Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Have you forgotten any thing important on a hunting or fishing trip??

Seems odd that a warden could ask you that in a professional capacity, while participating in a hunt.

In college drove from Chico, Ca to Sacramento NWR for a duck hunt at o'dark thirty with 2 guys who flew out from back east to hunt with me (they used to be members here).

For the uninitiated, it is a 3AM departure from the college house, 60 minute drive, to make the lottery draw in time, to get a place to hunt by legal shoot time. It is an EARLY CHIT SHOW.

Realized once we hit the parking lot I somehow left my shot gun in me and my girlfriend's house.

I called her, and God bless her to this day, she drove that gun out to me, 2 hours, R/T, at 4 AM.

I left my deer tag @ home once, 3hr round-trip error. This is the only thing I've ever forgotten that I really couldn't do without.

I got to WY last fall, verified 0 on my rifle, went to load it and the ammo didn't fit in the magazine, too long (my own handloads), still not quite sure how that happened. No thing, swapped to the backup the night before and didn't lose any time or give it a 2nd thought.

I forgot my socks one year. Ended up buying 4 guns when we went into town for socks. The next year I forgot scope caps (and I've got DOZENS), bought 3 guns when we went for scope caps. Happy accidents I guess. Now the running joke is, "Please forget something this year so we can go gun shopping."

just got back from gar fishing forgot to catch one... got to get up for work in 4 hours....

Our first western hunting trip was to Wyoming in 1981. We drove from Memphis. We had driven about four hours when we realized that we had left our hunting licenses back home, so we had to turn around and go get them. After that, our hunting licenses were put into our gun cases the day they arrived in the mail.

Went on the yearly bow hunt to the UP 600 mile trip 30 miles on a 2 track cross 2 rivers use a winch on the second one to go up the hill 100 ft.....set up a tent camp pull my traditional longbow and wood arrows only to have 3 arrows in the quiver and 2 weeks to hunt and 5 tags....hunted that evening and shot a 8 point that broke the shaft on its death run....this was before cell phones drove back to town a store-gas station only place in town not even a bar....made a phone call to my Mom to go to my house and get the hard arrow case on the pool table with dozen arrows extra broadheads where I left it...she took it to FedEx next day it took 2 days to get there....in that part of the UP there's no next day FedEx $70 to ship....ended up shooting 4 bucks and a doe....

On a deer hunt after work forgot to bring my boots....choice was wear $100 pair of dress shoes or flip-flop to my stand across a muddy bean field....did have a extra pair of socks....so flip-flop it was changed the muddy socks for clean ones at the stand....

900 mile road trip to the fly out operation. Then fly into our cabin. About 700 miles into the trip, I realized I forgot to bring my key to the cabin with me.

On an evening hunt at home I made it all the way to my stand and got everything set up when I realized my arrows were at home on the counter. 20 minute drive, 2 mile hike into the stand. Went home, grabbed my gear and went back. Didn't see anything that evening.

I spent 3 weeks in a tent on Afognak without my toothbrush in 1985. The stiff little brush in my new gun cleaning kit was pretty barbaric, but any port in a storm!

I grabbed the wrong box of ammo. Didn't realize until I got to the woods and started to load rifle.

That was 40 years ago. When I got in, I made a punch list of any and every item I may need for camping, hunting or fishing trip.

Whether a day trip to the woods or a 3 week Colorado trip, I went down the list and packed what I needed.

Few years later, I transferred the list to a spreadsheet on my computer. I have divided the list into 4 seperate, more task specific lists.
1. Hunt
2. Fish
3. Camp
4. Shoot ( cowboy action or range )

Haven t forgotten anything since.
The older I get, the more i appreciate the list.

Not forgotten, but left behind a brand spanking new 120qt marine cooler once. Boy and I load up boat the evening before. Put the cooler back in the boat (it was empty, and was to be used for holding all the stripers we planned on catching). Start our drive to the lake about 4am. Get to lake, no cooler. Two hour ride back home, looking for the cooler on the opposite side of the road the whole way. Found it 1/4 mile from the bottom of the on-ramp where we got on the freeway. Never saw it come out in the dark. As soon as we got up to highway speed, it took flight.

Can't believe that heavy assed cooler just blew out the back of the boat like that. Nice new cooler beat to chit. Still have it, still use it though. But lesson learned, they all get strapped down now.

As far as forgetting things? Opening morning of son's elk hunt. It is O'dark thirty, and we are a mile into the 2 mile walk up to the glassing point. I look over at the kid and say "where is your rifle?" Nice little jog in the dark back to the truck, then run back up for 2 miles to get to the glassing point before first light. Guess he got used to not lugging it around in the previous week of pre-scouting. Still give him crap about it. What were you gonna do kid, run up and stab a bull in the throat with your leatherman?

I hope I haven't told this story already but In 1969 I was on the best deer lease I have ever been on in my whole life. We (8 of us) had 4400 acres of an 18000 acre ranch in south Texas about 15 miles south of Aguilares. One weekend I had to work so I couldn't go hunting. We were supposed to work 12 hours Sat. and 12 hours Sun. Our boss came to check on the job Sun. morning and we were almost finished with the job and we did finish by 11:00. He was very happy about and told us we could have of the day off with pay because we had done such a good job (great boss!).

This was in Dec. and there was a good norther blowing in so I wanted to get my ass to south Texas if possible. I asked my boss if he minded if I took off Mon. and Tues. so I could go hunting and he told me have fun. I rushed home and to get my hunting stuff and hauled ass to south Texas. It was almost sundown when I got to our lease gate and I realized I had forgotten my gate key. I grabbed my trusty .270 Rem 700 ADL, climbed over the gate, put 4 cartridges in my .270 and headed to camp about 2 miles away. I walked about 50 yards and a huge buck and doe jumped up. They just looked at me for few seconds or so and took off headed north into the wind. I was 26 then, in great shape and fast on my feet. There was nothing but brush for about 300 yards so I took out after the buck. When he realized I was chasing him he stopped and looked back at me and I shot quickly. This happened 3 more times and I missed those shots too. When I got to camp I told the guys that I had shot 4 times at a huge buck and didn't even remember seeing the X hairs in my scope I was so excited.

We got off this lease after this season unfortunately but my best friend's cousins took it over. I told them about about the huge buck by the gate and one of his cousins shot it the next year. It was a heavy horned 12 point with a 22" inside spread. The other cousin Charles Stark killed a buck that was a little bigger than that and it was in the Austin paper. I wish I would have saved that paper and gotten the picture laminated.

I went camping in FL (from NC) for a week and was halfway there when I realized I hadn't packed the tent poles. It worked out ok since I had a shell on the back of the truck.

There was the time we packed in about ten miles with three pack horses for a five day elk hunt in a foot of snow and night time temps near 0 F. My buddy neglected to bring the tube along to feed fuel to the cook stove.

I had thrown a ten inch cast iron frying pan into the panier, so we made do with campfire coals.

And there was that time about forty years ago when I forgot to check 100 rds of handloaded 165 gr ballistic tip 30-06 for fitment in my Winchester. Sitting around the campfire, the evening before opening of deer season I discovered the COAL was too long to chamber.

Out of the hundred, I managed to seat the bullet deeper in about twenty, by chambering the round and slamming the bolt home with the heel of my hand. Fortunately, I managed to do so without losing a bullet in the leades.

Which I have also managed to do on top of a mountain, 6 or 7 miles from camp. If you carefully pull a bullet from a second cartridge with your Leatherman, and hold the rifle in a vertical position, it is possible to reload the stuck bullet as you chamber the cartridge. Then you point the rifle at a safe back stop and pull the trigger. Chamber obstruction cleared!

My brother and I in our early teens would do couple day float trips hunting black bears. Heading out the door, I grabbed a box of ammo for my rifle. Turned out to be empties. Ended up killing a bear with my brothers rifle.

Nope but my BIL once left his rifle at the house on the first day of deer season. Fortunately I had a spare.

Nothing major but I seem to forget a sling about a third of time. It prompted me to re-consider the 10lb+ rifle

Schitt paper.
And cut off t shirt belly areas when ya get home.

Big item to always remember in the day pack.

Worst was on our PA rifle deer opener a few years ago. I had found an awesome stand site that a real nice buck was frequenting. Was on a bench near the top of a mountain with a 2.5 hour hike from truck coming up from the backside of the mountain. Got there nice and early and made the hike in with about an hour to spare before daylight. Went to load the Tikka 595 7-08 and realized that I had left both mags in the truck. Was about to head back down when I reached in a coat pocket to get a glove and out pops a single 7-08 round. Bingo! Ended up killing a fat doe about 10AM. Since then I have made sure I put at least a spare round or 2 for whatever gun Im going to use in pants and coat pocket when im loading them the night before a hunt!

Cousin of mine once forgot his backpack on a scuba spearfishing trip. Another time, a buddy forgot his speargun.