Thread: hunting incompetence

On his four previus trips I found out he walks all day with one up the spout with the safety on.I said didn't you take any notice of yr fal rules.After I finished with him,i think he was to scared to put the bolt and mag in his rifle.

Originally Posted by Trout

On his four previus trips I found out he walks all day with one up the spout with the safety on.I said didn't you take any notice of yr fal rules.After I finished with him,i think he was to scared to put the bolt and mag in his rifle.

What's the difference between a rifle on half cock or a rifle with a mechanical safety on?

Originally Posted by Russian 22.

What's the difference between a rifle on half cock or a rifle with a mechanical safety on?

I think the point is that he was "in a state of readiness" the whole day.

Hunting a loop in the Orongorongo water catchment ballot, decided with it being fairly thick bush it was best to have one up the spout on half cock. See nothing all day except some sign, sit down to have a drink and a snack. Never reloaded the gun after taking off again as i figured i wouldn't see anything so close to where we came in. About 25m down from where we sat down was a huge stag on the track presenting a perfect side shot.....would've easily nailed it had the gun been on half cock but he was a wise old bastard and wasn't hanging around for me to cycle the bolt. Was 16 at the time and I'm still gutted i didn't bag that stag.

Originally Posted by tanqueray

I think the point is that he was "in a state of readiness" the whole day.

Ah. That can be dangerous. Rifles fall over sometimes.

Originally Posted by berg243

we had a spot that we used to sit at and watch a deer trail decided that I would stay in the hut so mate could sit there on his own to cut down on movement .waited for the shot never came , mate wanders in eventually had 3 deer walk up to within 40m aimed at the first one click quickly cycled to get another live round click , crap cycled another round deer still staring at him third click a bit of swearing and the deer finally wandered of . comes back to the hut I had a look at his Swedish mauser he couldn't understand why it misfired as he had given it a extremely good cleaning before the trip. pulled the bolt out and screwed the boltface on another turn and viola fires every time now.

Had a mate do exactly that to me - twice. The first trip was into Fiordland where we managed to spot 3 hinds on a slip. I said to him, "I'll take the one on the left, you take the one on the right. On the count of three... ready? One... two..." CLICK! WTF??? He recycled the bolt. "One, two...." CLICK!! After another failed attempt we spent a few minutes working out the problem, applied a solution and eventually shot two of the three hinds on the slip. It was my mates first deer.

The second time it happened we were hunting Fallow. We spotted two bucks upwind about 500m away and stalked in to around 100m then lay in wait as they fed towards us. Same scenario... "you're on my left so take the deer on the left, I'll take the one on the right. Ready...? One, two..." CLICK!! WTF??? Again???? Did you not learn from the last time??? The bolt was fixed much faster this time around which was just as well because the deer were now just 50m away. We did the countdown - his timing was always half a second out... impatience. My stag dropped on the spot but his one bolted into some hideous scrub. A follow up shot put him down but we determined later the first shot had hit him, placement wasn't the best obviously. I'd gutted my buck and was ready to go but half an hour later my mate was still trying to locate his animal in the scrubby shit. I went back to where we shot from and directed him through the scrub but he soon lost his sense of humour as I entertained myself by getting him to walk back and forth through bush lawyer, matagouri, rosehip and broom. It took him about 15 mins to work out I was taking the piss. Served him right for being so stupid for getting it wrong twice. He did manage to locate the buck eventually and we filled our freezers.

Stalked up to a mob of bull tahr, literally got within 5-10 metres crawling in the tussock. Went to line up a shot on a good bull, clean missed at 10 metres. I was nervous as and didn't realise how close I got. Climbed for hours to get to the tops. Gotta laugh.

Years ago possum shooting and a mate whoed never shot a possum wanted a go. So possums up high almost underneith we were and mate lines up pulled trigger and bolt comes out hits him in the eye.
He'd not closed it thinking rifle was ready. I think it was an old Toz.
Talk about laugh.

I've never managed to forget rifle, bolt or ammo but I did once go bunny shooting without the mag for my 22. Spent a couple of hours very awkwardly single feeding each round (which fell through the empty mag-well if you fumbled them) and needless to say getting a lot less rabbits than my mates.

Got half an hour out of Dunedin on a trip to Haast once when one of the guys pipes up from the back seat "uhh... I think I forgot my boots"

I know that during a south westland tahr hunt a forum member brought frozen meat with him, a couple of days in it wasnt thawing so he put it in a bucket of water from the stream, when he got back from hunt he had a big ice block with his meat frozen in the middle.of it and then had to sit there trying to chip it free

Was hunting off Clements once and saw a spiker resting about 20 metres away. He must have heard me because he got up and walked slowly towards me but went behind a huge tree trunk. I dropped to one knee, leaned against a small tree and when he emerged from behind tree I went for a neck shot from about 6 metres. It turned and ran away. All I found was a tiny bit of hair on the ground. Think I aimed at centre of neck but bullet was lower than line of sight.

I have had lots of balls ups...neck shot deer that drop on the spot but get up and walk off while you chase down his mates for a shot(recovered but still a balls up).......counting chickens before they hatch small bush clearing two yearlings feeding.....80 ish yards peice of piss I thought .I will shoot the first in the atlas joint and carry it whole downhill to pickup and shoot the second in the shoulder as it bolts and take the hind quarters and back steaks off that......first one lifted its head just as the trigger broke and I got nothing.

Listening to mates with no sense of direction and spending a night out unprepared needlessly.
Also coincided with the lighter I had been lighting my smokes with all day running out.got a fire eventually but it wasn't good.
Learnt from that one....two forms of fire lighting minimum and don't listen to mates.


"Missing" a deer almost as soon as I entered the area only to almost trip over it on the way out....there was two but I only saw the one I shot and then the one that ran.
ALWAYS FOLLOW UP THE SHOT!
More than a couple of times hunting with a partner they have called a miss and I have insisted we go follow it up and found a dead deer....more times than found nothing.
After a forum long range shoot missed 3 or four easy shots on close animals and had wound down the elevation but not the 10 or more moa of windadge I had on 308!
There is no doubt many more but there is all the successes too.
As long as you are learning from the cockups and not repeating them you are on a win.

Sent from my S60 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

Listening to mates with no sense of direction and spending a night out unprepared needlessly.

Learnt from that one....two forms of fire lighting minimum and don't listen to mates.


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been there ....if im with someone on a hunt now i make sure im the designated navigator/time keeper

Crawled out of my Hammock at 2am last weekend to go take a suddenly very urgent nocturnal poo.
Went wandering off into the broken Wilding pine regrowth on flat country in nothing but long johns and a headlamp that only works when you hold the wiring just the right angle, in search of a rock or log under which to deposit an offering.
After venturing further and further from camp, the right stump presented itself and the job was done.

Then, oddly, the very steady and reliable northwester seemed to be coming from the wrong direction. Hmmm. Now all the trees looked the same, and the local featureless topography offered nothing in terms of reference or familiarity. Panic set in. The gusts grew colder and the headlamp wiring seemed to become even more finicky.
I stood next to the turd log and pondered my next move.
The broken storm cloud permitted little in the way of light to pass, and though there were glittering windows of night sky showing, the friendly face of the moon was nowhere to be found.
I contemplated shouting at the top of my lungs, for salvation by those at camp who were soundly sleeping through my ordeal, but the shame of being rescued from a toileting exercise was too great to bear.
I silently thought about my unusual plight, and the legitimate danger I might encounter by blundering wildly off in search of camp, estimating that I was already at least a few hundred metres from the fading warmth of my sleeping bag.

I was about to start a toilet paper breadcrumb trail expedition from the turd log, when, to what felt like the North, in a larger gap in the churning cloud, shone the Southern Cross, incontrovertible evidence of my folly.

The Northwester blew once again from the Northwest, and the headlamp decided it would function properly for a little while, and forty minutes after naively waddling out into the darkness, I very stealthily slipped into my Hammock and lay awake, hoping nobody had heard my departure and arrival and was subsequently aware of the eternity between.

This was the story of how I once (last weekend) got lost taking a shit and found my way home by Celestial Navigation.

I went 1 better than @Dan
Camped high in South Westland at altitude with a mate chamois hunting.
Wet and foggy evening.
Pulled on boots to go out for a poss.
Didn't do up the laces and stood on the laces and tripped face forward.
Full gave plant into rocks
Didn't even have time to put my hands out
My mate heard a noise and came out to find me a bit confused and lost.
Must have had the piss some time maybe before I tripped