Hunting Stories

[two70]

With more than a month yet until the first hunting season of the fall opens, I find myself starting to get the itch already to pick up a bow or gun and head to the woods. I'm sure I'm not the only one so I thought a thread to share hunting stories may help us make it through the long, hot summer. So let's hear them, your best and worst moments in the field, the ones that got away, the ones that didn't, the dream hunts you've been on or those you hope to yet go on, anything hunting related.

 

[two70]

Smokey and the Bandit
I'll start things off with a story about two huge bucks that captured the imaginations of local hunters back in the mid 80"s, several years before I would be old enough to begin hunting. Back then my father, grandfathers, uncles and nearly every other deer hunter for 3-4 square miles around were obsessed with two bucks, one of which they called Smokey.

Smokey was a big bodied buck with a fairly wide, really tall 10 point rack with several stickers. If Smokey was big bodied, then his frequent running buddy was beyond huge. I remember seeing him once and thinking briefly that there was a full grown steer hanging out with a group of does until I realized that it was also a deer and could only be the second of these two legendary bucks. Although, Smokey got most of the attention, primarily because he was more visible and had a more classically large rack, the second buck was likely even larger with a tremendous spread, heavy mass, but shorter tines. My father likely got the best, closest look at him while driving to work one day. That day in early November, a doe ran across the road in front of him, forcing him to stop completely in order to avoid hitting her. Before he could begin accelerating again, the huge buck barreled out of a cornfield, leapt a ditch and nearly ran right into his driver's side window. My father swears to this day that the buck's rack was noticeably wider than the window on his '79 Chevy with deeper bends in the beams than many really wide bucks have.

This second buck was never "officially" named but to my mind, with his running mate named Smokey and his more secretive nature, Bandit was the obvious choice. Although Bandit was fairly visible to motorists along a road that ran through his core area and often seen in the company of Smokey, he was never seen by anyone I knew while hunting. Smokey on the other hand, was seen by most of my relatives and several others while hunting, always out of range, in the brush or with some other circumstance preventing a shot. My father had one opportunity, late in muzzleloader season one year but opted to take a shot at another good buck that was closer. Once the smoke cleared he ended up killing a lovely limb and both bucks escaped unscathed. Smokey was reportedly, eventually killed some years later, still a very nice buck but in obvious decline. If the Bandit was ever killed by another hunter no one I knew ever heard of it. Eventually, after a few years of hunting them, the hunters I knew moved on to hunting other deer in other places but nearly 40 years later they still talk about those two buck.

 

[Dirty Steve]

I was in NW Wyoming about 2000 on a back-country horseback elk hunt. I was sitting on an elk wallow about an hour before dark with a guide/friend of mine. We could hear elk in the timber moving towards the wallow. After a while the "elk sounds" stopped but we could still hear something coming through the timber. Two grizzly cubs emerged and proceed to get into the elk wallow and splash around. They started wrestling like 2 little kids, throwing each other around. We sat there intrigued for quite some time and then wondered,...where is mom at?

We decide it was probaby best to backout and move on back up the side of the mountain to where the horses were tied. One the way down the mountain towards the wallow earlier in the day, my friend had cached his pack by a deadfall. We got back up to within about 100 yards or so of the pack and see mom.....she had apparently dropped the kids off at the pool and went to the grocery store. Oblivious to us,...she was eating the contents of the pack and his pack itself. We made a wide loop around her and back to the horses and rode out in the dark. We came back a day later to retrieve what was left of the pack. The teeth punctured thermos made quite a souvenir.

Watching the cubs from 50 yards or so away wrestling around was one of the coolest experiences of my life.

Dirty Steve

 

[Leadeye]

Sitting in a tree stand and being invisible is one of the great things about hunting. One evening when it was really still I heard an increase in grey squirrel chatter to the south of me. The noise got louder and was moving toward my position and I was curious to see what it was. In the distance I saw a bobcat walking along the trail, it was the moving epicenter of the squirrel chatter and as it passed me moving on down the trail the chatter died out behind it finally fading into the silence of the evening.

Walking to a tree stand on a trail going through thick saplings and multi flower rose one evening I was surprised by a small bird flying down the trail fast with a hawk right behind it headed straight for me. The bird made a sharp left into a thick rose bush right in front of me and in a great example of target fixation the hawk went into the bush right after the bird crashing into the thorns. Tumbling into the briars and thrashing around the hawk finally got upright and sorted his feathers, then in what I thought was a remarkably human trait, he looked around to see if anyone was watching him like we all do when we do something dumb. Finally looking over his shoulder and seeing me on the trail behind him he got out of the bush quickly and few off, probably glad that only a human had witnessed his mistake.

 

[spencer rifle]

First two northern Indiana deer were a few years ago during gun season, private property, deer stand. Someone else had set it up there years ago, and picked a good spot. Spent the early morning hearing shots all around me and hoping for an opportunity.
About 9:30 AM I noticed movement south near the tree line. A couple of does, small and larger, trotted toward me along the trail. I had been skunked for several years, so I took the closest opportunity (the smaller one), maybe a 30 yard shot. It ran about 30 yards and collapsed, right front leg malfunctioning the whole way.
But the does kept coming. They stood around and stared for a bit, and just moseyed around the tree stand. They obviously weren't going to let me climb down and get my deer. After about 5 minutes I took aim at the largest doe. Same result, but this one went 40 yards after a 20 yard shot.
AND THEY STILL KEPT STANDING AROUND! 7 or 8 does and yearlings. They gradually moved off after about 10 minutes. When I climbed down from the tree stand, there was another one about 20 yards off, just staring at me.
If I had more room on my tag I could have filled 3 freezers.

 

[two70]

As most who've hunted any length of time know, mature bucks can move very quietly when they want to and can seemingly appear out of thin air at times. Many years ago on the second morning of firearms season, I encountered a buck that apparently didn't want to. In fact he seemed to want the exact opposite, to announce his presence with every step.

I had been settled into my climber for some time and was patiently waiting for legal shooting time by checking my watch every 30 seconds or so. At about 5 minutes till, I begin hearing brush popping headed in my direction. There was so much racket that I was convinced at first that it was some lost greenhorn stumbling through the woods. However, by the time the sound was about 50 yards out, I began hearing tines tickling and raking limbs along with the crunching of limbs and popping of brush.

At this point, it is not only sinking in that this really is a buck approaching but I'm also doing the math and realizing that this is almost certainly a very nice buck. There wasn't much I could do about it though as it was still before legal shooting time, the woods were still very dark, and this buck was seemingly on a mission to get somewhere. After the buck passed me at about 60 yards, still making a racket all the while, I hatched a desperate plan to try to call him back in. Much to my surprise and after only two soft bleats, the buck swapped ends and marched back to stand a mere 40 yards from me trying to locate the doe he thought he just heard. After what seemed like an eternity of looking at my watch, staring at the vague outline of the buck, and trying to figure out how to load my weapon quietly enough to avoid spooking him, I felt a slight breath of breeze on the back of my neck. With a tremendous snort and a couple of bounds the buck leapt out of my life forever, leaving me with nothing more than a vague impression of a big body crowned by a wide frame set of antlers.