Thread: hunting incompetence

Should be "full face plant "

Ok so poo story it is. I was woken at some unearthly hour by my hunting buddy @Puffin roaring at Harold (the local stag that had eluded him for many years). I jumped up thinking it was time to go, ate my breakfast in a rush only to find out it was midnight. Back to bed woken again, time to go this time back soon for breakfast. By this stage I have no idea what the plan is and we head off towards the roaring Harold. Now I’m a man of routine and by this time I’ve done my morning ablutions. We are right in close to Harold, he’s roaring and I’m “moleing” Puffin I just gots to go, so I duck off, job done Harold’s gone quite, Puffins not happy and Harold was never heard from again.

I've got two.
The funny: first centerfire rifle was a 243 Remington woodsmaster. Went for a quick hunt just behind the small town I grew up in. Not far but once I hit the bush I went to fit the mag and realised I had left it at home. Had the ammo in my shooting pouch but just could not be arsed going home for it. It was a bit wet and If I'd gone home I wouldn't come back so single shot it was. Didn't see anything either.

The bad: On a trip to Stewart island back in the mid 90's and had my favourite rossi 92 357 carbine. Ideal and confident if something popped up it would be in trouble.
Got dropped of on the beach by the dinghy and proceeded to load it as once you were in the bush they could be there.
Cranked one up the spout and whilst pointing it at the ground went to let the hammer onto the half notch. I fecked this up badly as I must've had my finger on the trigger as well as letting the hammer fall as it went off. One shot into the ground. Not happy.
The worst thing was follow onto the next day I bloody did it again! I was that angry with myself I nearly threw the rifle into the sea.
Don't understand how I did it as I'd done it countless times before and cant get my head around how I did it not once but twice in two days.

Had a good friend of mine come down and stay one weekend , she ended up bringing he partner down who is a heli pilot and a very experienced hunter.

He wanted to shoot some of the " huge wallaby " that are in canterbury

Ended up coming across a mob of Fallow including quite a nice buck

Bailed out of the truck and took a nice rest on a tussock

Chambered a round , fired and scoped my self and missed

Chambered another , fired and scoped my self again and missed

Chambered another round , gave up couldnt see for the massive amounts of blood pissing out of my forehead

Turned around looked at him and received the biggest look of disappointment ive ever seen

Bagged a few Wallaby and a Fallow later that day

Still receive a large amount of shit to this day

Have a nice scar as a reminder for him to fire shit at me

While living in CHCH many moons ago, I took up trip to the Ureweras with the old man. We both wore the good old lace up bullers back then. After a good successful trip, I headed home. Next trip was a weekend up around Lake Sumner. Got to the carpark Friday night and went to put on the footwear to find I had two left boots. Somehow I managed to wear them all weekend. The old man still cracks up and reckons I must have just walked around in circles all weekend

Originally Posted by Creep

Had a good friend of mine come down and stay one weekend , she ended up bringing he partner down who is a heli pilot and a very experienced hunter.

He wanted to shoot some of the " huge wallaby " that are in canterbury

Ended up coming across a mob of Fallow including quite a nice buck

Bailed out of the truck and took a nice rest on a tussock

Chambered a round , fired and scoped my self and missed

Chambered another , fired and scoped my self again and missed

Chambered another round , gave up couldnt see for the massive amounts of blood pissing out of my forehead

Turned around looked at him and received the biggest look of disappointment ive ever seen

Bagged a few Wallaby and a Fallow later that day

Still receive a large amount of shit to this day

Have a nice scar as a reminder for him to fire shit at me

Hahaha oh man. Classic

Two years ago I had 3 German hunters with me on a fly in tahr trip.
Four fine days and two of the three had shot a decent bull tahr and chamois buck.
Nick the third guy had shot and lost a bull tahr because he took a typical european meat shot and the bull jumped off a cliff !!

Anyway last night there I arranged to take Nick out really early and try and get a bull we had seen before the helicopter arrived around 11am the next morning.
The plan was he and I would get up early and pack most of our gear so that if we were running short getting back to the pick up location we would be mostly sorted.

Nick ( and the other 2 ) didn't have an alarm and they had gotten used to hearing me wake early and have breakfast and coffee and we would go hunting.
Nick was in a tent on his own.

So last throw of the dice and its really hard to get Nick awake and going that morning.
Turns out he had heard me get up at 2am for a piss and thought it was time to get up and go hunting.
So he had packed up all his gear and his tent and was all ready to go when he realized it was only 2:30am.
Well seems he was up he thought he would walk up to the saddle and wait for me where we would be going through after the bull tahr when it was time.
He sat there for a couple of hours at about minus 10 degrees very cold and miserable frozen to the stones he was sitting on.
Nick gave up and came back down to camp, pitched his tent and had just been trying to get back to sleep for half an hour when I rolled him back out of bed and back up the hill.

He never did get a bull tahr on that trip.
But he was a great guy to have on the hill and always a fun around camp.
Hopefully he will be back in the next few years and he will get first crack at a bull .... and no bloody meat shots !!

This one is from the "varmint hunting" side . . . it's probably my most consequential missed shot.

It happened MANY years ago when I was courting the girl who eventually became my wife. One cold snowy winter afternoon she, I, and her mother were sitting in their living room when her little sister came running into the house yelling "Skunk! Skunk by the chicken house!". Since skunks are chicken killers, this one had to be disposed of. So, I inventoried the firearms available:

A .22 semiautomatic with a bent barrel (scratch this one)
An old 12-gauge double barreled shotgun with 2 triggers
A .22/.410 over/under single shot (the best choice)

Although there were a number of 12-gauge shells, there was only one .22 round. I loaded the .22/.410 and went outside. The skunk was just crossing the yard when I took careful aim, fired, and missed. Well, it's up to the shotgun now.

As I was loading the shotgun, I was informed that one of the barrels didn't work (no idea which one). So I loaded both barrels and resolved to pull both triggers.

Meanwhile Mr. Skunk had crawled under an iron-wheeled farm wagon. We tried to move him out with fireworks, but the strong wind kept us from getting them lit. Finally I crawled under the wagon, pushing the shotgun ahead of me. Mr. Skunk and I fired simultaneously.

There wasn't much PHYSICALLY left of him, but there was plenty of odor lingering on -- on me in particular. I finally came to the conclusion that it was necessary to resume breathing.

My faithful girl stayed by my side on the way back to the house (notably, on the upwind side). As we neared the house, her mother stuck her head out the door and said that we had to go to the pond and break the ice so the cows could drink. Now, that ice was about a centimeter thick, and the cows could have easily broken it themselves, but she REALLY didn't want me in the house (I can't say I blamed her). So we broke the ice, and then I headed home (probaby stunk up the car, but by then my nose wasn't smelling much of anything). My mother was not amused.

Most of our "dates" ended up working with animals in some way . . .

Zeko

Originally Posted by Dan

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.

Well told, mate. Some genuine wordsmithing skills there.

Misaventures happen to everybody....... But some people wont admit it because of thier ego's at stake.

Almost a hunting story.. went out for a scallop dive once...woke up early, gear in the car... gear out of car on boat... put across sound in slow boat .... anchor down... prepare tank BCD reg....gear up... @#$%^&*!!!!!! left my fins at home.

But into the water any way, paddled around the boat and sunk down on the anchor line and got a feed moving around using the anchor.

Was damn hard work ....

Bush hunting the roar with mate. Long walk in staying a few nights.
We take all meat so shoot one animal each, each year.
Mate shoots cracking stag just under 300 DS, deer roaring well. Competition ensues.
Last day, hunting a roaring stag for an hour through the bush, see him but can’t get the shot, he’s walking his beat always moving.
Come over a ridge and see the back three quarters of him sticking out behind a tree, everything but the head, now or never.
Blam!
The big old hind drops, hit right where I was aiming.
Decent stag crashes off from 50 meters further away.

Originally Posted by Russian 22.

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

Also reduces the time to load and fire, which increases the risk of an incorrectly identified target being shot...

Originally Posted by 40mm

Also reduces the time to load and fire, which increases the risk of an incorrectly identified target being shot...

True. Some people must value shooting deer more than they value not shooting people.

My problem is deciding which hunting disaster to talk about. The one still doing the rounds in the family is the wallow story. I was hunting the ridge above Bealey Spur up towards Jordan saddle (by myself). Got close to turn back time and saw a hind beside a wallow about 500m downhill. Went home and told the father in law and we both came back a week or so later. Was surprised and elated to find the hind in the same spot. FIL was having trouble spotting the hind so I loudly acknowledged his eyes were failing with age. Understandable and I was really very gracious about it. We decided to get closer by sliding downhill to lose some height. About halfway down on the face opposite us my FIL spots 2 chamois (neither of us having shot one before). I insisted we let them quietly pass as we were after venison. Got a bit closer and the hind that had been patiently stationary with just some head movement had transformed into a shrub beside a small wallow...the wallow was mortally shot by me in my self-loathing. My FIL enjoyed the following hours by telling me what an idiot I was...and still does to this day, 20 years later.