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Hunting stories...
Ok, I'll add one to the story list... feel free to add others.
My dad never hunted except to humor me 'cause I sure had the deer hunting bug bad when I turned 16. Due to my Uncle Jr. (Everybody just called him "Junior") who loved to hunt, and got me addicted to it.
Anyway, my Uncle Jr. only owned 3 firearms that I was ever aware of. An old Winchester 30-30 that I never even saw him hunt with, a Ruger single six convertible .22/.22mag, and a Winchester 16 ga. model 12 that killed everything I ever knew him to shoot which was a pile of deer and a truckload of squirrels over the years. He would still hunt deer from a stand most mornings til ~8:30 or 9, then swap shells, and shoot 10-12 squirrels for breakfast/lunch for all of us on the way back to the trucks where we camped. My Aunt would have the Coleman stove all fired up ready to cook at 11:30 every morning. I can still taste those fresh squirrels and homemade biscuits with gravy like it was yesterday.
My Uncle had told me a few times how his precious (he was right partial to it) Winchester model 12 would throw 3 00 buckshot in a tight triangle right on target. He'd hold up his 3 middle fingers in a not quite equal triangle with one of them a little higher and to the right of the other two and say "Dere gon be 3 double otts, jus like dat when ah shoot a deer.". I tried to explain to him (in my infinite 17 yr old wisdom) that buckshot flew wherever it wanted to, and was a random pattern every time, and he would just smile and say (holding up his fingers again) "3 double otts, jus like dat. You jus wait an' see nex time ah shoots one."
As luck would have it I missed out on the hunts he was successful on for a couple years, and I think I was ~19 before I was there when he bagged one. (~'83).
Anyway, one morning I got back to the truck a little early, and there he was with his Jeep (a '77 tan Golden Eagle that I envied so bad, words are inadequate to express how much I wanted one like that), and he said "let' go fine mah deer. Ah shot uh spike fer some meat. Ah know where ah wuz standin' when ah shot it, but ah need you to go to de tree 'cross de way where it wuz standin' to track it. It wuz a purty good shot." (Meaning it was a long shot).
Fast forward about a half hour and a half mile as the crow flies, but more like 1.5 miles of crawling along Florida swamp road as the road winds around, and we came to a little swamp just off the dirt road (really more like a dirt wagon wheel trail through the swamp). We both climbed out of the Jeep and my Uncle led me to a particular cypress tree on the fringe of a small pond/lake where he stood and pointed about 80 yds away about 1/3 of the distance around it and said "ah wuz standin' about rot here, an de deer wuz over dare" while pointing across the pond. "You go aroun' an ah'll tell you where tuh stop". I just shook my head and told him there was no way he killed any deer that far off with his 16 ga. He just smiled and held up his 3 fingers "Ah shot him in de neck. Jus like dat. Go on 'roun de swamp". 5 minutes later he yelled at me to stop.... there was blood all over the ground about 3 paces further, and blood spatters all of the ~25 yds to where the spike lay. WITH 3 HOLES IN IT'S NECK IN EXACTLY THE PATTERN HE HAD TOLD ME ABOUT FOR THE LAST 2 YEARS. We later figured the distance right at ~84 yds from where he stood to where the deer stood. It's no wonder he never hunted much with the 30-30.
I think my cousin got that Winchester model 12 after he passed on. Goodness knows I'd pay a pile of money for it if he ever got the notion to sell it.
I miss him dearly. He was not well educated, but was one of the finest gentlemen I have ever met, and did very well for himself and his family with nothing more than a 10th grade education and a work ethic second to none. Married to the same woman all his life too, but she gets at least half of that credit. LOL
Luis
My dad never hunted except to humor me 'cause I sure had the deer hunting bug bad when I turned 16. Due to my Uncle Jr. (Everybody just called him "Junior") who loved to hunt, and got me addicted to it.
Anyway, my Uncle Jr. only owned 3 firearms that I was ever aware of. An old Winchester 30-30 that I never even saw him hunt with, a Ruger single six convertible .22/.22mag, and a Winchester 16 ga. model 12 that killed everything I ever knew him to shoot which was a pile of deer and a truckload of squirrels over the years. He would still hunt deer from a stand most mornings til ~8:30 or 9, then swap shells, and shoot 10-12 squirrels for breakfast/lunch for all of us on the way back to the trucks where we camped. My Aunt would have the Coleman stove all fired up ready to cook at 11:30 every morning. I can still taste those fresh squirrels and homemade biscuits with gravy like it was yesterday.
My Uncle had told me a few times how his precious (he was right partial to it) Winchester model 12 would throw 3 00 buckshot in a tight triangle right on target. He'd hold up his 3 middle fingers in a not quite equal triangle with one of them a little higher and to the right of the other two and say "Dere gon be 3 double otts, jus like dat when ah shoot a deer.". I tried to explain to him (in my infinite 17 yr old wisdom) that buckshot flew wherever it wanted to, and was a random pattern every time, and he would just smile and say (holding up his fingers again) "3 double otts, jus like dat. You jus wait an' see nex time ah shoots one."
As luck would have it I missed out on the hunts he was successful on for a couple years, and I think I was ~19 before I was there when he bagged one. (~'83).
Anyway, one morning I got back to the truck a little early, and there he was with his Jeep (a '77 tan Golden Eagle that I envied so bad, words are inadequate to express how much I wanted one like that), and he said "let' go fine mah deer. Ah shot uh spike fer some meat. Ah know where ah wuz standin' when ah shot it, but ah need you to go to de tree 'cross de way where it wuz standin' to track it. It wuz a purty good shot." (Meaning it was a long shot).
Fast forward about a half hour and a half mile as the crow flies, but more like 1.5 miles of crawling along Florida swamp road as the road winds around, and we came to a little swamp just off the dirt road (really more like a dirt wagon wheel trail through the swamp). We both climbed out of the Jeep and my Uncle led me to a particular cypress tree on the fringe of a small pond/lake where he stood and pointed about 80 yds away about 1/3 of the distance around it and said "ah wuz standin' about rot here, an de deer wuz over dare" while pointing across the pond. "You go aroun' an ah'll tell you where tuh stop". I just shook my head and told him there was no way he killed any deer that far off with his 16 ga. He just smiled and held up his 3 fingers "Ah shot him in de neck. Jus like dat. Go on 'roun de swamp". 5 minutes later he yelled at me to stop.... there was blood all over the ground about 3 paces further, and blood spatters all of the ~25 yds to where the spike lay. WITH 3 HOLES IN IT'S NECK IN EXACTLY THE PATTERN HE HAD TOLD ME ABOUT FOR THE LAST 2 YEARS. We later figured the distance right at ~84 yds from where he stood to where the deer stood. It's no wonder he never hunted much with the 30-30.
I think my cousin got that Winchester model 12 after he passed on. Goodness knows I'd pay a pile of money for it if he ever got the notion to sell it.
I miss him dearly. He was not well educated, but was one of the finest gentlemen I have ever met, and did very well for himself and his family with nothing more than a 10th grade education and a work ethic second to none. Married to the same woman all his life too, but she gets at least half of that credit. LOL
Luis
Wielding the Hammer of Thor first requires you to lift and carry the Hammer of Thor. - Bigslug
Replies
My dad grew up hunting and eating squirrels and cottontails, but rarely hunted after his Korean War service. But, he made sure I got every opportunity to hunt with uncles and friends, and would take me occasionally. Most of those hunts occurred when we made our monthly trips from Amarillo, TX to southeastern OK, where both of my parents had grown up and still had lots of family and friends living there. But this story is about my first duck hunt - actually blue winged teal, which passed through the Texas Panhandle in the early fall.
At the time, I had already upgraded from my H&R Topper, Jr. in .410 to a much more potent Stevens bolt action 20 gauge. My uncle was a native of the Texas panhandle, and had always hunted whatever was available locally, mostly rabbits, quail, ducks and geese. After of couple of prolific night-time jack rabbit hunting affairs, he had decided that I was old enough to be his teal hunting companion. Being young and green, I gave very little thought to proper hunting attire, so I showed up wearing a pair of sneakers (everybody called any type of canvas sports shoe either "tennis shoes," "sneakers," or "track shoes" in those days), blue jeans, and a sweatshirt, and carrying my supply of 20 gauge No. 6's in a web belt with loops for the shells. I noticed that my uncle was wearing rubber boots, but didn't dwell on it for long, because I didn't have any, anyway.
We arrived at the 'lake' we were going to hunt, just as the first sliver of orange light was starting to appear, and we didn't waste any time getting out and heading off to the lake. The lake was a standard natural lake for the area - about 6" deep in the fall and winter, and bone dry in the summer - basically, a wet weather slough. But, it was the nearest thing to a lake that you would likely find in the area, so the early settlers had named it Wild Horse Lake (or something like that - I forget). This particular lake had an island in the middle of it, and my uncle liked to hunt there. We didn't even slow down, when we got to the water line, because it was getting light fast, and my uncle wanted to be settled when the sun got up. So, he splashed ahead in his boots, and I did my best to keep up, although the mud was trying to suck my sneakers off my feet, and finally succeeded in doing so. The socks went soon, afterward, so that by the time we reached the 'island,' I was barefooted. Luckily, the temperature was around 50 degrees, so I wasn't too miserable to hunt. My uncle had done a double-take when he saw that I was barefooted, but didn't say a word.
We hunted for a couple of hours and got 4-5 teal, one of which was mine. I felt very good about that one bird, because those suckers are very fast and hard to hit with a 20 gauge. There were no follow-up shots, on teal, with a bolt action shotgun. My uncle had a brand new Remington 1100 12 gauge (the first I had ever seen, outside of a gun magazine), and it took him about ten shots to end up with the other birds, so I felt OK about my performance. But the day was not over.
We cruised the section line roads, when we left the lake, looking for cottontails, and I bagged a couple before heading out for home, still bare-footed. Suddenly, my uncle slammed on the brakes and backed up slowly to look down a brushy fence row. He had spied a 'chicken hawk' sitting on a corner post, about a 1/4 mile distant, and wanted me to sneak up on it and shoot it with the 20 gauge. Hawks were not protected, at that time (as far as I know - early 1960's), and farmers encouraged hunters to shoot all of them they could get.
So, I got out and started my stalk in a low crouch, more mindful of the possibility of rattlesnakes than normal, due to my cold, bare feet, and hopeful that there wouldn't be too many 'goat-heads.' Goat heads were the scourge of west Texas children, because when you stepped on the multi-pointed sticker, it was like stepping on a thumb tack, and often left a bruise, as well as a sticker. When I got within about a hundred yards, I dropped to my knees and crawled the rest of the way, until about 25 yards away, before the hawk detected me and lifted off. I jumped to my feet and plastered him with a No. 6, and he tumbled. Big success, for a kid, and I was still grinning when I made it back to the truck.
Needless to say, my mother jumped all over both of us, when we got home, but my uncle just laughed and said, "If you don't want your son hunting barefoot, buy him some boots." My dad was cracking up over the whole thing, and my mother finally stomped off, muttering. But, she did buy me some boots, after a few days.
No hunting stories from me until I was grown and out on my own. I was a very late starter
Needless to say I learned my lesson.
JAY
OK this was Thanksgiving week, 1982, I think. We, my brother in law, his two oldest boys, my dad, and me, all set out to Junction Tx. to the Afhalter Ranch, between Junction and Menard. The Afhalter's owned a company that built levies and damns in the discharge or spoil areas for dredging. They were based out of Rio Hondo Texas, down in the valley and my brother in law being an engineer in the dredging business was very good friends with the family. Paul Afhalter, the Owner and Patriarch of his family and business, loved to take new hunters out to his ranch and he let my brother in law have the use of his company lease. He had another hunting ranch down the road right out of Menard he used strictly for his family. He was an opinionated old geezer but a brilliant self made man. I thought the world of Paul Afhalter.
We would usually leave for Junction on Sunday evening after church and lunch. we would have the place to ourselves from then until Wednesday night before thanksgiving. Anyway, Paul or one of his boys would take us to the hunting cabin and get us situated. Back in the day all the adults drank and hard. I always would bring at least a 1.75 liter bottle of Jack Daniels black label, this was when it was still 90 proof, 45% ABV. My dad would bring a case or two of beer (but he drank little beer, usually mooching my whiskey, LOL!!! Back then DWI wasn't enforced near like today so we would all be snockered when we arrived.
This particular year, we all went in my mother's 78 Chevy Impala. My dad had just bought a brand new Model 700 BDL 7 Mag. When we got there, after unloading, we took daddy up the hill to a blind that almost overlooked the camp. This was one of the most productive blinds on the whole 4700 acres. We set him up with a couple beers and left him in the out house looking blind which was at the apex of a triangle of fence about 40x50x40 yards, within which was a feeder. A couple years before I killed the biggest rack deer I've ever killed, a 17" 8 point buck.
Then, Cliff (my oldest nephew) and I drove to another blind several hundred yards away on the other side of the camp house. Art, my BIL took Jim, my second oldest Nephew with him to another blind. There's about 20 nice blinds on the place. Cliff and I heard my dad shoot shortly after getting to our blind. Then we heard Jim shoot. When it was no longer legal shooting time we went back to get my dad. He was plumb out of it with a poo eating grin from ear to ear. He just pointed out about 150 yards through the live oak and mesquite to where we could see a brown patch crumpled up. I drove out there and he had nailed a big 8 point larger than the one I killed in that same blind. Beautiful deer. All my dad wanted was something else to drink, hehehe!
So we loaded the deer on the top of the car and tied it for the trip to the cabin. We strung it up hanging and after supper I commenced to skinning and cutting it up. I was not exactly pristine sober myself, I was cutting a shoulder off and the knife slipped and almost took my thump plumb off. It was so bad my brother in law took me to town to the ER to get it sewed up. I was thoroughly pissed. But at least Cliff had taken over and finished cutting my dad's deer up by the time we got back from the hospital. Then my thumb was beginning to throb pretty good by that time so I had a few drinks of ol' Jack to kill the pain.
I think I killed a little deer the next day, I can't remember what, may have been a doe. But the big deer alluded me that trip once again. But nowadays since he's no longer here I'm very thankful my dad had the opportunity to take at least one decent deer in his life. If I could have him back right now I'd take a hundred knife cuts cleaning his deer. Alcohol or not, my dad was a very good man and had many friends. All of you that still have your parents, put up with there short comings and have patience, because you have no idea how bad you'll miss em when they're gone.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
The storm.
Can't recall what year, but my Dad appeared on the game trail out of the grey dawn carrying a big set of elk antlers. He had downed a big 5x at first light and our meeting was oddly enough by complete chance.
Working together, we had the carcass retrieved and hung in time for a late lunch. The wind gradually picked up as I returned to the woods trying to fill my own tag. In an hour it was blowing so hard I took shelter in the thickest cover I could find. A doe had the same idea an literally stood almost on top of me. Being without a tag I left her alone to move off in her own time. By then the trees that wern't being blown down were having their tops sheered off and blown through the sky like giant kites. So many trees were hitting the ground so fast that I was pinned down and couldn't move. As afternoon gave way to evening the wind gave way to heavy blinding snow. Camp became a much desired destination. Problem was after plotting a course with my compass, the next stop found me 180° off course. My tracks being erased in white as soon as I raised a foot, I finally found camp by holding the compass in my hand. The next year I bought a new Marbles pin on. I can't recall the temp or volume of snowfall but you could nock on the hanging elk and snowshoes adorned my boots the next day.
Early, hearing that story makes me so cold I went and put on my sweater.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
I got to my tripod and sat there for 10 minutes. I continued to hear all the critters in the woods but they wouldn’t come into the food plot. I got down out of my stand and started walking back down dirt road. At one point I jogged 75 yards or so to get ahead of the critters and walked into the woods on a cow trail. I got in about 20 yards or so and shinned my light. I could see about 20 yards between a few trees. I turned out the light and stood next to a 4” tree. I waited in the pitch dark for a few minutes. Soon I had critters all around me some just a few yards away. I heard something moving almost directly in front of me and flipped on the light. Nothing! I turned the light off and it took a couple steps. Flipped the light on and at 8’ I could see a big hog snout sticking out from behind a tree. I moved the light away and the hog to another couple of steps. I brought the light back and the hog was 6 to 8’ away from me broad side.
This is when I ignored my Leroy Jethro Gibbs gut check that said this is a bad idea and this is not going to end well for me. At the time my .243 win had a Vortex 4.5X14 power scope on it. I had the power all the way down to 4.5. The hog was so close it just a blob in the scope. I lowered the scope to make sure I was on his head put the crosshairs on what I thought was his just below his ear and made one of lifes absolutely catastrophic mistake. I pulled the trigger! BANG! The flash coming out of the end of the barrel almost touched the hog. The hog dropped instantly but before the recoil of the rifle barrel had come down the hog was back on his feet and blew past me just on the other side of the tree I standing next to in a blink of an eye. I now had hogs running every which way in the pitch black with some crossing through the red light. One brushed my right leg as it went by. I have never hugged a 4" tree so hard in my life! What seemed like hours was about 30 seconds of absolute chaos. The hogs finally started to move off. Yes I almost messed my pants and need to change my shorts. Had the hog I shoot run into me he would have broken my legs and I would have been in a world of hurt. There was a ton of blood where he dropped. I actually started to trail the hog in the middle of the night for a few minutes. Then the brain cells started firing and I decided to head back and track him in the morning.
I never did find the hog but there was plenty of blood. Later that week I drove down to SWFA and picked up a Leupold 1X6 scope with a fire dot recticle. No more blobs in the scope at 6' with a 1 power scope. I also decided no more going into the woods in the middle of the night after hogs. I'll keep to my stands or safer distance before pulling the trigger when I'm on the ground!
John 3: 1-21
Luis
Great Storie Jeeper. I had an Uncle Porter that was kinda like that. He took my dad and me on our first real legitimate deer hunt. I love these stories.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Got this hunting buddy; colorful guy that if not had been born, would have been a Looney Tunes' character.
Here he is munching away a can of Chilean seashells my wife usually brings for her from Chile; how and when he was able to get into my kitchen and stole the prized goods under her watch still amazes me
For those wondering, the truck is a Korean-made 4x4 Ssangyong Musso automatic, turbo diesel 6cyl (Mercedes patent) I drove for a while....ugly but with good mpg rating and ample spaces inside.
He has this remote hunting spot "inherited" from his father, who many years ago saved the life of a boy of the nearby village, thus earning the privilege of being the only one allowed to hunt in the area. Usually locals are distrustful of strangers, and even pretty aggressive due to criminal activity that preys upon them, mostly very modest farmers to say the least.
Area is dry, rocky mountain terrain where farmers grow apple trees and cacti; preys are either doves or an Andean cat-sized edible rodent called Vizcacha that is usually hunted at dawn or dusk, or if light conditions allow it, under full moon light.
For this we usually employ scoped .22LR rifles. Most of the times he carries a French-made Manufrance Reina semiauto with an old U.S.-made 2.5x25mm. or so scope and using whatever HVRNHP ammo he can find; also has a bolt-action Mossberg 346b with a Simmons 3-9x40mm scope but seldom uses it. With him the old saying that states "Beware of the man who owns only one gun....he might know how to use it" applies perfectly. Take him to a range and he won't hit the side of a barn, but in the field, he can hit anything he wants with that semiauto that has an awful "rolling"-style trigger pull and barely serviceable optics by modern standards.
I currently use a CZ-455FS with an unbranded 3-9x40mm scope and Winchester Xpert-22 ammo, but the day of this story I was carrying a CZ-452 Trainer with the same scope and ammo.
Thing is that we were driving through the narrow canyon in a dirt road, little daylight remaining and looking for a spot to park and start walking. Suddenly he peeks up through the windshield to the rock wall to our left and shouts "stop!"
I did and we dismounted; he took the rifle and pointed upwards to the tall wall and probably 90 yards above us one of these critters was looking down, just showing the upper 1/3rd. of its body...how did he saw it (I had to use my rifle's scope to do so) still amazes me.
Told him not to shoot, since unless he had a jetpack in his bag, there was no possible way to retrieve the animal; he told me that he only made head shots, and that the final dead reflex of those rodents was to jump, so it would be fine. That made me mad since I was about to see a self-entitled idiot about to kill an animal for no good other than prove a point or just plain bother me, so seeing my discomfort he walked close to the base of the rock, looked up again, took a couple of steps back and to the side, draw an "X" in the ground with his boot and looked to me with a grin saying "is here OK for you?"
Told him again not to shoot or else, knowing he wasn't changing his mind anyway. He took a breath, raised the rifle and pointed it upwards in an over-the-vertical angle (Probably 100°) to the maybe 3" of animal showing.
Couple of seconds later, took the shot and immediately turned to me smiling, not even looking for the result; the recognizable "whack!" on soft tissue was heard and the animal indeed took a jump; it fell down the hillside tumbling all over and to my amazement, landed on his feet, exactly at the "X" in the dirt and with a clear shot in the middle of the forehead.
I was speechless! but haven't even closed my wide-opened mouth and he told me "Did you liked it?", and before I was able to say a word, asked "Would you like another one?"
"Another one WHAT?" I said and he smiled back, aimed again pretty much to the same spot, said "will drop it next to the 1st. one" and took a 2nd. shot; heard another "whump!" and watched a 2nd. vizcacha roll down the rock wall to land exactly next to the 1st. one, also with a clean head shot.
Couldn't believe it; he was laughing at me saying "told you so!". Needless to say, I just placed my rifle inside the gun case and called it quits for the rest of the hunt. Sometimes you just can't win.....
You joined the military cos you found out what girls were all about?
Naw man, when Rich joined the military the services were not Coed at all. In fact, that was so long ago, I think Rich served under John Paul Jones!
He and Ned went in about the same time. Of course Ned had to wait for the airplane to be invented to excell. Woodsrunner was an expert at trimming sails er I think....
Sorry guys, I couldn't help myself......
:buff2:.......:silly:.......:yikes:
:rotflmao::roll2::rotflmao::roll2::rotflmao:
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.