ohh man this ever happen to you?!

[rudedawg1085]

Have you ever worked your butt off on opening day or hunting trip, only to have no success? I mean walked miles and miles up and down step canyons and hills, blisters on your feet, out of water, sweat dipping down your head, see no deer while others are dropping bucks left and right?!?! And then to see someone drop a buck with little or no work at all?!?!

So opening day, I wake up at 4am, drive up the mountain and get to my spot at about 6am. I put on all my gear, chamber a round in the Winchester, and off into the woods I go. Going up and down those step canyons, through streams, down cliff sides with hundred foot drops, until eventually I am miles from any road or people. Well as every hunter’s nightmare is, the only thing I saw were the tail end does, the only thing I put my scope on was a stump that you always pretend is a deer, (come on we have all done it). Well long story short. I make the long trek back to the truck, so I can regroup for the evening hunt and when I arrive I hear a vehicle driving up the hill, clanking the bottom of his vehicle on every rock and boulder in the road. Thinking it’s a real low truck it turns the corner and it’s a little Honda Civic! I don’t think it moved more then 5 feet with out bottoming out on a rock or ditch or etc. So they pull over and park next to me and I tell him that I worked the area pretty hard north of this spot and he might have better luck if he starts going south.  So the young kids hope out the civic, (ha-ha it had a spoiler) and start heading sorth. No more then 2 minutes later I look up at them going up hill side about 200yards out, and I see them ducking down pointing at something. I couldn’t see what they were looking up at, but I still the kid raise his gun and BANG!! First thing im thinking is you have to be kidding me! Did he really just drop a buck!?!?! So I walk up the hill listening to them hooten and hollering with screams of joy, and sure as *censored* he has a buck dead on the ground!! A nice little 3x3. Congrats for the young hunters, I guess if it had to happen like that im happy it was with a group of young kids downing their first buck. So I help drag it back down the hill and load it up in the civic!!! Haha try and picture a deer with its legs sticking up out of the trunk of the car! But go figure, you walk all morning long putting miles on your boots only to have someone shoot a buck 200 yards from the truck. That’s hunting.  Anyone els been a victim of this?!

[quadrafire]

yea......about every year

[boneaddict]

Do you think I just walk out the door and find these bucks to take pics of?    Its called hunting for a reason.  Sometimes the luck is on your side, sometimes it isn't.  The harder you work, sometimes increases that luck.  Something about a blind squirrel finding a nut that always makes you mad though.

[brokehunter]

This happens to me about every year!  Get this: Haven't killed a deer in the last 10! Done just about every kind of hunting method there is, just haven't had the luck or God's blessing I guess. And yes, several out of those last 10 some guy shot one in the area I was just in or next to a road or something along those lines. The most memorable of those episodes for me was a few years back I was elk hunting. Spent all morning out tooling around and hiking. I come back to camp for some lunch, and not more than 10 minutes later as I'm cooking lunch, this guy walks up the road to our camp and cuts into the timber about 200 yards from camp and then I hear a shot! Shot an elk just off our road in the timber, a spot a just DROVE by not more than a few mintues before!   I was bummed the rest of the hunt, and never saw a darn thing! Just keep trying I guess!

[kramman]

I believe any hunter who's beat the bush has had this happen and yeah its totally frustrating. I once pushed a buck I didn't even know was there to someone they shot it right in front of me! What ya gonna do?

[MadHatter]

It is almost as frustrating is to prepare for months, and then walk out the front door and kill a deer two min after the season is legally open...the positive to this scenario is that you have a deer to show for it though.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk 2

[Bullets_n_Octane]

Same here, usually I spend all day walkinf and stalking... only to see or hear nothin... then as soon as I'm back to the truck, I hear a bang somewhere close...

Weird thing is, I haven't heard a SINGLE SHOT this year...

[JohnVH]

Have you ever worked your butt off on opening day or hunting trip, only to have no success? I mean walked miles and miles up and down step canyons and hills, blisters on your feet, out of water, sweat dipping down your head, see no deer while others are dropping bucks left and right?!?! And then to see someone drop a buck with little or no work at all?!?!

every effin year.

Although, I will add, this year, (first time ever), I shot a bear and wasnt even really hunting, only luck Ive had!

[Kowsrule30]

Yep... Dad and I had cow tags for ml elk this year.... Usually within the first hour we are starting to pack out one if not two... Took me till Tuesday to get mine..... Upwards of 20 miles some days... Dad finally got his on Friday the last day of the season about 2 hours before dark....

The third day of the season I heard elk crossing below me... Trying to quietly make my way down to intercept them 3 shots go off in about a 5 minute period.... I get down there and a kid has a spike down... 2 1/2' spikes mind you... Bases the size of Coors cans... He drove up that am late.... Parked at an emty camp.... Walked out not 400 yards from the camp and was in a herd of 30+/- elk crossing single file in front of him.... He hit that thing on almost every angle.... But he got it.... Lucky sob...

[KFhunter]

guys like you, sweating and working your tails off make it easier for guys like me.

When I hike in, there is no sweat, and it might take me all day to go 1/2 a mile.

If your sweating and busting out 10 miles, racing to get past all other humans thinking if you're the first one back there then the granddaddy buck will bow down to your effort and give you a free-be shot your on crack.

All your doing is moving the game.  They hear you coming a mile away and duck into the thick stuff and you walk right past them.


Tell you what, get you some walkers game ears and crank them up to the max, then stalk forward slowly with the goal of not being able to hear your own movements even amplified through the game ears - once you can do that then perhaps you can hunt whitetail foot hunting.  Until then sit your butt down at the base of a big tree and watch the trails to and from feed, water, or bedding areas. I thought I was quiet until I did this  turned out I was just deaf, but I am a lot quieter now 


We are talking about whitetail, if your talking Elk or mulies - disregard 

[JimmyHoffa]

Tell you what, get you some walkers game ears and crank them up to the max, then stalk forward slowly with the goal of not being able to hear your own movements even amplified through the game ears - once you can do that then perhaps you can hunt whitetail foot hunting.  Until then sit your butt down at the base of a big tree and watch the trails to and from feed, water, or bedding areas. I thought I was quiet until I did this  turned out I was just deaf, but I am a lot quieter now 

Or get a horse.  They make a ton more noise than a person, and you can ride around and see game like deer and bear completely unworried.     The scent?  The big strange looking animal?  Haven't figured it out, but so weird how critters will let a rider get so close making all that clompy noise.

[coachcw]

thats my life story ! must be beginers luck .
I took my roomate hunting when we where like 20 years old . loaned him a shotgun and headed for whidbey . I sent him down a trail and figured he'd push the area for me. great idea right? I get to the top get out and hear a bang . hear him yelling got him hike down to see the fricking biggest deer on the Island shot dead through the eye . my buddy says he sat down waited for it to get light and in about five minutes mr big walked up and put his face in the barrell so he pulled the trigger ! aleast he was only ten yards from the road .

[ELKBURGER]

guys like you, sweating and working your tails off make it easier for guys like me.

When I hike in, there is no sweat, and it might take me all day to go 1/2 a mile.

If your sweating and busting out 10 miles, racing to get past all other humans thinking if you're the first one back there then the granddaddy buck will bow down to your effort and give you a free-be shot your on crack.

All your doing is moving the game.  They hear you coming a mile away and duck into the thick stuff and you walk right past them.


Tell you what, get you some walkers game ears and crank them up to the max, then stalk forward slowly with the goal of not being able to hear your own movements even amplified through the game ears - once you can do that then perhaps you can hunt whitetail foot hunting.  Until then sit your butt down at the base of a big tree and watch the trails to and from feed, water, or bedding areas. I thought I was quiet until I did this  turned out I was just deaf, but I am a lot quieter now 


We are talking about whitetail, if your talking Elk or mulies - disregard 

Boyd Iverson goes into great detail about still hunting in his Blacktail trophy tactics books. He is a master at it...over the top...I've always heard it is not the quantity of distance, its the quality of time glassing.

Most deer will freeze and watch you walk on by

[NWBREW]

Do you think I just walk out the door and find these bucks to take pics of?     

Yes.......Yes we do bone. 

[NWBREW]

Have you ever worked your butt off on opening day or hunting trip, only to have no success? I mean walked miles and miles up and down step canyons and hills, blisters on your feet, out of water, sweat dipping down your head, see no deer while others are dropping bucks left and right?!?! And then to see someone drop a buck with little or no work at all?!?!

 

More times then not....but that's ok with me.

[runamuk]

I wish I had beginners luck....but nope....pretty much follow the same routine....trying to figure out if I will completely cripple myself or eventually kill something.......   I get so frustrated then like a *censored* every year someone talks me into trying again..... I dont give up very easily I am a stubborn ass actually......

try again next weekend....

[coachcw]

may be you need to hunt the least likley spot to hold a buck Run ? don't put to much thaught into it . thats my new plan .

[runamuk]

may be you need to hunt the least likley spot to hold a buck Run ? don't put to much thaught into it . thats my new plan .

I dont know.....I just keep trying...    at least since I started hunting muleys I see deer just not the ones I can shoot 

[Doc Sauce]

 Boyd Iverson goes into great detail about still hunting in his Blacktail trophy tactics books. He is a master at it...over the top...I've always heard it is not the quantity of distance, its the quality of time glassing.

Most deer will freeze and watch you walk on by
[/quote]

I am reading Mr. Iverson's book now...  I am amazed.  I have not seen a deer yet (still learning, new hunter and all that), but I decided about a week ago to put some of his ideas to the test.  Got out of my jeep, stood there for about 10 minutes after putting on my gear.  A group of hikers comes rolling up, so I wait another 10 minutes or so.  Then I start creeping out of the parking area.  I saw a little trail dropping down of the trail I was on, and I took it.  I covered maybe 300  yards in about 2 and a half hours.  Ended up in some thick stuff... so thick I was on my hands and knees and couldn't even slither through, much less be quiet.  After about 10 minutes of trying to crawl/low crawl/slither super slowly for a few feet, stop and listen, slither again, I hear what sounds like a hiker crashing through the brush.  I pop up and take a few steps to a more open area and pop out the binos.  Then I realize the noise is not coming from a hiker.  One of Boyd's things is the notion that every sound has a source and a purpose.  Do not move or disregard a noise until you ascertain the source.  So I sat there and realized quickly that it is a big animal... get a little creeped out thinking its a bear.  It starts moving away, I figure i'm never gonna see it in this thick crap, so I go crashing forward really fast to see if I can at least catch a glimpse...  I pop into a bed, looked like a cave in that brush, big buck tracks and, soft, brown deer terds...   I learned a lesson... 

Don't be afraid to hunt where the road hunters and rifle hikers/mountain runners are hunting because the animals aren't so scared of them.

Move super SUPER slow and quiet.

Maybe carry a heavy pistol in order to engage deer in such crazy thick underbrush. 

Either way... I'm trying to break my already developing habit of trying to get far and high as fast as possible and then start hunting, and replace it with getting slow and quiet and hunt from the door of the jeep out, and back to the door of the jeep.

Let me be another one to plug Boyd Iverson's books.  Now I just need to actually connect with a deer...  (or a bear)...

[ELKBURGER]

With what your learning now, its only a matter of time. Keep it up. Good luck to ya

[bassquatch]

YEP! I had to hunt an area I had never been to this year. Started each morning at 5am, straight up 1000' then another 1/2 mile side-hilling a ridgeline and then up another 500'. Saw one monster drug out right below me, saw a shooter on a dead hop at 800 yards and he wasn't stopping for anything! Hit that area opening morning and couldn't believe the other hunter's I saw up there opening morning! Coming back down I jumped a big 2x2 and 2 does 200 yards from my truck they were two drainages away and I was still glassing him begging for a brow tine !

Left that area alone until yesterday. Went back up and was the only one around. At 9:09am here came the deer! Doe's, and 3 bucks, a pickle fork, a huge 2x2 and a legal but very small 3x3 walking with the 2x2...the 2x2 dwarfed the 3x3! Took a 330 yard downhill shot as they were walking away from me and not slowing or stopping...clean miss  . they didn't hang around to give me a second shot, up and over a saddle I wasn't following them through. As was said, it's hunting and it always seems to me to be nothing, nothing, nothing and then all hell breaks loose!

[jackmaster]

well rudedawg look at it this way, you still got a tag and get to go beat the brush and that kid dont not deer hunting anyways and he shot a nice little 3 pt and you still have a good chance at crackn a monster, i myself love poundn the brush i havent killed a deer in 3 years, i could have each year but chose not to, thats why i have a son, he gets to shoot the first legal buck he sees, i highly doubt he has the strength to pass any up yet so either way it works for me, good luck and keep poundin the bush, it will all work out....

[Bigbuckoholic]

2010 I hiked probly 30 miles. Then decided to go road hunt with gramps and relax and share some good time together. Well half way through the evening hunt we see my 5 pt standing 30 yards off the dirt road. All about being in the right place at the right time. U don't have to kill something to have a successful year IMHO. 

[lazydrifter]

I don't even worry this early in the season.  Didn't hunt opening day.  Spent about 1 1/2 hours out on Sun. and about the same on Monday.  Didn't go today.  It's only going to get way better later this month. 

Brant

[Dustin07]

Do you think I just walk out the door and find these bucks to take pics of?    Its called hunting for a reason.  Sometimes the luck is on your side, sometimes it isn't.  The harder you work, sometimes increases that luck.  Something about a blind squirrel finding a nut that always makes you mad though.

exactly. I love the story, but I relate hunting often times to lottery. The more you play, the better your odds. This year I went three grueling days of blistered feet and exhaustion without seeing a single LIVING buck, much worse than ever before. On day 4 I not only sat down on a heard of 12 does, but for five hours I watched 2 bucks walk in and fight. it was awesome. one fantastic day like that makes up for days of zero. (my buddy took one of the bucks too!)

[bone collector 12]

Did a    6 mile loop only to shoot the buck 200 yards from being back at my truck 

[runamuk]

Did a    6 mile loop only to shoot the buck 200 yards from being back at my truck 

 at least you shot a buck..... 

[Dustin07]

Did a    6 mile loop only to shoot the buck 200 yards from being back at my truck 

sounds like the best of both worlds lol. You got to put the feet to the ground, "earn" your buck, then only haul it 200 yards to the truck?? LOL