Gear Failure Horror Stories

[cougforester]

I forgot to seamseal my tarp before archery elk last year. Totally my fault, just was a dummy. Got stuck in the worst hail/rain/ thunder and lightning storm I've been in before around Mt Adams last year and had a pretty nuts time using trekking poles, quiver, branches, ground cloths, rain jacket, anything I could find to push the tarp away from me. I had just enough room to have the water dripping about a half inch from my shoulders and footbox of my quilt.

I thought I was gonna die for about twenty minutes while hail was being blown in from 3 sides of the tarp, trees were getting blown over and hit with lightning, and thunder was shaking the ground. Dropped about 2-3" of hail in that twenty or thirty minutes.

Oh and one of my guylines pulled off the stake in the middle of the night. So I had to deal with that as well. It was quite the fire drill.

[Pegasus]

Hunting dog with a seizure. Thought the dog was dead at first. Carried him out with my gear several miles. Dog was fine once we got back close to the car. Grrrrr.

[Blacktail Sniper]

First season muzzie hunting:

Spent the morning not seeing any animals so took a drive out a fairly lengthy side loop road into some good sized cuts with lots of little ravines to park on a high spot and have some lunch.

About 4 bites into the sandwich, while looking the area over I notice a deer bedded at the base of a large stump, 60-80ish yards away.  It is just calmly laying there staring at the truck, so I grab the binos and see it is a small forky.

Lunch is now over.  I have to exit the truck while in full view of the buck without spooking him.  Somehow, I did.  Now I want to get closer, so since I am above him, I can go onto hands & knees and stay on the far side of the road till I can get right above him for about a 30 yard shot.

Keep in mind, this was a side road that was for logging the area and not regular traffic, so it was not the smaller, well packed road gravel like most mainlines of the day. So I start off on about a 40 yard, very uncomfortable crawl and manage to get in position above him and he is still there!

Get into a sitting position, cap the Hawken and let'er fly....POP!  Okay, slowly recap, take aim...POP!  Well, third time is charm, so recap, take aim at the most patient deer in the world, EVER, and POP!!

Now I have to crawl back up the road to the truck, pull the ball & charge.  Three more caps later and jamming the ramrod into the powder charge to break it up, I get the old powder to finally blow out.

Reload, check deer, he is still there for some strange reason, crawl back down the cheese grater road on now sore hands & knees back into position.  Check and, yup, there he is.  Cap, aim, squeeze and KABOOM everything disappears in a cloud of black powder smoke.

As the smoke clears, I see a deer moving away downhill at a rapid rate.  There is also one laying on its side, but there are no antlers to be seen.  Keep in mind this was a buck only hunt.  Now I had checked multiple times and verified two things:

1) This was a small, ear length 2 point. 
2) There were no other deer visible in the area around him.

Now I am watching one leaving the area at a high rate of speed and another that appears to not have antlers laying on its side deceased...well, this isn't looking too good.  Head down the hill, and discover that my mild heart attack thinking I had messed-up and shot an illegal animal was unnecessary.

What had happened was, the angle down of my shot had sent the round ball through the top of his head just in front of his right antler, passed through the skull under it, and exited in the middle back of his head, killing him instantly, but blowing the antler completely off, which was never found.

The equipment failure, was due to my NOT having fired the rifle after the previous days hunt and left it charged over night.  It was apparently just enough to foul the charge and cause the misfires.  That was the one and only time I ever left a charge in over night and the one and only time I ever had a fail to fire as well.



 

[CoryTDF]

MSR Thru-Hiker 100 Wing Tarp in Hells Canyon. Sandy soil and the stock stakes were not a good combo. Thunderstorm came in with dime size hail and insane wind. I was able to grab the tarp before it blew down the canyon and then sort-of hump my belongings into a mound while I held the tarp over myself. The hail beat the crap out of me and I thought I was going to freeze to death and then "For no particular reason at all, it just stopped." No more tarps for me when any real weather is a possibility.   

[KP-Skagit]

I will contribute a couple.

The first year they had the new late snow goose season in Skagit Valley my dad and I put a hurting on them. 12 geese in about 15 minutes. My whole life I had used his "old" duck stringer which was probably made of leather from a cow slaughtered in the late 1890s. I told my dad I would pack the geese if he carried my gun. Stringed them all up and heaved. Pow, the strap broke in half. So the mile plus pack to the truck in foot deep snow and chest waders was done with my fingers looped through the d-ring of the stringers.

Another one was a few years ago blacktail hunting. It was raining so hard you could hardly see 100 yards. I came across a bedded buck about 80 yards away. Pulled up the gun, boom, deer is still sitting. Squeezed again, click. (I had been having issues with my mag feeding). Squeezed again, click. Reached up for the bolt and started to pull it when BOOM. What in the world. Racked again, click... waited this time, 3 count later, BOOM. Deer is still sitting there (classic blacktail). Tossed my second mag in and at the same time noticed duds at my feet. Had 1 of 4 go. Deer sitting there looking at me like I was an idiot. I ended up coming back with my buddy and he shot it. Later read a bit about gun oil getting into primers and ruining ammo. When I had issues with the mags I oiled the crap out of them. Must have gotten into the ammo. The next day at the range the rest of the box went off just fine and on target.

[Mtnwalker]

Not quite a gear failure but definitely a horror story. Buddy and I were backpacked in to the high country on a mule deer hunt. This was one of our first backpack trips ever so we still had a good amount of cheapo gear, especially our tent and sleeping bags. We were at camp mid day huddled around a fire right in front of our tent eating some lunch, with our backpacks etc leaned against the trees next to us. All of a sudden KABOOM, our campfire explodes all over me and our gear. Burns the tent and bags to the ground almost instantly. Catches my badlands pack on fire with my brand new Leica spotter AND bino’s inside, and gives me a few good burn holes in my clothing and on my face. Turns out somehow (to this day we haven’t figured out exactly how) an empty jetboil canister ended up in the fire. Extremely scary but could have turned out so much worse, we got lucky.

[fishngamereaper]

Danner boots...apparently their waterproof standards aren't the same as other boot manufactures.

Maybe its changed in the last 10 years but I'm never going to give them a chance.

[vandeman17]

You sure can't beat heading out to the duck blind in sub freezing temperatures and feeling that lovely feeling of cold water rushing into a leak in your waders when you cross the first creek. I have spent plenty of days with boot(s) full of water, wondering why I find duck hunting fun.

[buglebrush]

I have had many, but two stand out. 
I spent a couple hours within a couple hundred yards of a big 7x7 and came to full draw 5 times.  The fifth time was right before dark, and at half draw my D-loop broke.  The arrow smacked into a large tree, and the bull stopped broadside in a shooting lane at 25 yards before bolting when I tried to get another arrow.   

The second, I called a 6x6 in close on a really steep downhill.  I leaned out around a bush to shoot and about tore my head off because my pouch of mouth calls got caught in my string.  Arrow only penetrated about 3".   

[Duckhunter14]

Last muzzleloader season. Headed out with a buddy for the general elk hunt. In search of the ever elusive spike. My buddy had a rifle bull tag for a different unit and decided to go light for the day (no pistol). I had my muzzy and decided to also leave my pistol in the truck. Couple miles from the truck and we entered an old burn with lots of big trees. The snow was falling and we were looking/glassing ahead of us because we often see elk bedded in this area. The wind was blowing hard through the tree tops in our favor and helping keep our footsteps quiet. As I rounded a large tree on the edge of the timber, scanning the timbered area below. I heard my buddy whisper over my shoulder look at all that fresh dirt, wonder what that's from? As I turned to look to my right where the base of the tree was (2ft from me) I looked down directly into a bear den with a bears face staring straight at me. Literally could have poked it in the face with my gun. I said "bear!" as I jumped forward and spun around lifting my muzzleloader to my shoulder, my buddy ran to his left away from the tree. The bear came charging out of the den and landed on its front paws staring directly at me, half its body still underground. Time slowed and my finger found the safety and clicked it to the "fire" position. The bear looked at me, looked left at my buddy and then back at me. The front site of my muzzleloader was directly in the middle of the bears chest and I knew I had to make the shot count if I fired at such close range in the bears escape path directly in front of its den. After sizing us up, the bear turned right and ran off. I put my gun back on safety and leaned it against a nearby tree. The whole thing happened in about 3 seconds. My buddy walked up shaking his head and we both just sat there in disbelief for a few minutes reliving the moment. Both a little shaken. He said he was waiting for the gun to go off; unfortunately I had filled my bear tag the day before and had not purchased my second tag yet. Obviously if I had to protect myself I would have fired, but I wanted to give the bear the chance to flee first. We were lucky that he made that choice. At the end of the day I went to discharge my muzzleloader and it didn't go off. The day could have turned out much different. 

[Oh Mah]

Hunting dog with a seizure. Thought the dog was dead at first. Carried him out with my gear several miles. Dog was fine once we got back close to the car. Grrrrr.

very smart dog 

[Mark Brenckle]

Hunting dog with a seizure. Thought the dog was dead at first. Carried him out with my gear several miles. Dog was fine once we got back close to the car. Grrrrr.

very smart dog 

 

[birddogdad]

Lost a sole off boot about 1 mile in and a foot of snow once. i don't use until fail any longer!

[Wanderer]

lowa boots gortex failed on the first day in pouring down rain.  Had to wear ice cubes on my feet for the next 3 days.   ugh....

[Jhughes32]

I was in that storm on Adams too stayed dry but air mattress popped and then my radiator blew