Hunting with Dad

[Turpentine21]

Turpentine, I'm with you. I had several guys at the Pheasant Club try to buy her, no way.

It was a regular thing to let her out in the mornings, always checked the gate. The latch was the type she could not open.

One Saturday morning after letting her out, I went back to bed. I would always find her laying on her back sunning her belly in the same spot. About an hour later, opened the back door and called her. When I looked for her, was not there and the gate was open.

She had gotten out in the past and we would find her on the front porch and an hour of so later.

Never seen her again.

A buddy trained his dog in Polish, only English word that dog knew was NO. I laughed him thinking that would not keep someone from stealing him.

The next dog I start from scratch will be trained in German!

A friend had a relative stay with him for the summer. He had a very smart lab named Cassie. Long story short a week after the relative left the dog went missing. About a year and a lot of work a year later we recovered Cassie. The relative was part Of a dog stealing ring 2 hours away which included his brother who actually had the dog when we recovered her.
Theres a special place in H--- waiting for people like that.

 

[Turpentine21]

I always hunted with my Pappy. We lost him 22 years ago. I've never known a better man. He was raised during the Depression and WW2 era and worked hard for everything he ever had. Nothing was ever wasted. Nails, tin foil, whatever. He always had time for me but he also made me work to earn my keep. It seemed like I cut firewood and kindling every single day from the time I was 6 to heat the house or cook with. Or worked in the huge garden he planted. Most of what we ate was grown, shot, or caught. We dog hunted as that was the way it was done here while i was growing up. I loved it. I only knew two or three people that actually hunted with rifles. I have a lot of fond memories with him and he pretty much forged me into the man I have become.
One morning he put me on the stand and I shot five times at a nice 8 point crossing a logging road. He just wouldn't give up but finally expired in the edge of the road. 5 minutes later I hear his truck coming. He pulls up, leaves the truck running, rolls the window down, throws me a box of buckshot, and drove off. He never said a word. I knew what he was thinking. Glad you killed the deer, but did you have to waste all those shells? I taught you to shoot better than that.

 

[memtb]

My Dad wasn't much of a hunter……pretty much worked (very hard) most of his life!

We made quite a few squirrel hunts together…….I started out with a Stevens 22/410 that he won right after getting home from WWII, and gave to me for my 8th birthday.

We did make a lot of rabbit hunts with a "one eyed Beagle"……his favorite type of hunting! As he couldn't work at night……this type of hunting was most practical! memtb

 

[Brad Quarnberg]

My Dad was an awesome outdoorsman, hunter and shot. When no one else in camp filled their tag, he did. I don't recall a year where he didn't fill his tag.
He taught me how to survive, how to understand terrain, and how to find my way out of the mountains.
We were hunting in a new area that I'd never hunted in before, when it started to snow. It was gently falling at first but quickly turned to white out conditions, the wind howling. We had been pushing across some finger ridges and I was on an edge. It didn't take long for me to get separated from the rest of the group. Dads' teachings came into play and the short story is that as soon as I realized I was lost, I built a small wind break and a fire and waiting out the story, then was able to find my way back to the main road following a stream I found.
I was with him many times when he killed deer but one that illustrates his shooting ability was a buck I jumped when we were still hunting across some fingers on the face of this mountain. We were working down into this ravine when I spotted a couple of Pine Hens below me in the bottom. I picked up a rock and threw it trying to hit one (they are easy to disable with a good hit to the breast). Dad was working his way up the other side and as the rock struck the bushes (missing the hen), a buck jumped up and started running up the side of the hill we'd just come down. I turned to yell to Dad, but he'd heard it, and I watched as he spun around, sat and shot the buck in one quick, fluid motion. The deer folded and rolled down into the ravine: a clean heart shot at about 80 yards.
As I got older and was able to carry my own gun, anytime Dad made a suggestion about where he thought I should go, I always listened. He seemed to have a second sense about where the deer would be, and I filled my tags more times than not because I followed his suggestion.
I'm not nearly as accomplished as he was, and there have been years I haven't filled my tag, but for the most part, if I do what he taught me, I am successful.

 

[Brad Quarnberg]

On a more hilarious note, before I was old enough to carry a gun, I use to hunt with my grandma and grandpa. We saddle their horses and ride about 2 hours in the dark to a pass high above camp at the head of a huge bowl. The rest of the camp would start still hunting in a line across the bottom of the bowl and slowly work their way up to the pass.
On this particular morning we'd woke late and were rushing to get on the trail. Grandma thought grandpa has cinched up her saddle and he thought she had. I was up behind grandma as Trix (her horses name) was making her way around this hillside. It was fairly steep and as the horse stepped up over a root in the trail the saddle slipped and swung under the horse's belly. Fortunately, grandma had shifted her weight to the uphill stirrup so when the saddle shifted, it swung to the uphill side and that's where grandma landed. I was holding on to the saddle for dear life, hanging upside down under Trix who had just stopped dead in the trail when the saddle slipped. Grandma was yelling at grandpa to help me, and grandpa was laughing so hard he almost fell off his horse. Needless to say, that was the talk of camp for several years with everyone asking my grandparents if they remembered to tighten the cinch before we rode out of camp.

 

[COBrad]

My dad first took me hunting when I was about 4 years old. I still remember it. He said we were going fox hunting as we walked through the field in front of our house. We came to a small creek and he stuck a garter snake with an arrow from his bow. I was so thrilled I can still remember the scene. A few years later he let me carry his empty .22 rifle and taught me gun safety in the field… he said we were hunting bobcats. Twenty years down the road I had been guiding elk hunts for 6 years and had a nice little horse business going. Dad hated horses. I talked him into a horseback elk hunt in the backcountry outside of Aspen CO where I was managing a small cow outfit. The opening day of elk season a buddy and I saddles horses while granddad and dad made breakfast in the warm wall tent. Breakfast is done and dads in his long handles. "Dad! Get dressed it's time to go" "I'm not getting back on that horse till we leave. We're right in the middle of the hunting no need to go anywhere else." When we got back to camp at last light empty handed, dad had supper going and an elk quartered hanging from a meat pole he put up. Dad loved to hunt and in the early days the whole family went and put up these spacious tents made of Aspen poles and visqueen with a wood burning stove inside. Sadly dad died in an accident a week after his 50th birthday. I wish he were still here so I could still take HIM hunting.