has anyone got any good hunting trip stories?

[sovereignwarrior509]

just want to get a feel for the hunters...when i was a young buck... i once walked for about two hours from my truck...killed a spike...didn't realize how far i had walked and spent the next 5 1/2 hours packing this beast out...i made three good trips...so now i try to hunt with a partner or two...i like to call these guys meat packers... i tell all my buds you put my bloody meat on your back anytime...mmmm good times...just looking for some tuff packs,horrible shots, or good misses...

always take your time, the hunt is always worth it...

[WAPITIHUNTER]

I shot a spike elk 3 miles from the nearest road in Oregon. We rented horses and the lady and her daughter rode in with us. She admitted to us when we got there that if we were not experienced elk hunters that they would have been in deep dodo. There were no horse trails or land marks to follow. The fact that my brother and I are land surveyors, and very experienced at reading topo maps etc, we were able to follow the contours on the map to find the bull on the horses cross country. That was as real of an elk hunt as I have had to date. It beat us up pretty good. I had to walk out with the horse carrying all the meat because we all rode in. Then the pack tore and as I tried to keep it from falling off the horse I fell and the horse stepped right on my hand. If it had not been in soft dirt it would have broken all my fingers. As it was I had brouses on the back of all my fingers. We made it though and what a satisfying feeling.

[Woodchuck]

2008, my nephew got his first deer about 30 seconds after i had shot a buck  , elk season, he got his first elk about 10 seconds after i killed one, all tod had 3 deer, then 3 spike elk in camp, best season i can think of

[Skyvalhunter]

Check your backsight!!

[Woodchuck]

backsight?

[rose-n-arrows]

I think it was my second year hunting.  I had taken a small buck and we were late season meat hunting.  I missed a cow down hill at about 20 yards-shot completely over her back.  Luckily, while I missed my shot, my husband made a good kill shot on a cow.  The blood trail was incredible but then it started to dump rain.  We didn't see her go down as she ran right into thick timber.  We debated for a very short time and decided to go after her because the  rain was washing away the sign.  I was so excited to see her tumbling down hill!  Then reality sunk in and I discovered that "what goes up must come down" works both ways.  She was perched on a very steep, muddy embankment above the creek at the canyoun bottom.  My husband gutted her and she ended up flipping over on top of him, throwing him into the gut pile in the creek bed.  I had one of those adrenaline moments and hoisted her off of him and held her there while he freed himself of the vinemaple and other crud.  When she was finally quartered, the pack out began.  After having surveyed the hill that she rolled down, I temporarily dammed the creek so we could take her out through the bottom without too much rushing water.  It was an absolute mudhole clay pit and every step my boots were completely buried in the muck.  The suction power of the mud combined with the weight of the front quarter on my back worked like a pile driver.  I was trying to be a trooper but I was getting frustrated.  The hill was so steep I couldn't really put one foot in front of the other and the weight of the front quarter kept trying to tip me over.  I was fatigued and ended up falling a few times one after the other.  I coudn't raise or lower my head because the pack board restricted my neck movement.  There was nothing to hold onto to pull myself up and the mud wanted to swallow me whole.  It took all of the might I could muster to keep going.  My husband offered me advice I'll never forget:  "It takes more energy to get up after falling than just not falling in the first place."  We made another trip to get the rest of the meat out and got it about 1/4 mile from the truck when our friends showed up .  I let them carry it out the rest of the way.  It was one of those character building events that I'll never forget.  It also made me appreciate our elk carts when we bought them.

[WAPITIHUNTER]

Check your backsight!!

That is land surveyor terminology. Always!

[boneaddict]

My first bear.   Hunting with my High school friend who I swore was afraid to see a bear because he'd go out of his way to step on a sunflower to make noise.   I knew I needed to split from him if I ever wanted to get a bear.  We hiked up this canyon then he was going to go back down and up the one parallell to where I was.  We went our seperate ways.  Long story short, I got my bear 3 miles up that canyon.  I gutted him and knew it was a keeper but didn't know how to skin it.  I fired several shots but my friend never answered, so I walked down to the truck.  IT WAS GONE.  I'm like WTF.  So I tracked him out.  He had drove up this other canyon.  I finally hiked up it about 3 miles and found the truck.  No friend.  I was screaming obsenitys when I spotted him on the ridge.  He came back and we went to ask my brother for help.  He said the best advice I can give you is take some bee spray.  So we go up tot he bear and skin him.  3 miles in to the bear.  Skin him, then 3 miles out to the truck with one 120 pound pack.  WEIGHED it, so thats not a fish story.  Then 3 miles back up to the bear and boned him out.  Then my brother shows up with a pop, then 3 miles out right at dark.  That 3 miles turned into ONE HELL of a hike by the time I was done. Oh yeah, the friend didn't carry any meat because he was on the lookout for any attacking bears.

[rose-n-arrows]

My first bear.   Hunting with my High school friend who I swore was afraid to see a bear because he'd go out of his way to step on a sunflower to make noise.   I knew I needed to split from him if I ever wanted to get a bear.  We hiked up this canyon then he was going to go back down and up the one parallell to where I was.  We went our seperate ways.  Long story short, I got my bear 3 miles up that canyon.  I gutted him and knew it was a keeper but didn't know how to skin it.  I fired several shots but my friend never answered, so I walked down to the truck.  IT WAS GONE.  I'm like WTF.  So I tracked him out.  He had drove up this other canyon.  I finally hiked up it about 3 miles and found the truck.  No friend.  I was screaming obsenitys when I spotted him on the ridge.  He came back and we went to ask my brother for help.  He said the best advice I can give you is take some bee spray.  So we go up tot he bear and skin him.  3 miles in to the bear.  Skin him, then 3 miles out to the truck with one 120 pound pack.  WEIGHED it, so thats not a fish story.  Then 3 miles back up to the bear and boned him out.  Then my brother shows up with a pop, then 3 miles out right at dark.  That 3 miles turned into ONE HELL of a hike by the time I was done. Oh yeah, the friend didn't carry any meat because he was on the lookout for any attacking bears.

Good story!

[Skyvalhunter]

Sounds Like a fish story. Can't beat that so I won't try..

[JackOfAllTrades]

Did someone say Fish Story?   

I've had several salt water fishing excursions with my dad over the years. One that comes to mind was one sunny afternoon we'd been fishing for summer Chinook out from the "Concrete Dock" on the east end of Anderson Island in southern Puget Sound. After a couple of shakers while trolling around way too many anglers, we decided to try our luck for some codfish north of Toliva shoal a little further east of Anderson. Pollok, True, Rock, Ling. We didn't care. Eventually we both hooked fish. At the same time no less. Bottom fish. Big Yellow Eye Cod. They were pulling the 21 foot Bayliner backwards as it idled. As we pulled and reeled from the depths, suddenly my line went slack.
 
Which is the case when an angler latches onto a large king Salmon laying on the bottom. A scrapper we'd say. A scrapper starts taking line, you pull with all your might and fight the fish, tighten the drag on your favorite Penn reel, then the SOB starts for the surface. Coming right at you and before you know it he spits the hook out because you can't reel in fast enough to keep tension on the line. Or he'll come up a bit, and since you've tightened your drag, he'll turn hell bent for the outer reaches. When the line goes taut, you're fresh spooled Stren snaps like cotton thread.
 
Not this time! I was reeling for my life. Then there's some weight to the rod tip. Cool, I caught up. "Dad, grab the net", "I might have a salmon on here".  But the weight on the line and rod didn't change. No tugging. No pull. Just that 'mud filled boot' hanging from my leader. All this time dad was reeling in his catch too. Suddenly his line go's slack. Then it takes off for the bottom. Hey, it's 600 feet deep here. And who know's how much is already out with the tide drift. He say's this one didn't pull that much when he first set the hook. He tugs and pulls at the rod while the line strips from his reel. All the while, I pull my dead weight catch to the gunnel of the boat. It's a Yellow Eye. A head that's ten inches wide! Wow, that's a twenty five pound rock cod. Best eatin this side of a deap fried Red Snapper. Tender Fish-n-Chips! And that's it, that's all there was. A head with my hooks still sunk into the lower jaw. Something had bitten off the lower 2/3 of my haul. That's maybe 24 inches long and ten inches round.  Dad's fighting the rod and reel with 40lb test line. Tells me to motor the boat toward the fish. He's about to lose it. I manuvered the boat as he fought. After nearly twenty minutes he pulls up the same as me. Just a head of a Yellow Eye that's about a foot across. Cleanly severed behind the gills.
 
What ever was in the depths of Puget Sound that day was big, had sharp teeth, and was hungry. We didn't see if there were more Yellow Eye to catch that day. Our minds quickly turned to a fresh banana split from the Dairy Queen that was just up the road from Narrows marina. We motored on in.
 
-Steve

[halflife65]

In the early 90s, when I was young and had no money and, apparently, deer didn’t care that you were wearing White’s Smoke Jumpers, blue jeans, a cotton t-shirt and a sweatshirt, I hiked WAY back in the Little Naches about 5 miles (north end towards Clifty) and shot this little buck down in the bottom of this huge canyon.  It was pouring rain all day and I was soaked to the bone, so I picked the deer up on my shoulders and made it about 50 feet up the hill.  Of course, this is also before I owned a decent pack – the one that I had on looked like someone’s school book pack (no waist belt, about 1000 cubic inches), so I couldn’t load up the deer.

After cutting the deer in half, I started leapfrogging up the hill – carrying half of it for awhile and then going back and getting the other half.  At some point, the rain turned to snow and I started to get cold.  I was alarmed because I was going straight up the mountain with a deer on my back and was getting cold, soaking wet and a LONG way from the truck. 

I got the deer to the top of this ridge with about 3 miles still left to hike and it got dark.  It was snowing really hard by this time and I was shaking badly.  I pulled out my flashlight (didn’t have a headlamp yet) and started to leapfrog my deer along the top of the ridge.  It was now pitch black and snowing sideways and the front (lens, bulb, everything) fell off of my flashlight and into about 2 or 3 inches of snow.  Here I was, with totally inadequate gear, no 10 essentials, soaking wet, cold, pitch black, no light.  For the first time in my life, my “invincible” feeling went to “totally vincible.”  (I worked for loggers, the Forest Service, private foresters and, although young, had a lot of experience hiking and hunting by myself.  While I had some minor scares up to that point, I had never really got into anything that I couldn’t get out of.)  I ended up putting the half deer down and crawling around in the snow feeling for the flashlight parts – it was too dark to see them.  I’m pretty sure that the Big Guy Above was looking out for me because I ended up finding the bulb and was able to push it into the flashlight to get it to work.  I never did find the lens and the part that screws onto the front of the flashlight and had to hold it together with a finger to get it to work.

I stashed the deer under a log and walked out as fast as I could.  Once I got back to the pickup, I turned the heat on all the way when I was driving out but couldn’t get warm.  I drove down to Squaw Rock and rented one of those little cabins.  I got down there about 9:30PM and walked in the front soaking wet and covered in blood from the deer that I’d carried on my back.  The guy asked me if I was alright and I said, “No.  I need a room and a six pack RIGHT NOW.”  Fortunately, the guy had one of those little cabins available.  I took a shower, cracked a beer and fell asleep with it in my hand without ever taking one sip.  I woke up in the morning, put on dry clothes and a pair of caulked (cork) boots, walked back out there with a pack board, boned out the deer and packed it all in one load.  Should’ve done that in the first place…

Anyway, that trip convinced me to plan a little better and I started my never-ending quest to upgrade my clothing and gear.

[spikehunter]

I have killed 9 spike bulls in my huntin' career, enjoy everyone of them , most of them been with family, but i still gutted skinned quartered and been packed out , by the time family shows up . love ELK huntin'

[Aneoakleaf]

Great Stories! Keep em going!

[grousetracker]

the perfect day oct 31 2004 partner and i are walking, i kept hearing a snapping sound up ahead.so i went around about a 50 acre clear cut expecting to see a group of elk. i stood on a stump for a few minutes and saw nothing,was just stepping off the stump when i saw a tree swinging but there was no wind. i stared for a second and a black bear was at the base of the tree, so i used the stump as a rest and shot it. we are gutting the bear when partner spots a doe on the other side of the clearcut with a three point buck behind it, aaron shoots it . aaron goes around to check on his deer ,i continued to clean the bear,couldnt figure out how to skin it. aaron came back and we are dragging the bear out when we stop to rest i looked on the otherside of the clearcut again and there was i could swear the same doe with another buck. i still had my deer tag so i shot it too. aaron was just in shock that 2 bucks and one bear came out of the same clearcut. not monster blacktails but good enough for last day.   hope you enjoyed ! see photos.