I ought to be ashamed of myself

[KHornet]

I think that really good hunters have more than once had critters pass them by without
launching a projectile at them. Know I have with deer, turkey, chuck, etc. There is a
difference between hunting and killing. Once had a cow moose and calf walk within
20 yards of me, as I sat under a low hanging conifer and it was dead quiet, never heard
a sound. Was amazed that animals that size could be so silent.

Paul

 

[Maven]

It's not unusual to see turkeys, deer and sometimes black bears on our range while shooting. In fact, one doe walked out to the top of our 100 yd. berm while I was shooting. (I stopped and waited for her to wander off.) Now the critter in my avatar (Sept. 11, '16, Yellowstone Park) was escorting a dozen or so bison across the road and stopped directly in front of our rented Nissan Rogue. I shot him through the windshield with my camera, which happened to be around my neck since such things are pretty common in the park and I wanted to be ready. (I didn't even take the car out of "D"!) He gave me a dirty look and thought either he'd run at the Rogue (which he was almost as long as) or make me his "bitch." He did neither, but he did come so close to the driver's side that I could have reached out and touched his back: NOT a good idea!

 

[fiver]

they will sometimes take candy from your hand over on the west end of the park.

 

[Dale53]

Ian;
Reading the above, including your post, I had a sudden flashback to a number of years ago. I was bear hunting in Ontario, Canada, not far from Iron Bridge. We were hunting in an area that had been logged off fifty years ago and had been closed to hunting for fifty years. The forest had regrown and was again a mature forest. It was FULL of black bear. They were considered vermin, the license was a "formidable" $15.00./ That's right, Fifteen Dollars! We had a guide and were hunting over bait. I was in a group of six from my home area. It was early in the season of the first year that was opened to hunting again. The license allowed one bear of any sex and any age (yep! even cubs were legal). We were dropped off along a logging trail (they had also just re-opened the area to logging) about 1/2-1 mile apart. I built my self a ground blind about twenty-five yards from the bait. Every day there was evidence that a bear had been feeding at the bait but always when I was not there. I got there early and stayed late. I had about sixty hours in this blind and during the last hour on the last day, in walks mister bear. Unfortunately, he was smaller than I wanted. I decided that my hunt was over. However, I knew if I didn't prove to myself I REALLY could have taken him and just decided not to, I would not be happy later. I put the crosshairs on the bulge of his shoulder, took the safety off, and softly said, "bang". The bear never knew I was there. It fed a bit then wandered off. I got up and my bear hunt was over.

The next year, I got a NICE One with one shot and I am a happy hunter, just like I was when I decided not to take the first one.

FWIW
Dale53

 

[Winelover]

Circa late 70's Rocky Mountain National Park

Was looking for handouts at picnic table. Went and got a raw potato from my truck......

 

[Goatwhiskers]

All this makes me think of these yahoos around here that seem to think that when they see a deer that it has to die, no matter how many are already in the freezer, or what age or sex it is. Granted it's mainly the younger crowd who seem to think that they are "entitled" to the kill. Us older hunters seem to have an appreciation for what we have. The quantity of deer I saw this past week hunting W. Texas would drive local guys nuts, gangs of young bucks, you had to wait for the more mature ones. My son and I shot the ranch allowable, each got a nice 8pt and two doe, used the three cartridges I brought. Ha!! This is just my curmudgeonly side showing. Actually we don't have a side, we just are. Hope everyone had a great Christmas, I sure did, this trip was courtesy of my wife and son. GW

 

[Creeker]

I've not shot because I didn't feel like field dressing a kill. Guess I'm getting a little age on me too.

 

[freebullet]

If the top thread in our "hunting with cast bullets" section is to be this one for this long I just feel as if we needed some bloodied deers in da thread. Hopefully I'll bump it down with a cast kill in the next couple weeks.

 

[Ian]

By golly, thanks for fixing that!

 

[shootnlead]

I have hunted all of my life...killed more than my share of deer down here in the south with these high bag limits...this year the limit was 2 bucks and 10 does....but, I have never shot one that I didn't wish that it was like fishing...where I could just throw them back. I have never actually enjoyed the killing of a deer...even though I have enjoyed the hunt and table fare, afterward. However, despite the fact that I have bagged more than my share, I have allowed a lot to walk...never bothered me a bit.

 

[Rally Hess]

Shows good character Ian.
Six years ago, second week of November, mid week. I'd already filled my buck tag and shot a bonus doe. I decided I'd hunt ducks that morning. My old lab (Tracker) and I loaded the canoe and went to a "Cedar Pond"(really a wide spot in a small river. Cedar on the shore cattail ring around the pond. The wind was coming out of the NW and it was snowing like crazy. Heavy wet flakes I could hear hit my clothing. Pulled the canoe into the cattails and bent a bunch over the dog and myself. Snow was piling up pretty fast and my black lab soon looked to be white and so did I. First light the Blue Bills started coming into the dozen dekes I'd put out. Flocks of 20-50, some real close, some just circling. We had Bills on the water at less than 20 feet, and lots in shotgun range throughout the next hour. I caught my lab looking at me a couple times when smaller flocks just about took my hat off. I was scratching his chest so he wasn't moving.He seemed to understand. One of my most enjoyable outdoor experiences, and I never fired a shot.

 

[JSH]

RH, I can relate to that!
I have hit the "perfect storm" a few times when duck hunting.
In the late 80's hunted a lot of public areas. My days were usually Tuesday,Wednesday and Thursday. Let the sky blasters have the rest.
My favorite place was a long walk in, about a mile. I don't play well with others. Most of the time I would walk in with waders in my decoy bag. This particular morning it had been raining for about five days, so I put my waders on as I had to cross several drainage ditches and knew it would be higher than normal.
As I and my favorite duck hunting buddy sat on the tailgate, getting our gear on it sounded like crickets. It never dawned on me at all of what it was, sounded like a cross between a bunch of tree frogs and crickets.
Honestly neither of us really paid it any attention until we started to get into our spot. The noise was almost deafening like a ringing in your ears.
After realizing what we were in the middle of, 4-5 dozen decoys were a waste of time. We got out on the little island which was usuall about a foot high and 20'feet across. We were standing in about 6" of water and ducks,ducks and more ducks. Every where!! I kid you not,if a guy had a dip net you could have gotten your limit with out firing a shot.
About 15 minutes after legal shooting time, and still not a shot fired. We decided we would not shoot until they flushed. A few minutes later it got dead quiet. Some thing had spooked them for sure.
All of a sudden all of them flushed. Now it had not rained the whole time we had been there. When they came off the water, you would have thought it was raining!
Neither of us fired a shot. All we could do was look at each other and laugh.
We did throw the decoys out and got in some shooting afterwards. About the time you could see real well, we couldn't figure what was all over us. It wasn't rain......dark matter, lol.
I have no idea how many there were that morning at least a gazillion.
Later that week we were told and shown the blot on a picture from Doppler radar that was all water fowl miagrateing.

I hunt with several young folks. They look at me like I am nuts when a beautiful pair of mallards come in just perfectly, I stay down and let them set. I WON!!!
I fooled them fair and square.
I try to impression on folks it is not at all about the "taking" of game, but the experience. Some of the very best hunts I have been on I came home empty handed.

I saw a tshirt on a kid a while back, "second place is the first loser". If ya go through life looking at things like that, you have a tough row to hoe is about the nicest way I can say it.
Jeff

 

[Rick]

Second place is the first loser is a term many decades old and refers to a stock car race just completed. In racing there is only one winner. Never heard it applied to life in general but I suppose his shirt could have meant life rather than racing.

 

[JSH]

Rick, I have been around some kind of race car since I was 14-15. When I got out, I was involved in dirt track. None of it,need zero is a profitable journey. None the less I wouldn't trade it,I do have to steer clear though. I go to any kind of race and the wheels start turning again,morgen after a few days I come to my senses. The HP they get out of the new design motors is just crazy.
The shirt was at a rodeo.
One of the quotes I recall from circle track was " if you ain't cheating, you aren't t trying hard enough" or "if ya ain't cheating,may ain't winning".

I know of exactly two guys you could loan a car too on Thursday, and they would run in the top five if not win on Friday.

 

[RBHarter]

Taladaga Nights , the Ricky Bobby story , resurrected it . Of course beauty queens have the same mentality , 2nd place/1st runner up is still the top scoring loser .

I've had some very memorable hunts , some with harvests and some without . A recent late rifle hunt with my Dad will have to go down in the books under wrong turns and lost eyes .

The big water in Nevada tends to allow for a sometimes very diverse bags , like bluewing teal and snow geese .
The oldest boy and I were out on a very cold morning , socked in with fog in layers so sometimes you could halos at 70 yd and others it was more like 70 ft . Anyway this single Rossi must have caught a glimpse of the decoys somehow and locked in . I waited about 15 minutes ,ok fine maybe 10 seconds but it seemed like forever , for my boy to shoot . The bird folded up about 15 yds out of the decoys like a sparrow against a window . There was a drift log bleached white with a limb sticking up about 4ft ..... It's still strange that by all appearances the goose just didn't see it .

Dad took a new lease option this yr and hadn't been out to it in the dark . Then he had me drive . That was good since I had next to no clue where I was going . This all resulted in a 20 mi bad turn on the wrong highway , but they all look the same in the dark when you don't know your way around .....
We got that all squared away and back on track . Now nearly 45 min late we're playing catch-up , and all of sudden Dad starts cussing about never in his whole life , wth, son of a , .... I'm like "is my driving that bad ?" . No my damned eye fell out . Never in 70 yr has that happened !
So I get stopped so he can get steady and get a water bottle out of the back of the truck ..... He fumbles the prosthetic eye ....Out of the truck into the weeds and sand .... Now what you have to visualize here is the 9 swat /air grab at the just out of reach , off the finger tip bobble . He gets it recovered and washed and puts it back in looks at me and says is it OK . I'm a bad son , the only one but still... He looks a little like Steve Buskuse with the fake turned about 80° up and out the wrong way .. No , I think it's upside down ... More cussing .... I'm wrongly amused by all of this , keeping in mind that I've probably seen him without his eye more times than my mother and they will be married 55 yr in June . After 3 more tries he's saying , procreate it , let's get to the stand and I'll fix it later . So off we go with his eye all weird .
It turns out to be a beautiful morning no game but we had some laughs , kick a little brush and I'll always have the 9 swat runaway eye .

 

[Chris]

That's a good one, RB.

 

[RBHarter]

It's not cheating if there's not a rule against it and/or you don't get caught .

The stories of honest rule stretching and outright cheating that wasn't cheating because everyone in the class did it in air racing I could tell.
That prop shop that built a legal propeller that was good for 12 knots , carefully duplicated elsewhere that would only do 6-7 ...
Gear swaps in the 10-1 blowers so they would turn faster , then the techs would mark a blade and turn the engine through to check the gears and count the impeller blades to be sure a 12-1 wasn't installed ...... Then they started measuring depth and length of the blades like a guy would weld up and or machine a blower housing and impeller oversized or something..... Ok maybe they did and maybe they got away with it for years , but when they were caught they came back with the right parts and 2 more tweeks to make up for what they lost .
Remember the intake manifold flow restrictions in NASCAR ? Remember how 2 yr later they were back going just as fast and burning less fuel and meeting the restrictions ?
Indy lost a whole engine class and got boost restrictions, faster than ever 10 yr later .

 

[fiver]

i loved the eyeball story.
my uncle Arnold has a glass eye.
but as a kid i would forget that and it would weird me out when i remembered.
anyway i remember one morning out duck hunting when a flock comes in on a string and we all start shooting.
there is always that one last shot and it's usually him and sure enough there it is right on time2 seconds later.
only this time it's followed by a plooop sound.
yep his eye just dropped out in a foot of water and mud.
he gets to cussin and digging around and wipes it off in the water then on his shirt and puts it in.
when he turns around it's not his eye but a small round rock about the right size in it's place.

i started giggling and my dad told me to shut up.
well i couldn't keep from giggling the rest of the morning [or now writing this]
on the way in we stop at the normal lunch spot and there we sit with the regulars all chuckling quietly but not saying nuthin to him.
finally he goes into the restroom after we order to clean the eye up real well and that's when he sees it is not his eye.
everyone in the place can hear him in there just cussin up a storm and hollerin about what a couple of buttholes me and my dad are.
meanwhile about half of the place is dying in laughter and the other half is wondering what all those lunatics are going on about.

 

[Brad]

Did you guys at least help him find his eye? Or paint an iris on his rock?

 

[KeithB]

Slight thread drift - wasn't there a cowboy movie where one of the main characters sold off his glass eye in a random draw and then bought it back from the winner as a way to make money. Seem to remember Dean Martin and John Wayne but I'm not sure. Any idea of the movie title?