several times described deer running by him as, "that deer went by me with a rocket up his azz" !

High Brass used to say "That's why they call it hunting and not killing".

I grabbed the wrong gun

On a goat hunt in SE Alaska, We ended up moving to the other side of the lake (about 1 mile across) in which we were dropped off at. We left the big tent and most of our shiet and headed out with a 2 man tent.

We were there 3 days longer than expected because of weather and the float plane couldn't make it in. He finally arrived and was where he dropped us off but of course saw no sign of us. I fired a round and a minute later he was in the plane, started it up and was headed off at a good clip.

My pard chambered a round and said 'If he tries to take off, I'm shooting him down'

Aussie farmer to me during a cull........"Did you use a round nose on that one?" "Yeah, how did you know?" "They sound different when they hit and work better than a spire point!"

After an unsuccessful hunt for mule deer in the mountains where I saw many deer signs, while relating to my friend whose only comment was:

"I don't have any recipes for tracks"

When my son was young, we were hunting mule deer. Peeked into a little valley, and there were three does, close to us, and one pretty good buck that was trying to sneak away... My son fixated on the three does. I told him several times "shoot the buck, shoot it now." He apparently couldn't see it, plain as day, 125 yards away...

Finally, just before it got away, I shot the danged thing. John said "Oh, that buck!"

I ran into a couple of terrific guys - hispanics - hunting deer last year and when we were joking around about shooting the first legal buck we'd find on public land, I made the mistake of using that phrase...

Sigh...

Went hunting with a good ol boy who borrowed a rifle from Sam, his brother-in-law, for the day hunt. He missed a fork horn mule deer standing still 40 yards away. Then he turned to me and said, “Sam told me that the rifle shoots to the right... or to the left, but I can't remember which.”

Another one from the wife. Prior to our meeting, and after her divorce, she continued to take her sons hunting. She killed an antelope, and was going to teach them how to “field dress”. Apparently pre-rehearsed, they said...”You shot it, you clean it”! Several years later, her son killed his first moose....I guess you know how this went. Pay-back is hell! memtb

"Pop, an old 30-30 won't even reach that far, let alone kill an elk."
Grandpa replied, "This one will- it's been trained."
Then he proved it.

That one is great!

A 7-8 year old kid we knew, speaking to his father when we were loading up to hunt:

"Dad, didn't you say that animals see black and white?

"Yeah, son, they do."

"Well we better take somebody else's truck, because yours is black."

The guy then said to us, "I'm beginning to wonder about that boy....."

You hit the stone not the sheep. After a guy missed.