Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Your best stalks - lets spin some yarn

It gets hot, when you throw in the primer

Seeing "farthest shots" are always a livly one, lets see where we go here.

Not a difficult one - but camera handy.



Bull and cow moose feeding. First seen around 150 yards. Picture at 25 - 30 yards. Just for the fun of it. They never knew till they came back 1/2 hour later -->



Lets see where this goes.

I once stalked a jack rabbit in an open snow covered field at night.

made a big circle & came in behind him. I jumped on him & grabbed him.

jack rabbits don't like that at all.

jack rabbits are surprisingly strong & mean when they are trying not to get killed.

i killed him with my hands after he beat the crap out of me with his back feet & bit me several times with his crooked rabbit teeth.

then I dressed him out, cut him up, put him in the snow to cool the meat off & I lit the grill.

my buddy's lousy ass beagle ate him while I was prepping the grill.

That's all i got, lame but true.

alcohol was a contributing factor.

I usually hunt by layin on my back in a likely spot and coverin myself with leaves and sticks and flowers and stuff.

Then I sprinkle a little deer corn on my chest.

When I hear em crunchin on the corn I open my eyes...I like to see the look in their eyes when they know death's a comin...Then I stab-stab-stab...

Sorry, I don't have any pictures of all the killin. When that starts, my hands are usually full of hair and blood and sharp knives and all.

Yeah, those jackrabbits can be pretty mean when they get to drinking...

Bluedreaux,

you reminded we of this link:

professional huntress N IB lays coverd with meat to bait Hyena.

http://www.natashaillumberg.com/Home.html

Something else, for sure.

true dat.

mean drunks, ugly stuff.

the claws on the hind legs, they hook in real good on a pair of wool bibs.

excellent.

spit my dang gum out!! ROFLMAO

Okay, I'll bite! My father, brother, and I were out hunting mule deer in West River SD about 30 miles west of Pierre, SD. We were hunting all private land and having a tough time locating deer. It was early November and we elected to spend the afternoon glassing from a high ridge overlooking about a 2-mile wide bottom which is full of drainage/runoff cuts. We spotted a nice 4x5 and a big doe playing reindeer games about a mile or so off. We watched them for about 30 minutes and they bedded down. I was anxious to go after them, my brother and dad were not, it was quite wet and the gumbo was a pain to walk in. (gumbo sticks to eveything it touches, if you try to kick it off your boots, your boots will go flying. If you drive long enough in wet gumbo it will stop your vehicle because the tires have packed up to the wheel wells with mud - fun stuff!) Anyway, dad said go ahead, we had permission on the land. It was my first hunt with my M70 SS Classic FWT .30-06 and 165 gr. Nosler BT load. I took off, working through the gullies and washouts towards the deer. I got to where I knew I was within 1/4 mile of where they had bedded down. I snuck up to the top of a washout. I could see the buck's head up about 450 yds away. I had a pretty straight line towards them in the washout. I took off towards them and ran out of cover in an oxbow area where I would be exposed. I snuck around the corner, wading knee deep in water and mud by now. I was 80 yds away from the buck and doe bedded just above the washout! The doe was sleeping, buck had his head up. I put the crosshairs on the buck's neck, squeezed off, he never moved. The doe woke up, looked around, and I had another shell in by then, I made an identical shot on her. I couldn't see dad and bros. from where the deer were. About the time I was ready to start dragging them out after gutting them out, my bros. and dad showed up. We dragged the two deer 1 1/2 miles through gumbo, up and down washouts back to the Suburban. Worst dragging job of my life, if I'd have see the back-pack job done by some folks here I sure would have tried it! The buck dressed out at over 250 lbs. and the doe was just under 200 lbs. Lots of tasty venison! We always hang our deer by the head, and when we skinned the doe, we had to turn her over because the 165 gr. Nosler BT had taken ALL support structure and muscle out of her neck.
There, I'm done.
Selmer

During the 07-08 deer season I was looking for a buck to shoot but the weather was too warm and windy to sit in a stand. I was still hunting along between stands that evening carring my long range 7 Rem Mag which wears a 6.5 X 20 Leupold;


At dusk I was standing in a cedar bush looking down a road I had corned earlier that day when a young eight point buck walked out from behind my left shoulder. He stoped about 30 yards in front of me and begain feeding. He wasn't a buck I wanted to shoot but I figured he made a great decoy so I stayed as still as I could hoping a larger buck might appear.

I soon begain to feel rather silly, watching a buck which was practacly in my lap, which I had no intention of shooting, and holding a long range bean field rifle in my hands at the time.

So, wind in my face, I begain to sneek up on this young buck just to see how close I could get. Moving as slowly as I could when the buck had his head down and freezing in place when he raised it, I closed the distance to three long steps. I had been thinking I would slap that buck on the rump but thoughts of him kicking me below the belt were not plesant. Insted, I took one big step and poked him in the azz with the muzzle of that 7 Mag.

He ran about 50 yards with his tail clamped down before he stoped to look back at what had poked him. It's times like those when you wish someone were there with a video camera.

Havnt done alot of stalking, but this one happened this year. Nothing to special.

I was glassing from here and didnt see anything. Then I took a picture of it and when I looked at the pic I just took I spotted a deer

Its at the base of the bluff on the far left.



My binoculars said it was a doe but I dissagreed, so I circled around and got ontop of the bluff and then came up behind it.


Just a spike Twas fun though. I watched him bed down and then took off looking for something a lil bigger.

This is probably the funniest stalk I have ever done. My son filmed as another hunter walked up to him and watched what we were doing. This antelope must have been blind in his right eye. This was in NM in 2007.

Hope the link works.

I have never really made a good stalk. Just glassed up a couple of Arizona Mountaion Lions and snuck up to 25 feet and killed one. No big deal

Man, that was a good goat! How about a trophy photo?

Bigfin that was a great video and buck to boot.

Friend of mine stalked a black bear shot it and when he got to it figured out it had been dead awhile!

I stalked and shot a moose several years ago that was alive but when I went over to it I found it had been wounded in fight and couldn't stand up to run!!

I posted this story once before, my apologies to those who have read it, but I still think it's a good story...

Way back, when I was much younger, I was quite adventurous. I didn't have a flashlight and at that time Mini-mags weren't yet invented. I was hunting a mountain lion, when I realized how important a flashlight could be, here's my story....

I was tracking fresh sign near Bridger Bowl somewhere around 1976. The snow was deep, but I had the determination to get me a real trophy, so I took chase with a pair of real 'Pickeral' snowshoes.

These aren't the wimpy crap that you find in Army-Navy stores either. Anyone that knows snowshoes, knows good ones are made with Ash frames and moose hide. They are about 4 feet long, narrow, with up-turned tips and a long wooden tail to help keep the attitude of the snowshoe in a manner to facilitate the easiest mobility in honestly deep powder.

Following tracks I was certain were that of a good lion, I forged my way up some really steep and foreboding ravines and slopes. The cat showed no signs of lingering, and I might also add I was on my own without the assistance of hounds.

Tracking was easy, but the course was grueling. If I had been any older, I would have most certainly turned back after the first 6 miles. I knew going into this that nothing of any real value comes without a price, it's whether or not I was willing to pay.

Several hours of up and down without a single sighting, and I was questioning my sanity. Was I really in pursuit of an actual cougar, or was I wishing too hard on a set of Marten tracks. Intellectually I knew I was right, but you can easily second guess yourself under such physical strain.

Hours and miles of tracking finally brought me to a cave with tracks going in and none coming out. What to do..What to do? I had my backpack light for easy tracking, but I still had matches and toilet paper. I found a small stick and wrapped some toilet paper on it to fashion a makeshift torch. I didn't know then, but I do know now, it isn't much of a torch.

With the torch lit, and my revolver in hand, I started crawling into uncertain darkness. The mouth of the cave couldn't have been more than 24 inches high and once inside it didn't get any roomier. I finally got the only epiphany of this entire expedition..."get out of here", but it was too late. What little light was emitted by my pathetic torch, reflected in the eyes of the cat.

[bleep]! was all I could think, and the fight was on. Between the screaming of the cat and my cursing, the torch went out. The only light in the cave was from the fire out the end of my Smith and Wesson .41 magnum. I never saw the value of more than 6 shots until that moment, and I needed more light.

Scratched and bleeding I backed my way out of the cave hoping to see my wife and kids, just once more. Looking myself over, I realized I hurt myself more on the cave opening than the cat inflicted. I found enough composure to reload and get ready for what might happen next. I waited and nothing happened.

Now what? I wasn't going back in there, but I had to find out if I had won. Sticking one of the snowshoes into the cave and poking around, I felt resistance but heard no sounds. That is a good sign. It would be dark soon and I had to do something.

I crawled, and reached and felt hair and no claws or teeth, so I got brave and grabbed what I could, dragging the cat out of the hole. His hide was so full of holes it wouldn't hold water, but I had achieved my goal. Getting the cat back to the truck in the parking lot wasn't easy, but it sure beat crawling into a cave with a live mountain lion.

Ever since then I have always been partial to compact flashlights.

cmg,

Man, I have to go back forty-five years to get this one. When I was eighteen I was pretending to be an Indian pretending to sneek up on a deer. I was wearing tennis shoes back in the day when we played basketball. Now a days folks in the city wear sneekers and boldly shoot each other.

I was in Southern California where some of the rocks are about the size of a single car garage. Then you have some down to the the size of basket balls, with everything in between. This allows a sneeking White boy Indian to be so silent that he can sneek up on his shadow.

I rounded one large boulder and came face to face with three deer. I mean like right there! The furthest was maybe ten feet away. They were as frightened as me. Maybe a little more. I am laughing and chuckling at the mental picture the memory brings to mind. They couldn't get traction quickly enough on the surface of the rocks and were litterally falling down from side to side in their fishtailing attempts to escape.

Not exactly a stalk, but a very fun memory I have not enjoyed for a long time.

shrapnel,

I just read your story. If we're having a contest you win. Great story. Glad you made it.

Here is a field pic. Tall but not real heavy. Still a ton of fun with your teenage son filming and watching.





Here is another clip of a NV pronghorn stalk I had last year. Sorry that it is four minutes longs. Filmed by a pro - Ryan Trenka.

Best hunting stalk,
Glassed up a coues deer at over a mile away going over the top of the ridge. Ran up the side of the hill straight at them so I thought. Got to the top kicked a rock. Spooked the big buck and he stopped at 50 yards, looked to the right of me about 10 feet away and a spike stood up. He ran about 10/15 yards stopped. It was a no brainer. Shot the close spike he ran 10 feet and dropped. My first archery animal and it was a coues deer.
Best stalk ever,
Call me a stalker (sorta). I used to watch my wife walk from the parking lot to her work which was next door to my work. After a few conversations and a couple lunches, I made her my girlfriend, then I made her my wife.

Kique