Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What memorable hunt has puffed you up?

This was a good one.

I wouldn't say any have "puffed me up", but a couple have taught me some humility & a hard lesson or 2.

MM

I am not a very accomplished hunter, so I don't have a lot of experience to draw from. I loved hunting Kodiak when I was stationed there. It was completely different from the southern woods hunting that I was accustomed to. It was active rather than passive, and being a busy body I liked that. The last year I was stationed there, I made it my goal to get a nice blacktail in velvet.

As the season approached, I put in a leave request to have the opening day off. I was working for one of only two bosses that I didn't get along with. He denied the request just to piss me off. I'd have to be in the building by 10 that morning. With sunrise at 6am, I could make it work.

I lived at the base of Old Women's Mountain. There's a hiking trail on the northeast side. It's a pretty good trail, but is gains 800 feet in elevation pretty quickly before the grade eases up. Before daylight, I started jogging up the trail, rifle in hand and frame pack on my back. Just a few minutes after I started up the trail. I came upon a guy that I knew and his bud. They had stopped to catch their breath. I told them what area I was going to, just so they'd be aware. They wished me luck and I was off to the races.

The trail runs across the top of the mountain. About a mile and a quarter down the trail there's a route through the alders that leads to a small meadow. My plan was to watch that meadow for about an hour. I arrived at the meadow right as the sun was peaking over the horizon. I peeled my backpack off and set it on the ground. As I did I caught movement on the meadow. THREE gorgeous blacktail in velvet were grazing. I went prone and threw my Ruger Ultralight 243 over my backpack for a rest.

I took a moment to kinda compare them. I picked the one that looked best and mentally guessed the distance at just shy of 300. This was way before rangefinders were readily available. I was shooting hand loaded 100 grain Hornady BTSPs. There was no wind, so it was a matter of just holding a little high. My rest was solid and I was steady. The crosshairs settled, I gently squeezed the trigger. An old friend had done a trigger polishing job for me, making the trigger nicely crisp. The rifle barked.

I lost sight of the deer in the recoil, but was immediately greeted with the tell tale wooden thwack of the bullet finding its mark. I got he rifle back in position to look for the deer. It was nowhere to be seen. My previous experiences had taught me that I wasn't good at estimating distance over broken terrain, so I started second guess in myself. I wiggled back into my backpack and started heading to where the deer were standing, continuing to evaluate the distance as I did. With the trajectory of the 243, I should have been safe even with a good bit of error in judging distance.

I walked to where the deer was when I pulled the trigger. There was a slight drop about 5 yards behind him, and that's where he lay. I had work to do, and I had to do it in a hurry. I got the meat boned out, cut the head off for an antler mount, packed the meat in the pack and lashed the head to the frame. I then started making tracks for home. When I reached the main trail, the guys that I had passed on the way up were just getting there.

The guy that I knew stared at me dumbfounded for a minute, then gave me a Hail Mary. I wished them luck and began the trudge back down the mountain. I got the meat in an ice chest, and threw the head in the back of my truck. I got home, got cleaned up and made it to work with plenty of time to spare. I knew a guy who was an SCI scorer. He measured the deer for me, and it made the SCI minimum, whatever that is.

The best part of the whole experience was when my dickhole boss saw the rack. He was so pissed he couldn't think straight. I lost that rack when Hurricane Katrina demolished my house.

Godogs57,

I have got to tell you that this is one of the most touching things I have read in a long time. Kuddos to you for providing the experience for that kid.

Good story, except for that “ tell tale wooden thwack” business.

Pretty sure that’s racist, somehow.

I will second that. I killed a busted up herd bull that had left the herd and was by himself. After jumping him in the morning he dove off into the timber headed down hill and I didn’t think he would cross the highway. That afternoon I climbed a mile or so steep uphill and a mile to the west of where I figured he might come out to circle around him and get the wind in my favor. After sitting above timberline for a hour and freezing my ass off I started my hunt which lasted about ten minutes before I killed him and as I stood there i was like WTF just happened. I still can’t believe that it worked out.

Ditteaux

I am still trying to figure out how to hunt larger game.

I hunted small game, particularly ducks for 35 years.

I have never been one to go with Norm. He always seemed boring to me.

So, I never owned a labrador. Always had "other" breeds.
My last was a wachtelhund with the call name of Quaid. He was a special dog by all measurements. Not much taller than our lab dog basset hound, but longer and built like a dang otter. Interesting thing about wachtelhunds is that on hair, they will bark like a beagle, but on feathers they are quiet as a mouse.

Anyways, in Quaid's third year you could start to see the switches being turned on in his head. He started to know the smell of Ballistol, understand that the click of the safety meant business and he had to use his nose to retrieve for most of my sub par shooting kills.

Our time was spent mostly hunting out of pirogues in small brakes of cypress in central to north Louisiana and usually by ourselves unless number one son could meet us from school at LaTech.

We had big ducks move into one brake that was a pain to get to, but Quaid and I discussed a strategy and agreed we could get in there to kill our birds.
Took six hen decoys and after beating through palmettos, got to our spot.
We killed our birds in no time. Six shots, six birds. I over kicked my coverage that day.
While I was getting the decoys loaded, Quaid jumped a cottontail. So I loaded up with number 4 shot and sure enough, bunnies being bunnies, he circled right back to me. I shot the rabbit and Quaid delivered him to hand. I was congratulating Quaid for his stellar work and sure enough, another bunny made a poor decision. We dispatched him as well.

On the way in we rode through a food plot with turnips planted in it. I pulled a mess of turnips.


That night the camp had smothered rabbit with turnips, and duck breast seared in the black iron.

Was the first time I thought of myself as a hunter.